460 Transactions. 



and put away, to be fastened on again with new lashings the next season. 

 These bird-spears are termed here among some tribes. 



In order to hang a spear up to a tree, a small hooked piece of wood, a 

 piece of a branchlet, was tied on to the shaft near the point end. This hook 

 was called a peka'peJca. Also, when climbing up a tree, the fowler would 

 thrust the spear up and hook it on to a branch, thus leaving both hands 

 free for climbing. The pelapeka is attached merely by a small cord, and 

 is detached in a moment when the spear is about to be used. Care is taken 

 not to allow the spear to lie, or be put away, in a bent form, or such bend 

 would be liable to become permanent and much impair or destroy the 

 usefulness of the implement. So long and slight were the shafts (about 

 1 in. in thickness) that, when spearing birds, the manipulator had to rest 

 them on the branches as he thrust them slowly forward towards the bird. 

 ^\^len the point was near the bird, the fowler, by a quick forward thrust, 

 impaled the bird upon the long thin mal:oi, or spear-point. Birds were 

 always speared in the breast — or, at least, such was the aim of the fowler. 



The butt end of these spears is called the hoehoe. The thin, barbed point 

 or head of the spear is termed mal-oi by the Tuhoe people, sometimes tara. 

 Some tribes call it a kaniwha. Tara means " a point," and taratara 

 " notched." Makoi seems to have a similar meaning, as a comb is also 

 known by that name. The head of the spear, just where the point is lashed 

 on, is styled the maiahere (first two vowels long). " Ko te tao wero manu 

 ka mahia ki tc tawa, he mama hoki. Koia ra i kiia ai he taiva ran tangi, 

 mo te mahinga hai pewa." (Bird-spears were made of tawa because of the 

 lightness of that timber. Hence that tree was called tawa rau tangi [mur- 

 muring- or rustling-leaved tawa], because it was used for that purpose.) 

 Thus old Paitini. The above may be a natural sequence to the primitive 

 mind, but it is too abstruse for pakeha mentality. 



The makoi or spear-points were made of mapara (hard, resinous heart- 

 wood of the kahikatea), of maire (a hardwood), of human bone, rarely of 

 greenstone, and in latter times of iron. Temporary unbarbed points were 

 sometimes made of katote, the hard black part of trunks of tree-ferns. The 

 greenstone points were very rare : only one is recorded in this district — 

 viz., the one from which the hill-peak Tara-pounamu was named. This one 

 belonged to Tamatea-kai-taharua, a gentleman who flourished about two 

 hundred and fifty years ago. He speared a pigeon at that place one day, 

 and, the point becoming detached from the spear-shaft, the bird flew away 

 with the point sticking in its body. But the agile Tama is said to have fol- 

 lowed that nefarious bird even unto far Putauaki, fifty miles away, where 

 he recovered his tara pounamu. This tradition is undoubtedly true, for 

 Tara-pounamu hill still stands to prove it; 



The favoured material for spear-points in former times was human bone, 

 the long bones of the thighs. The bones were those of enemies slain in 

 battle. I bought two such makoi of human bone from Ngai te Riu, of Rua- 

 tahuna, paying a bsg of flour for them. They had been fashioned from 

 bones of members of Ngati-Ruapani, of Wai-kare Moana, slain during the 

 fighting at that place in the early part of the nineteenth century, when 

 Tuhoe came down like a wolf on the fold, his cohorts gleaming with purple 

 and gold — or, at least, with war-paint. 



When the Natives began trading with Europeans they soon found out 

 the usefulness of iron. Pieces of bar iron were much sought after for the 

 purpose of fashioning from them points for bird-spears, by means of fihng. 

 Iron gridirons — ^the old-fashioned kind — were highly prized, the bars thereof 



