180 Transactions. 



careful in regard to taking food. As a rule they do not partake 

 of food in the daytime, but only at night, and even then they 

 eat in secret by going into some secluded hut by themselves, 

 or at least where they cannot be seen by the people. Always 

 they take their food under shelter, never in the open. If when 

 travelling while an inmate of the house of mourning a person 

 be overcome by hunger, and so compelled to eat in the daytime, 

 he will go a space aside, break a branch off a tree, and stick 

 the butt thereof in the ground. He will then sit under the 

 branch while eating his food, thus likening the shade cast by 

 the branch to the shades of night. 



' Tenei karanga, te whare potae, ehara i te tino whare, he kupu 

 whakarite. Ko nga tangata kai roto i te whare potae, kaore e kai 

 ao, engari kia po rawa, katahi ratau ka kai. He kai ao, ara he 

 kai awatea, hai heuenga mo te whare potae. Ka haere te tangata 

 ki te wai, horoi atu ai i te aroha ; na, kua kai ao." (" This name, 

 ' whare potae,' it is not a real house, it is a figurative expression. 

 Persons in the whare potae do not eat in the daytime, but only 

 when quite dark ; then they eat. Eating in the daytime — that 

 is, in daylight — means the dispersing of the mourners. A person 

 will go to the waterside and, by means of a certain rite, wash 

 away his grief. Then he will eat in the daytime.") 



It was not until the tapu had been taken off these mourners 

 by means of a rite performed by the priest that they became 

 noa, or free from tapu, and could take food in the daytime, or 

 mix freely with the people. Cases are quoted where persons 

 have so mourned for months. While persons are mourning 

 they do not remain in a house, but move about, although not 

 free from restraint, as the tapu is upon them. 



There is a place in the Okahu Valley, at Te Whaiti, named 

 Nga Wahine-kai-awatea (the daylight-eating women), which 

 name originated in this manner : When Te Wharau, of the 

 Ngati-Whare Tribe, died, his widow (and other female relatives 



TeWharau=Kete-kura(/) apparently) was cleansed from 

 I the tapu of the whare potae at 



I _ that place by laving her body 



a ae— ine-oio(/) w ^ ^ e wa ^ erg Q j. ^e s ^ ream 



l~~ and having the whakanoa rite 



Tuahiwi = Hine-taro(/) performed over her. Then she 



Whiri(m) (and her companions) first ate 



I food in the daytime since the 



Kan p rahl(/) death of Te Wharau. Hence 



Te Meihana (m) the above name. Observe how 



_ I . place-names change in Maoriland. 



Ie Horowai (in) ^Uri ,, i i_ 



When the road was being con- 



Pera(m). structed to Rua-tahuna in 1896, 



