42, Transactions.— Miscellaneous. 
and strangely, and that was owing to her having transgressed with 
one of her male slaves. But the plantings of Whakaotirangi all came 
up true to their various sorts, and from them the whole island was sub- 
sequently supplied. Hence, too, arose the proverb, which has been handed 
down to us,—‘ Greatly blessed (or gladdened) art thou, O food-basket of 
Whakaotirangi!’* So let all Maoris know, that from the canoe Tainui 
came her kumaras, her hues, her autes, and her paras, and her karakas 
(which last, sprang from the used skids which her crew had brought away 
in her), and, also, her kiores (rats),” 
(d.) Another still more strange and far-fetched tale, concerning the 
introduction of the kumara into New Zealand, is also related by the Maoris - 
of Hawke’s Bay (south), which may also be briefly mentioned here, if only 
for its singularity. A chief of old, named Pourangahua, was getting his 
canoe ready to go to sea, to seek some better-relished food for his infant 
son, Kahukura;+ the child having rejected with fearfully loud noises its 
own mother’s milk, also the soft liver of the fish kahawai ( Arripis salar ), 
with which it had been fed. (From that liver, however, so rejected by him, 
sprang the flying-fish.) The canoe being dragged down and all ready, the 
chief, Pourangahua, returned to his house for something forgotten, and 
while absent his four brothers-in-law (Kanoae, Paeaki, Rongoiamoa, and 
Taikamatua), embarked in the canoe and sailed away. Pourangahua, 
nothing daunted, went after them on a canoe (or float) made of a duck’s 
feather ; a squall, however, coming on, he was soon sent to the bottom! 
Emerging to the surface, he swam and battled away against the seas, and 
finally got on to a whale’s back, on which he managed to keep himself by 
means of his powerful spells. Afterwards, he met his own canoe with his 
brothers-in-law returning, he joined them, and on reaching the shore, and 
calling the kumara which they had brought by its own proper and special 
name of Kakau§ (to which the kumara itself answered, by asking, ‘‘ Who he 
was that had spoken—or divulged—its name?” ete.), he obtained from 
papyrifera), and called, also, by its name, “‘ Paper Mulberry ;” there being a great common 
superficial likeness in the leaf, bark, size, ete., of the two shrubs. While the fourth 
counterfeit is evidently a fern, and very likely one of the large common tufted thick- 
growing coalescent ferns,—e.g., Polypodium pennigerum, Lomaria discolor, or L. gigantea, 
the smaller Dicksonie, ete. The Maori name of Horokio is now variously given by dif- 
ferent tribes to different plants. 
*This circumstance, however, is very differently related in Grey’s « Polynesian 
Mythology,” p. 142. 
t Same name as under (a.) supra. 
§ Curiously enough, this is the same special name that is given to the kind of 
kumara said to have been brought from ‘‘ Hawaiki” by Turi in his canoe (b., supra). See 
Grey’s “ Polynesian Mythology,” p. 212, 
