Cotenso.—On the Moa. 85 
This is often said on seeing the hissing sap-like exudation issuing from 
the branehes of the Koromiko shrub when fired, green or wet; which sap 
is also said to be the fat, or oil, of the Moa. 
Note, here, the mode of cooking, as shown by the verb (tao), is that of 
the earth-oven or haangi; but the koromiko shrub is never used for such a 
purpose, the wood being much too small. 
[I may here mention that the late Sir Donald MeLean, who had kindly 
endeavoured in former years to glean some information for me relative to 
the Moa, in his travelling in his official eapacity and meeting with the old 
Maori chiefs, told me that this common saying was all he had met with.] 
But then a similar proverb, or saying, is also used concerning this very 
same shrub when burnt green, connecting it with Tutunui, the pet whale 
of Tinirau (which whale was killed and roasted and eaten by Kaé, as fully 
related in their myths) ;* namely—* Tena te kakara o Tutunui! — Excellent 
is the nice smell of (the whale) Tutunui (roasting) ! 
2. He mihiau te kowhatu i taona ai te Moa. 
Mihiau was the (kind of) stone with which the Moa was cooked, or 
baked. 
This apparently simple saying has given me a world of trouble. During 
severalyears I have been enquiring the kind of stone called mihiau, but 
with little or no success. One intelligent old chief only, seemed to know 
something about it; according to his statement, a mihiau was one of three 
sorts of stone anciently used for cutting and lacerating their flesh in times 
of grief, and death of relatives—waiapu, paretao, and mihiau—and all three 
were, I think, of a volcanic nature ( Waiapu-obsidian), and therefore could 
not be used for common baking purposes; besides, their own highly super- 
stitious fears as to any desecration of the tapu would have prevented their 
so using them. Has this any hidden, or obsolete, reference to the “ fire of 
Tamatea” (supra)? which is said to have originated from the country near 
the burning mountain Tongariro. 
Further, the name itself is a strange one. Etymologically it means— 
thy expressed grief after something dead, or gone; mihi = grief, or affection 
shown after something absent ;+ au — thy, or thine ; and as such the name 
would be a highly poetical one for a cutting bit of sharp stone used only for 
lacerating purposes on account of the departed. 
3. Ko te hunai te Moa! 
All have been destroyed as completely as the Moa! 
Said of a tribe—of a fighting party—of the people of a village—or of a 
family, when all have been surprised and killed—or carried off by death. 
* Vide ** Polynesian Mythology," p. 92. 
t See Tangaroa-mihi, “ Trans, N, Z. Inst.,” Vol. XL, p. 100, 
