CorzNs0,— On a better Knowledge of the Maori Race, 91 
large whale,* but its general form or appearance was that of the great 
lizard,t with rigid spiny crest, while the head, the legs, feet, and claws, the 
tail, the scales, the skin, and the general spiny ridges, all these resembled 
those of the more common lizards (tuatara). Its size was that of the sperm 
whale (paraoa). 
Then this man-devouring monster was closely looked at and examined 
for the first time—the wretch, the monster, that had destroyed so many 
persons, so many bands of armed men and travelling parties! Long, ` 
indeed, was the gazing; great was the astonishment expressed. At last, 
one of the many chiefs said, “ Let us throw off our clothing, and all hands 
turn to cut up this fish, that we may also see its stomach, which has 
swallowed so many of the children of men.1 
Then they began to cut it open, using obsidian and pitch-stone knives, 
and saws for cutting up flesh made of sharks' teeth, and the shells of sea 
and of fresh-water mussels (Unio). On the outside, beneath its skin, were 
enormous layers of belly fat (suet), thick and in many folds. Cutting still 
deeper into its great stomach or maw, there was an amazing sight. Lying 
in heaps were the whole bodies of men, of women, and of children! Some 
other bodies were severed in the middle, while some had their heads off, and 
some their arms, and some their legs; no doubt occasioned through the 
working of the monster’s jaws and the forcible muscular action of its 
enormous throat in swallowing, when the strong blasts of its breath were 
emitted from its capacious and cavernous belly. 
And with them were also swallowed all that appertained to them—their 
greenstone war-clubs, their short-knobbed clubs of hardwood, their weapons 
of whales’ ribs both long and short, their travelling staves of rank, their 
halbert-shaped weapons, their staffs and spears—there they all were within 
the bowels of the monster, as if the place was a regular stored armoury of 
war. Here, also, were found their various ornaments of greenstone for 
both neck and ears, and sharks’ teeth, too, in abundance (mako). Besides 
all those there were a great variety of garments found in its maw: fine 
bordered flax-mats; thick impervious war-mats, some with ornamented 
borders ; chiefs’ woven garments made of dogs’ tails, of albatross feathers, 
of kiwi feathers, of red (parrot) feathers, and of seals’ skin, and of white 
dogs’ skin; also, white, black, and chequered mats made of woven flax, and 
garments of undressed flax (Phormium), and the long-leaved kahakaha 
(Astelia, species), and of many other kinds. 
* Nui tohora. 
; Tuatete, the angry, frightful lizard, now extinct. ^ 
1 Uri-o-Tiki: literally, descendants of Tiki: Tiki n in their teres i the 
wa or progenitor of man. 
