260 IOWA STUDIES IN NATURAL HISTORY 
the mourners sitting or standing as they choose; after a longer or 
shorter period of mourning a feast takes place. This particular 
tangi was well under way when we entered the village; it con- 
tinued during our stay of over an hour and lasted for I know not 
how long after our departure. We found that it was being held 
in honor of some relative who had died more than a year pre- 
viously. 
At numerous places in the village hot and boiling water con- 
tinually issues from the ground and flows into Lake Rotorua. 
The Maoris have taken advantage of some of these boiling pools 
and have placed boxes and barrels in the sand around them; by 
covering these over with gunny sacks or tarpaulins, natural steam 
cookers are had right at their doors. Here and there at the mar- 
gins of the hot pools may be seen the unmistakable signs of feathers 
from domestic fowls; plucking and broiling are accomplished at 
the same cooker. 
Another tribe of Maoris lives at the village of Whakarewarewa, 
locally known as ‘‘Whaka,’’ two miles south of Rotorua. Here 
also mist, steam and sulphurous fumes fill the air; mud geysers, 
smoke-pots and paint-pots contribute to the malodorous condition 
of the region. Great geysers formerly played here, one of them 
to a height of 1500 feet, but only their miniatures now remain to 
perform to a height of ten or fifteen feet. Some of the geysers 
have been ‘‘soaped to death,’’ great quantities of soap having been 
poured into them at one time and another, to force them to play 
on special occasions. 
Remnants of the old geysers, notable among which was Wairoa 
geyser, now consist solely of great white or pinkish terraces dis- 
colored by the sulphurous fumes which issue from the boiling and 
gurgling waters far beneath. In some places the rocks are hot 
while two feet away they may be cold. It would be interesting, 
although perhaps somewhat alarming, to know what is taking 
place in the earth under Whaka. 
One evening we attended a Maori concert of twenty numbers 
made up largely of singing and dancing supervised by Guide 
Georgina, one of the twin sisters whom we had met the day before 
at Whaka where they were acting as guides. Both these women 
had been in San Francisco at the time of the World’s Fair there; 
they could speak English fairly well and when not dressed in 
native costume could wear the silk dresses and high-heeled shoes of 
