WoHLERS. — Mythology and Traditions of the Maori. 15 



Part II. — The Period of the Ancient Heroes. 



The following tales are so well connected with one another that they seem to 

 rest on an historical foundation. I am inclined to think that they refer to a 

 period when the ancestors of the Maori race were migrating among the East 

 Indian Islands, or thereabout, where they must have come in contact with 

 such different races as these tales show they have, and that the ugly people 

 spoken of as belonging to the whale kinds may have been tribes of the Negro 

 race. The dwellings in the sky, mentioned in these tales, will easily be 

 understood to mean islands lying beyond the visible horizon, where the sky 

 and ocean appear to meet. 



1. Kaitangata and Whaitiri. 



Kaitangata means a man-eater; but this formidable name had nothing to 

 do with his character: on the contrary, Kaitangata was a simple, harmless, 

 man; but there was a woman, named Whaitiri (Thunder), who dwelt in the 

 sky, and who was very fond of human flesh. When she heard that there was 

 a man on earth called Kaitangata, she believed him to be a real cannibal, and 

 therefore came down and took him to be her husband ; but was disappointed, 

 when she afterwards found that he was such a simple man. 



Kaitangata's time was mostly occupied in fishing, to provide for -their daily 



food ; but he caught very little, and often came home without any fish because 



his hooks were not barbed. He was either too simple to understand his wife, 



who wanted to teach him better; or her designs were too wicked, and he was 



too good, to adopt them. At last she made a net for herself; and one day 



while her husband was out fishing, she saw a canoe passing by, with two men 



in it. Having armed herself with a stone weapon, and taking her net, she 



went and swam toward the canoe, now diving, now coming to the surface 



again. When the two men saw her they wondered if it were a bird or a human 



being. She had now reached the canoe and was diving under it. One of the 



men took a spear to have a thrust at her ; but while he was bending over she 



came suddenly up and struck him with her weapon, ripping him quite open, 



when he fell into the sea and she caught him in her net. Now the other man 



tried to spear her, but met with the same fate as his companion. 



Then Whaitiri swam back to the shore, dragging her net behind her. She left 



the net in the water and went home and told the women there to go and fetch 



home the fish she had caught. By this time her husband had also come home 



and, as was often the case, without fish. So he assisted the women to draw up 



his wife's net; but they were horrified to find instead of fishes the net filled 



with arms and legs and other mangled parts of human bodies. Whaitiri 



insisted that they should be cooked. 



