112 Tran Miction s . — Miscellaneou s . 



fruits of the kiekie (Freycinetia) and the wharawhara (Astelia 

 banksii) ; they sat among the foliage, waving their hands and 

 short arms. Their children were always born by the Caesarean 

 operation. 



Tura, also called Wai-rangi-haere (demented wanderer), left 

 Hawaiki, the cradle of the Maori race, and travelled by sea to 

 Otea, in the interior of which country he discovered the strange 

 fairies, one of whom, Turakihau, he made his wife, and in due 

 course she conceived. He was surprised one day, when the 

 birth of the child drew near, by finding his wife in great sorrow : 

 and she informed him that she was weeping because of her ap- 

 proaching death, it being the custom of the country to deliver 

 the child by cutting open the mother's belly and extracting the 

 child by making an opening into the womb, the death of the 

 mother being a certainty under the rude surgical instruments 

 of sharp flint used by the midwives. Tura reassured his wife, 

 and drove off the fiendish midwives, allowing the infant to be 

 born in a natural manner. Thus Tura became a deity who was 

 appealed to in cases of difficult parturition, his wife being the 

 first person ever delivered in the natural way. Had Tura allowed 

 them to follow their own practice the body of the mother would, 

 after delivery, have been taken to the Wai-ora-tane (life-giving 

 waters of Tane), and there washed and bathed until life came 

 back again and perfect health was restored. 



Another story* relates how Manini-pounamu went away to 

 sea and landed in a strange land, where he took to himself a new 

 wife. " After a time, when the woman had been enceinte for 

 two months, a party of twenty women went to visit her. The 

 purpose for which they went was to rip open the woman. They 

 were sent away, and when they returned later on the wife said 

 to them, ' My husband would not consent to my child being cut 

 out ; he was very angry.' To this the women replied, ' But you 

 will die.' Then the woman fell asleep in her house, and whilst 

 she slept the visitors cut her open and saved her child, but the 

 mother died." 



In the traditions of the people of Niue Island we find the 

 interesting legend concerning Gini-fale, often also called Mata- 

 gini-fale or (Jigi-fale. While sitting by the sea-shore she annoyed 

 a whale who in revenge swallowed her and swam away to sea. 

 The monster became stranded on an island called Toga or Tonga. 

 and Gini-fale escaped and got ashore. " The people of the island 

 came down and found the woman, whom they took and cared 

 for. She was a handsome woman was (Jini-fale. and a certain 

 chief of the island took her to wife. When the woman became 

 pregnant, the husband used to cry every day. Gini-fale asked 



*.Iourn. Pol. Soc„ IS<>4. p. 103. 



