146 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



showing apparently that they were antecedent to that migra- 

 tion. In connection with this it may be worthy of remark that 

 during the stay of the Hauhau prisoners at the Chathams many 

 of the last batch (called " No. 4 ") came from Tarawera, Te 

 Whaiti, and thereabouts, while several of their women were 

 almost the counterpart of the Moriori in physique, but more 

 particularly noticeable in the same kind of frizzy semi-Fijian 

 style of hair, so much so that a Maori friend remarked " They 

 are exactly like Moriori women " — quite different from the ordi- 

 nary Maori women of his tribe the Ngatiawa. 



With regard to the term "' waka." or canoe as we call it. 

 the term, having in view the present-day build of such, is cer- 

 tainly a misnomer, and the word " vessel " would be more ap- 

 propriate, for no canoe of the present type could, except under 

 the most exceptional circumstances, ever have crossed the long 

 stretch of ocean between Rarotonga and New Zealand, or New 

 Zealand and Chatham Islands, consequently it may be accepted 

 as an impossibility. The word " waka " with Maoris and 

 Morioris embraced all kinds and sizes of canoes, and it is quite 

 certain that the vessels in which they made their long Pacific 

 voyages were not of the present type. 



The Morioris state that far back in their genealogy, in the 

 time of Te Akaroroa, there came one discoverer named Kahu 

 to the Chatham Islands, but could give no other name to his 

 vessel than " Kahu's canoe." This Akaroroa existed, assuming 

 that the prior part of the genealogy is continuous, before the 

 time of the " Rangimata " heke (migration) — a long time, many 

 generations, before the ' Rangimata " people arrived — so far 

 back indeed that they were unable to give more than meagre 

 particulars about him, or where they derived their information 

 concerning him. They state that he touched first at a place 

 on the south-wesl corner of the island named Tuku — or, in full, 

 Tuku-a-Tamatea, such being the name of Kahu's lieutenant. 

 Leaving him in charge of the vessel at Tuku, Kahu set out on 

 a journey of discovery — whether with or without companions 

 does not appear — and followed the south line of the cliffs, which 

 is rough enough now, but then, before the era of fires, for a con- 

 siderable distance must have been impassable. They narrate, 

 that at some parts of his journey he could sleep, but at others 

 not. Proceeding northward, following the coast-line of Han- 

 son Bay, he journeyed round by the north coast to Whangaroa, 

 .it the north-wesl corner of the island, where he was stopped, 

 it is alleged, by finding the sea breaking through a channel or 



'l from the north coasl into Petre Bay, thereby making a 

 separate island of the north-west corner. 



When Kahu arrived he found the island e Jcauteretere (inn 



