80 Transactions. —Miscellaneous. 
‘Maire’ or Manuka wood six or eight feet long, and the sharp end of 
which was cut so that it might break and leave about six or eight inches of 
the spear in the bird.* With these the men would hide behind the sernb 
on the side of the track, and when the birds were escaping from the fear of 
the noise of those who had driven them from the lakes, those spears were 
thrown at them, thus sticking in the bird; the scrub on the sides of the 
track would catch the spears, and break the jagged end off, leaving it in 
the bird. As it had to pass many men, the broken spear points thus put 
into the bird caused it to yield in power when it had gained the open fern 
country, where it was attacked in its feeble condition by the most daring of 
the tribe. When taken, it was cut up with the stone, Tuhua obsidian 
(flint). I must digress a little. There are four sorts of Tuhua—Tuhua, 
which is black; Waiapu, which is of a light colour; Panetao, which is 
green ; and Kahurangi, which is red. The first only is used in cutting up 
the bird Moa, the second is used by the people to cut themselves when 
they cry for the dead, the third is used when the dead are chiefs, the 
fourth is used when the dead are head chiefs or priests; also the third is 
used when the dead are children, and the same is used to cut the human 
hair. Again, the Tuhua is not used to cut up the bodies of the killed, but 
a Manipi Tuatini, or to the South it is called Manipi Huata, is used ; this 
is not used to cut up the Moa; the hunters carry with them a block of 
Tuhua, and as it is chipped off and used, it is not used again for any other 
bird or anything else, but left at the spot where used. The Moa did not 
go in large flocks, but usually a male and female and their young. Hence 
the proverb. When a battle is as it were a number of single combats, it is 
ealled, ‘He Whawhai Tautau a Moa,’ ‘a fight two and two like the Moa.’ 
Again, the nest of the Moa was made by the bird collecting a heap of 
Toi-toi and other grass in a large heap and in the centre on the top lay its 
eggs. Hence, when the Kumera was cultivated and the weeds collected by 
the sacred men, who took the weeds and laid them all in a heap at the 
edge of the plantation, this was called a ‘Moa,’ as it resembled the nest of 
that bird. I cannot trust my memory to give the Karakias, the purport of 
the one which was said on the evening of the day before the hunt, is in 
substance this:—‘‘ The mists of the hills most celebrated in the locality of 
the hunt are invoked to make the birds’ fat flow as the globules of dew that 
run down the leaves of the trees at dawn on a summer's day, and the God 
of Silence is cautioned not to allow fear or dread to come near the Moa.’”’ The 
: I may mention that a hill on the East Coast, called Karanga na Hape, is said to 
derive its name from the circumstance that Hape, a chief of the Arawa, pursued 2 
wounded Moa up the hill-side and attacked it with a Taiaha, when the bird kicked him 
and broke his thigh, and he rolled down the hill.—W. T. L, Travers. 
