Best. — Maori Forest Lore. 259 



Tamati Ranapiri, of Ngati-Raukawa, says, " While a tame or captive 

 haka was kept at the village it was simply called a mohai haka, but when 

 taken to the forest and used as a decoy it was termed a timori " : which 

 amounts to saying that a tame bird was called a pet or captive at home, 

 but when used as a decoy was so described. 



The tirore was a Tcaka used as a decoy, but it was not a tame or captive 

 bird. When commencing a day's snaring the first haka caught would be 

 used as a decoy. This bird was called a tirore, but it was not a maimoa 

 (pet) or mokai (captive). The fowler would make a perch for this bird 

 above his head where he was perched in the tree-top, by lashing a piece of 

 aha or climbing-plant stem to two branches. To this the captured bird 

 was tied by a string secured to his leg. But first the fowler would break 

 the beak of the bird, so that it could not gnaw the cord and so free itself. 

 This bird would attract others by its cries and actions. If other kaka do 

 not come readily, then the hapless tirore is again brutally treated, for the 

 fowler will break one of its wings, tear out a piece of the bone, and give it 

 to the bird. The bird will clutch the bone in its claws, and gnaw at it, 

 making sounds peculiar to it when eating. This attracts other birds, and 

 they hover round, and some settle on the snare-perches and are caught. 

 These decoys are used in a similar way in the fae method of taking birds. 

 The decoy that is placed above the head of the fowler is never taken home 

 or eaten, because it has a certain amount of ta/pu pertaining to it, having 

 been near the sacred head of man. That bird is left to perish miserably 

 in the woods. The tirore is sometimes known as a tionga. The decoy- 

 birds kept at a village were kept fastened to a whata kaka. This was made 

 by placing a wooden trough on the top of two posts, over which a roof was 

 put. In the sides of the trough were made holes, into which were thrust 

 the ends of hardwood rods, about 1 in. in diameter, termed hoka. These 

 hoka were about 6 ft. long, and formed perches for the captive birds, or 

 mokai kaka. Food for the birds is placed in the waka, or trough. If the 

 birds fall to quarrelling, then the old ones are each given their food in a 

 small netted bag, made of fiax-fibre, and termed a rohe, which is secured 

 to the hoka. 



The birds are secured to the perch by means of a cord fastened to one 

 leg. A bone ring (often made of human bone), often carved, and termed 

 a moria {poria among other tribes), was placed on the bird's leg. On one 

 side it had a hole bored through it, where the cord was attached. Occa- 

 sionally these moria were made by plaiting the epidermis of the midrib of 

 the leaves of the toi, or Cordyline indivisa. I lately came across the follow- 

 ing in one of the innumerable songs of the poet Piki : — 



E koro, Titi— e ! ' 



Akuanei au ka whawhati atii ki a koe 



Tena tonu ra to moria toi 



Kai to waewae e mau ana mai 



He tauri komore no te mokai kaka 



I niahue noa to turutuni. &c. 



The Maoris often speak of certain stones of a reddish colour which are 

 said to have been often found in the crops of kaka that have reached New 

 Zealand shores from Hawaiki — that is, presumably, from the isles lying 

 north of New Zealand. These stones are known as o manapou. The kaka 

 are said to swallow these stones when they leave foreign parts to fly to these 

 shores. It seems a far cry to hale the kaka of slow, heavy flight from. I 

 seem to have read somewhere that manapou is the name of a Samoan tree. 

 In Mr. J. White's " Ancient History of the Maori " (vol. ii, page 90) we 



