

Wohlers. — Mythology and Traditions of the Maori. 2 1 



a tree for you, a large totara tree, that can be made into a good canoe. Here 

 is a branch of it. To-morrow you go and have a look at it." 



Next day Rata went, and when he came back in the evening he told his 

 mother that he could not find the tree. But she told him to try again: " You 



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cannot miss it," she added, it is a large tree, with a rough bark." Next day 

 he went again, but came back in the e\ ning without having found the tree. 

 However, the mother encouraged him not to be disheartened at first failures, but 

 to try again. The next day he found the tree, and felt more happy in the 

 evening when he came home. He asked his mother how he should go to 

 work. " There are the axes of your ancestors," she said. Rata looked at them, 

 and then said: "But they are blunt." "There is the grindstone of your 

 ancestors," said the mother. Then Rata set to work, and the old grindstone 

 made a noise which seemed to say: " Kia koi, kia koi! (to be sharp, to be 



sharp). 



Next day, when the axes had been sharpened and tied to handL , Rata 



went into the forest and set to work to cut down his tree. At last it fell; and 

 then, when he had chopped off the top it was evening, and he went home, 

 well satisfied with his day's work. Next morning he went again, with the 

 intention of working and shaping his tree into a canoe; but, to his great 

 astonishment, he found his tree standing upright again, as if it never had been 

 cut clown. However, he would not be beaten, so he went through the same 

 work a^ain as the day before; cut the tree down, chopped off the top, and then 

 went home, telling his mother of his strange experience. " Did you not invoke 

 the spirits of your ancestors before you went to work ?" she asked. " No," said 

 Rata, "I do not know how to do that." However his mother encouraged 

 him not to give up. Next morning he found his tree standing up again, as 

 he had half expected, and he cut it down again and chopped off the top the 

 third time. But now he did not go home, but hid himself under thick 

 bushes near by. He had not sat long in his hiding place, when, in the waning 

 twilight, in the solemn solitude of the forest, he heard a mysterious noise, like 

 voices, by which his own name was mentioned. That noise glided into a 

 sin»in^ tune; and then he heard distinctly the following incantation: — 



O Rata ! Rata ! "Wahieroa's son ! 



Thou fellest, thou fellest, uninitiated, 



In Tane's sacred grove, 



Tane's flourishing tree. 



Now fly the chips to the stump, 



Now fly the chips to the top : 



So they close ; so they fit ; 



So the branches spread. 



Now take hold, and up with him ! 



