A REMARKABLE MAORI MANUSCRIPT. 295 



cases and cabinets for him, made of totara wood, and 

 adorned with ti. The Haurakians at length were per- 

 suaded that the arrangement of his specimens symbolized 

 something in the order of events in times long past. 

 They imagined the history of the past became reproduced, 

 and that they obtained glimpses of the order and method 

 of the world. They took in the scientific fanaticism so 

 deeply that they even claimed there was something cul- 

 tural in the contemplation of a stack of old bones. Of 

 old bones collected at the people's expense he had an 

 attic full. We all know how, when our ancestors first 

 came to Maui from Hawaiki, the mountainous parts of 

 our provinces were inhabited by gigantic birds, whose 

 flesh served for subsistence during many generations. One 

 of these species was of enormous magnitude, and when 

 one tall man stood on the head of another, his eye was 

 barely on a level with the moa's eye. The eggs of the 

 bird were as large as the head of Rangatira Sammiheel. 

 Unfortunately the big birds were hunted out of existence, 

 and their bones now lie scattered from one end of Maui 

 to the other. Well, the man with a hammer gathered 

 forty tons of the bones of the moa, and got permission of 

 the authorities of Hauraki to build a complete skeleton 

 in the public place; and there it stood for six months 

 an old, black skeleton of a dead ^animal. This was more 

 than our tutua could bear. The thing was frightful; it 

 terrified the children and the women. It was aggravating; 

 it recalled pictures of savory moa steaks, and excited appe- 

 tites which the dry bones only mocked. Our prisoners 

 of war did not suffice to glut the anthropophagous long- 

 ings of our people. Lovers began to tell their sweethearts 

 they felt as " if they could eat them up." The thing, too, 



