132 Transactions. 



there the Maoris caught the migratory eels. These eel-drains are 

 fast disappearing, and will presently be as extinct as the carved 

 eel-posts, none of which have been saved for our museums. 



If a tribe of Maoris owned the lower half of a river and did not 

 dare, because of a powerful tribe, to fish the upper half, they 

 chose a stone or log of wood, calling it a mauri ; the priest 

 sanctified it ; and this was supposed to have the effect, aided by 

 his incantations, of preventing the eels going beyond and thus 

 being lost to them. 



Not one of the first catch made by a young man was allowed 

 to be eaten by women. Women in Mangaia must not eat eels. 



There was nothing the prehistoric Maori did in relation 

 to the catching or eating of eels that had not its appropriate 

 ceremony or rites performed to the gods. Tangaroa married 

 Te-ami-awatoa (Chilly Cold), and out of this appropriately 

 named lady begat all kinds of fish. 



In Mangaia Tuna was an enormous eel, lover of Ina-moe- 

 aitiu. Tuna assumed human form, and the angry deities 

 threatened to drown the world because of this deed. He told 

 Ina to cut off his head and bury it ; then the flood ceased. 

 Tunarua was a name sometimes applied to Tuna. Tinirau was 

 the son of Tangaroa, the god of the ocean, and he also was 

 god of fishes. The Mangaians said he was half a fish, and god 

 of all fishes. He was born in spirit-land, and made of flesh torn 

 from his mother's side. 



Apparently the different tribes of Maoris worshipped dif- 

 ferent deities to help them when fishing. 



If an eeling expedition failed to catch fish, the Maoris at once 

 knew the gods were angry and it was no use going on trying 

 until they went back to the fa and the tohunga had gone through 

 fresh ceremonies and appeased their wrath. I was told this 

 story in Wairarapa, where there are bare hills so steep that no 

 vegetation clings to their naked sandstones. They are called 

 taipos, or devils. If a Maori went fishing or birding between 

 them in the Maungapakeha Valley, he might fail to get either 

 birds or eels. The reason was that the Tinui taipo was angry, 

 and would say to the Maungapakeha taipo, ' This man has 

 offended me ; he shall catch no more eels or birds to-day." That 

 Maori might try as he liked, he got no more that day. After 

 returning to the pa and reciting karakias he might thus appease 

 the angry taipos, and next day they would allow him to catch 

 plenty. 



The Carving. 



This figure of an eel-god with the head of a man. and this 

 excellently spiritedly carved body of an eel with legs and arms 



