Locke. — Historical Traditions of Taupo and East Coast Tribes. 447 



to heaven by a spider's web ; also Euatapu, the Noah of some enthu- 

 siasts. I would mention here, in regard to Maui, that Mr. Taylor, in his 

 "Primitive Culture," vol. i., page 304, describes the legends of Maui as native 

 myths of the setting sun. He arrives at this conclusion partly through 

 having ascertained that the piwakawaka (Rhipidura flabellifera) — the little 

 bird that laughed when Maui jumped down his ancestress's throat — is a 

 bird that sings at sunset. It would be an interesting question to ascertain 

 whether that bird is to be found on any of the Polynesian Islands ; and, if 

 so, on which ? 



It has been remarked that the average number of generations from 

 the assumed arrival of the canoes to the present time is twenty, which, 

 if we allow in accordance with Dr. Thomson's reckoning in his "New 

 Zealand Past and Present " twenty-two years for a generation, we are taken 

 back four hundred and forty years since that conjectured disturbance 

 amongst the natives of Polynesia. And again the average number of genera- 

 tions since the separation of Eangi and Papa and the period of the early 

 demigods to the present time is forty-five, which, at the same rate of reckon- 

 ing, would take us back nine hundred and ninety years. I would ask the 

 question : does not this latter refer to some earlier movement among those 

 races of the Pacific? Or have the long strings of words an allegorical mean- 

 ing the interpretation of which is long forgotten ? The fact of the matter 

 is, the time has not come to generalize, but every exertion should now be 

 used to collect and publish, with as literal a translation as possible so as 

 to convey sense, the traditions, myths, and songs of the Maori and Maoriori, 

 including, of course, those of Polynesia generally. 



In what I am about to say I shall merely touch on the accounts of 

 the arrival of Eongokako and Tamatea, and the journeys of the latter, 

 as that subject has been referred to by the Eev. E. Taylor in his 

 "Ika a maui " (on New Zealand and its inhabitants), and by many 

 others. But the history of Kahungunu, the ancestor of the tribe 

 occupying the country stretching from the Mahia Peninsula to Welling- 

 ton, and the migration of the Maoris now dAvelling in our immediate 

 neighbourhood from Poverty Bay and the Wairoa to this part of the country, 

 as far as I am aware, has never before been referred to or published. I 

 would draw attention to the fact that these traditions go to show that 

 Tamatea, who is said to have come in the Takitimu canoe about the same 

 time that the other legendary canoes arrived, found in his journeys people 

 settled at Turanga, Arapawanui, Whanganui, Taupo, and other places ; and 

 that his son Kahungunu found people at Turanga ; that the Mahia Penin- 

 sula was then thickly inhabited by an apparently old-settled population ; 

 then again his son and grandson were driven out of Poverty Bay by the 



