Best. — Maori Eschatology. 211 



my brief stay, but I had not ridden a quarter of a mile down the 

 track before I heard the mournful wail for the dead raised. The 

 old people here sometimes weep profusely at sight of a photo- 

 graph of Te Kooti, or " Te Turuki," as they term him. 



The Maori of yore preferred to die in battle. He disliked 

 the idea of perishing slowly of natural decay — " Engari kia 

 mate a ururoa te tangata " ("Rather let man die like the ururoa 

 shark, fighting to the last "). 



At the lamenting for a dead man his widow is a prominent 

 mourner. She walks about during the tangikanga weeping and 

 indulging in the tangi tikapa (see ante). Near relatives of the 

 dead, who take charge of the corpse, receive the choicest food, 

 albeit they eat but at night. They are termed the " whare 

 mate,' 1 '' or " kiri mate." 



The mortuary memorial is occasionally a double one — in 

 this way : When Takua, of the Ngati-Kahungunu Tribe, was 

 slain at Nga-huinga, a wooden post was set up, and a pit (poka- 

 poka) dug at the spot where he fell. Some of the memorials 

 erected for chiefs were carved in a most elaborate manner. 



I have heard an old Native say that weeping for the dead 

 was not so common in pre-European days here as it has become 

 since, and that it was principally performed over a person slain 

 by treachery, not so much over those who were slain in fair 

 fight or who died a natural death. It may be so, but I have 

 my doubts. 



On the return of a war-party there would be a tangihanga 

 for those who had fallen. 



W. Wyatt Gill has recorded the " trussing " of the body 

 for burial in Mangaia (Cook Islands), with many other interest- 

 ing facts ; as also the case of a person who remained in the whare 

 potae for seven years, for an only child. 



In some cases members of a war-party would carry home 

 the bones of their dead, as well as the head. 



There is among the Maori no feeling against uttering the 

 name of a person lately deceased. 



A few weeks ago a Native was taken ill at Rua-toki, and it 

 was thought his end was near, hence the people started to carry 

 him to Matata, thirty miles away, that he might die among his 

 own people and on his tribal lands. On reaching the Rangi- 

 taiki River, however, he died, but the bearers took his bodv 

 on to Matata, where the mourning and burial took place. 



Exhumation (Hahunga). 

 The exhumation of the bones of the dead usually takes place 

 about four years after burial. It, however, often occurs that 

 the dead are allowed to accumulate for years, and then a meeting 



