768 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 
Papalaba the brothers took all the things out of the kawa. 
On this account (that is, because Maka Tafaki landed here), 
Nakainanga bist Maka, the tribe that begets children entitled to 
the prefix name Maka (or Mako), dwell at Utanilangi. 
xX. LAUTUMETA. 
Lautaumeta was making an tintamate in heaven. There were 
no animals (as pigs) for sacrifices, but only food (yams). All the 
different kinds of yams were at that time in heaven. There was 
only one kind in the earth then called nakabu. (But there are now 
twenty-seven different kinds of yams.) Lautaumeta was looking 
out for an aure to sing at his antamate, and heard that there was 
one on the earth called Nabuma Nakabu. This latter was asked 
to act as aure, and having consented went up to heaven to the 
malel of Lautaumeta. (It should be understood that Lautaumeta, 
and Nabuma Nakabu are both yams.) Maka Tafaki, and Karisi 
Bum said, “ Let us beat for them the napeas” (drums.) They 
did so, and Nabuma Nakabu sang. Then all the different 
nakaimaga nant (tribes, or kinds of yams) came and danced in 
the male/, till they stumbled and fell broken to pieces. Maka 
Tafaki and Karisi Bum gathered all the broken yams into a 
basket, and, when the song was ended, carried them down to the 
earth. 
No. 3.—NOTES ON SOME CUSTOMS AND SUPERSTI- 
TIONS OF THE MAORI 
By Exspon Best, TunozE Lanp, We uineTon, N.Z. 
(Read Friday, January 7, 1898.) 
THE customs, traditions and superstitions of a barbarous race ever 
contain an element of great interest to those engaged in studies 
pertaining to the evolution of human culture in various forms, as 
also to the ethnologist, who seeks to determine the origin of races, 
their original habitat and migrations. Of the various neolithic 
races which have been overtaken by the advancing wave of 
western civilisation within the last century, none present more 
varied features of interest than that far-reaching people known 
collectively as the Polynesian race, and which people are found 
scattered over so vast an area of the island system. The Maori 
of New Zealand comprise one of the most vigorous divisions of 
that race, and in few groups throughout the Pacific can more 
