Goldie. — Maori Medical Lore. 95 



Tribe. It holds an important place in the annals of Tuhoeland. 

 inasmuch as it possesses the singular power of rendering barren 

 women fruitful. It came about in this wiss : When Kataka. 

 the daughter of Tane-atua, was born in Hawaiki, some seventeen 

 generations ago, Irakewa took the iho (umbilical cord) of the 

 ■child and came to Aotearoa (New Zealand) on a taniwha (sea- 

 monster), and placed the iho on a hinau-tvee near Ohaua. Later 

 on Tane-atua arrived in the Matatua canoe and landed at Whaka- 

 tane, in the Bay of Plenty. And it chanced that when Tane- 

 atua, while travelling in the interior, sat him down to rest 

 beneath that tree and stretched forth his hand to pluck some 

 berries therefrom, what was his surprise to hear a voice sxy, 

 '" Do not eat me, for I am the iho of Kataka, your child." Upon 

 hearing the voice Tane-atua refrained from eating the fruit of 

 the hinau, and he then took the iho of another of his children and 

 ins3rted it at the bass of the tree (or suspended it on the tree), at 

 ■the same time repeating this incantation : — 



Ko whakairihia ahan 



Ko whakato tamariki ahau. 



'(" I am here suspended that I may cause children to be con- 

 ceived.") This is how this tree became possessed of the power 

 of causing children to be born into the world. And the name of 

 that tree has ever since been Te Iho-o-kataka, and the iho of our 

 children have always been hung up in the same tree, even unto 

 ■the days of the pakeha (white man). And before being hung up 

 the iho is wrapped up in ante or raukawa (the paper-mulberry 

 •and Panax edgerleyi, a scented shrub), and bound round with 

 aka (a climbing plant). 



When a woman is pukupa (barren) she goes to the hinau-tvee 

 and embraces it. But great care must be taken to comply with 

 the due ceremonies, sd she is accompanied by a priest, who during 

 the performance repeats the necessary incantations. If she 

 embraces the taha lane, or male side, that towards the rising sun. 

 the issue will be a male ; and a daughter is produced by embrac- 

 ing the female side (taha wahine), that facing the setting sun. 

 The sex of the child is determined by the side embraced by the 

 would-be mother. 



The tohunga or medicine-man who revealed these secrets 

 thus concluded his narrative : " Friend," said he, " there are 

 two men, Pahi and Ramarahi, now living at Rotorua, who were 

 born through the influence of this tree." 



" Te Hunahuna-a-po is the name of another phallic tree, 

 which stands close to the Horomanga Creek, some six miles from 

 Galatea. According to the Ngatimanawa account this tree is 

 also a hinau, and has one dry side and one green. Should a 

 wahine pukupa go to this tree to test its virtues, she closes her 



