] 6 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



But now there arose a difficulty : there was no priest to perform a religious 

 ceremony over the slain bodies, and without that it would not be safe for 

 health or life to cook and to eat them. Then Whaitiri turned to her husband, 

 Kaitangata, requesting him to perform that ceremony. But he answered, "I 

 do not know how to pray." His wife insisted that he should perform that 

 ceremony, telling him that it was his duty for their child's sake — for she was 

 then advanced in pregnancy. But to all her demands he only answered: "I 

 do not know how to pray." At last she tried herself, but not being initiated 

 into that mystery, she could only imitate a priest's invocation, and produced 

 nothing but a mumbling sound. After this the human flesh was cooked and 

 eaten, but, as it appears, only by Whaitiri. The bones were tied up and hung 

 under the roof of the house. Her husband afterwards used some of them for 

 fish-hooks, with which he caught more fish than he had done before. In due 

 time a son was born, who was named Hema, who will be the next link in this 

 generation. 



Some time after that cannibal-feast Whaitiri found that she was losing her 

 eye-sight. Then one night while she was troubled in her mind about it, there 

 appeared to her a woman from the nether world, who said: "It is because the 

 bones of the slain men, lacking due invocation, have been used by thy husband 

 as fish-hooks, and thou hast partaken of the fish so caught." It may be 

 wondered why her suffering was traced to such a secondary cause, through 

 hooks and fish, and not direct to the eating of the men; but such is Maori 

 reasoning. 



Whaitiri's eye-sight did not get better; she was therefore generally sitting 

 in the house. One day Kaitangata had visitors. They were all sitting outside 

 talking, except Whaitiri, who alone stayed inside the house. Then one of the 

 visitors, a female, asked Kaitangata: "What sort of woman is that wife of 

 yours f 1 "That wife of mine!" he replied, "her skin is as cold as the wind, 

 her heart is like snow." He did not know that his wife had heard every word. 

 When the visitors were gone and he came inside the house his wife asked him: 

 "What have you been talking]" "Nothing in particular," he replied. 



have you been talking about?" she repeated. "Only common talk," 



" What have you be< 

 he replied. " What 



"O, 



about 



answered. But she had heard all and was sorely offended. She spoke to her 

 son Hema thus : " You cannot come up to roe. When you have posterity they 

 may come up to me in the sky." Then she jumped up. Her husband tried to 

 catch her by the clothes to hold her back, but was too late. She went up to 

 her former home in the sky, to a place called Fuotetoe (bunches of reeds). 



