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Locxr.—Historical Traditions of Taupo and East Coast Tribes, 447 
to heaven by a spider’s web; also Ruatapu, the Noah of some enthu- 
siasts. I would mention here, in regard to Maui, that Mr. Taylor, in his 
** Primitive Culture,” vol. i., page 804, describes the legends of Maui as native 
myths of the setting sun. He arrives at this conclusion partly through 
having ascertained that the piwakawaka (Rhipidura flabellifera)—the little 
bird that laughed when Maui jumped down his ancestress’s throat—is a 
bird that sings at sunset. It would be an interesting question to ascertain 
whether that bird is to be found on any of the Polynesian Islands; and, if 
so, on which ? 
It has been remarked that the average number of generations from 
the assumed arrival of the canoes to the present time is twenty, which, 
if we allow in accordance with Dr. Thomson’s reckoning in his ** New 
Zealand Past and Present ” twenty-two years for a generation, we are taken 
back four hundred ard forty years since that conjectured disturbance 
-amongst the natives of Polynesia. And again the average number of genera- 
tions since the separation of Rangi and Papa and the period of the early 
demigods to the present time is forty-five, which, at the same rate of reckon- 
ing, would take us back nine hundred and ninety years. I would ask the 
question: does not this latter refer to some earlier movement among those 
races of the Pacific? Or have the long strings of words an allegorical mean- 
ing the interpretation of which is long forgotten? The fact of the matter 
is, the time has not come to generalize, but every exertion should now be 
used to collect and publish, with as literal a translation as possible so as 
to convey sense, the traditions, myths, and songs of the Maori and Maoriori, 
including, of course, those of Polynesia generally. 
In what I am about to say I shall merely touch on the accounts of 
the arrival of Rongokako and Tamatea, and the journeys of the latter, 
as that subject has been referred to by the Rev. R. Taylor in his 
“Ika a maui” (on New Zealand and its inhabitants), and by many 
others. But the history of Kahungunu, the ancestor of the tribe 
occupying the country stretching from the Mahia Peninsula to Welling- 
ton, and the migration of the Maoris now dwelling in our immediate 
neighbourhood from Poverty Bay and the Wairoa to this part of the country, 
as far as I am aware, has never before been referred to or published. I 
would draw attention to the fact that these traditions go to show that 
Tamatea, who is said to have come in the Takitimu canoe about the same 
time that the other legendary canoes arrived, found in his journeys people 
settled at Turanga, Arapawanui, Whanganui, Taupo, and other places ; and 
that his son Kahungunu found people at Turanga; that the Mahia Penin- 
sula was then thickly inhabited by an apparently old-settled population ; 
then again his son and grandson were driven out of Poverty Bay by the 
