100 Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
accordance with their own ideas respecting them ;* hence they called 
the horse, the kuri (or kararehe) waha-tangata — the dog (or beast) which 
carries a man, and this was the name by which the horse was long known 
in the Bay of Islands, where it was first introduced ; so with the sheep 
which was called pirikahu (from its wool), and the cat = ngeru; while the 
fowls, which were given by Cook to the old chief who boarded his ship off 
Blackhead, on the East Coast,t were called by them (in my time) koitareke 
pakeha = foreign quail. 
8. In the proverbs I have quoted concerning the Moa, the first one 
runs,t ** He koromiko te wahie i taona ai te Moa;” and I have there said that 
the verb used in the proverh for cooking, tao (taona, pass.), is that which 
points out the particular mode, viz., baking in a ground oven; but here it 
may be observed, that the common verb for burning, tahu (tahuna, pass.), is 
of similar short pronunciation, and is also sometimes used for cooking, and 
such may have been originally here intended,§ as we find another analo- 
gous verb for roasting, scorching, tunu (tunua, pass.), is also used in those 
few songs| in which the Moa is mentioned; this supposition is further 
strengthened by what is uniformly said in their legends of its sudden dis- 
appearance by fire. To this I may also add, that frequently in my early 
travelling in this country (some 45-46 years ago), my Maori companions, 
on nearing a pa or village among their own tribe (especially if emerging 
from a forest near), would call out, * Tahuna he kai,” and “ Tahuna he kai 
ma matou !” instead of ** Taona he kai," etc., although this latter was intended 
(Bake some food for us); as the firewood in the ground oven must be first 
burnt (tahu) before that the food could be baked therein (tao). 
Conclusion, 
It will, I think, be seen that I have written exhaustively on this subject, 
at least I have endeavoured to do so, and that for two reasons :— 
1. I wished to tell all the little I knew—all I had subsequently gleaned 
since first publishing about the Moa in 1842; in hopes of others hereafter 
following up the quest. 
* Nor is this to be at all wondered at, for the Greeks and the — did just the 
same thing to new animals; hence the Greeks named the animal from the African rivers, 
Hippopotamus (river-horse), and the Romans the Elephant, Lucas bos (the Lucanian ox), 
because they were first seen by them in Lucania. (Pliny, Nat. Hist., lib. viii. c. 6: Varro, 
de Ling. Lat.) Iam led to mention this here in a note, because some of our “ superior 
race" colonists have ridiculed the Maoris for so doing, and in doing so have displayed 
their own ignorance 
T Vide Trans. N. Z. Inst., Vol. X., p. 146. 1 Page 84, ante. 
$ It should not be overlooked, that it is only of late years the Maori Proverbs, Songs, 
etc., have been reduced to writing, so that it would be very easy for a writer to make such 
& slight error as taona for tahuna, especially if METUS LINER HUN Oe 
old and almost obsolete sayings from the dictation of aged men 
|| Vide page 87, ante 
