DowNES. — Life of Nuku-Pewapewa. 



375 



Note, 



Nuku-pewapewa was so named because his face was tattooed with a 

 pattern called pewapewa. It consisted of a single curve round the eye, a 



spiral on the nose, and three lines curving from 

 the nose to the chin. A carved figure repre- 

 senting this chief, bearing his peculiar tnoko, is 

 to be found on one of the corner-posts of the 

 palisading at the Papa-wai pa near Greytown. 

 He is credited with being a man of extraordi- 

 nary height, and in a cave called Hui-te-rangi- 

 ora, on the Nga-waka-a-Kupe Hill (about four 

 miles east of Martinborough), there is or was 

 to be seen his mark. Here the Native chiefs 

 for many generations dipped a hand in kokowai 

 and struck the wall as high as possible ; 

 Nuku's mark is a clear foot above all the 

 rest. He was drowned about 1840, and at 

 Te Whaka-ki, on the beach at Wairoa, where 

 the accident took place, his canoe was carved 

 and erected as a monument, " And " (said my informant) " it is still 

 there, or was there when last I visited the spot." 



Art. XLIX. — The Manuaute, or Maori Kite. 



By Archdeacon Walsh. 



[Read bejore the Aucldand Institute., 24th October, 1912.] 



Climb up, climb up 



To the highest surface of heaven — • 



To all the sides of heaven. 



Climb then to thy ancestor, 

 The sacred bird in the sky — 

 To thy ancestor Rehua, 

 In the heavens. 



— New Zealand Kite-song. 



Previous to their contact with European civilization the Maoris were a 

 strenuous people. They were strenuous in war, strenuous in industry, 

 strenuous in their sports. Their splendid physique, their perfect health, 

 and the hardy condition in which they were kept by their arduous open- 

 air life, joined to their buoyant and happy temperament, fitted them for 

 every kind of undertaking that required strength, activity, and endurance. 



Games and exercises of one sort or another would be going on among 

 them all the year round whenever opportunity offered. There would be 

 the poi and the dancing contests, the practice of the haka and the tutu- 

 tigaraliu, as well as wrestling matches and spear-throwing, vai-ied with the 

 spinning of tops, the flying of kites, and many othei' sports too numerous 

 to mention. Some of these were designed to while away the long evening.s 

 in the lohare tapere. or house of amusement ;* some as trials of strength and 



* See ELsdon Best. Trans. N.Z. Inst., vol. 34, p. 34. 



