TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION G. 385 



Maori fables (says Mr. Colenso, in his able paper, Vol. i., 

 Trans. N.Z. Inst.) are very natural and correct, and 

 mostly conversational, between animals or natural objects, 

 such as between the large rock-lizard and the red gurnet, 

 the codfish and the fresh-water eel, the rat and the green 

 paroquet, the sweet potato and the fern-root. Had they more 

 and larger animals they might have had a volume of fables 

 rivalling those of Mso^p. 



Their legends of ogres and monsters are very like the stories 

 that still linger in European nurseries. They are said to have 

 been the first occupants of this country. They are described 

 as giants who could stride from mountain-range to mountain 

 range, swallow rivers, and transform themselves into anything, 

 animate or inanimate, that they chose. 



But there is a still more remarkable class of legends, re- 

 lating to the existence of huge reptiles of the saurian order, 

 which are said to have infested various parts of this country, 

 and to have proved very destructive to the inhabitants. The 

 descriptions given of the appearance of these huge reptiles, 

 and their habits, and the manner in wliich they were captured, 

 are so minute and exact that it is hard to believe that the 

 accounts relating to them are of such great antiquity as the 

 evidence we possess proves them to be. For it appears that 

 these legends are common to all branches of the Maori race. 

 Judge Fornander, referring to these taniiuha stories, in the first 

 volume of his interesting work on the Polynesian race, says, 

 " The Hawaiian legends frequently speak of reptiles of extra- 

 ordinary size, living in caverns, amphibious in their nature, 

 and being the terror of the inhabitants. Now, when it is 

 taken into consideration that throughout the Polynesian 

 groups no reptiles are found much larger than the common 

 lizard, it is evident that these tales of monster reptiles must 

 have been an heirloom from the time when the people lived in 

 other habitats, where such large reptiles abounded." 



For at least a thousand years these stories have been 

 handed down from generation to generation, and are now told 

 with such minuteness of detail that if we knew nothing about 

 their antiquity we should accept them as descriptions of what 

 happened a comparatively short time ago. The fact of their 

 preservation for so long a period adds greatly to our assurance 

 of the value of such of the Maori traditions as the people 

 themselves assert to be of great antiquit3^ 



Poetry. 



The largest collection of Maori poetry is contained in a 



work, extending over four hundred pages, published in 1853 



by Sir George Grey. But this work contains only a portion 



of the traditional native poetry stored, till Europeans came, in 



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