WoHLERS. — Mytliology and Traditions of the Maori. 17 



2. Hema. 



When Hema, the son of Kaitangata and Whaitiri, was grown up, he took 

 to wife Karenukii. They had three children, a daughter named Pnpumainono 

 and two sons named Karihi and Tawhaki; the last, though the youngest, will 

 be the next link in the generation. Hema, the father, was slain and the 

 mother taken a captive by the Paikea, Kewa and Ihupuku people. The names 

 of these people allude to different kinds of whales, and are spoken of as ugly 

 and disgusting. 



In Sir George Grey's book on the Maori mythology (in the Maori language) , 

 there is a beautiful tale of how the two young men, Karihi and Tawhaki, 

 liberated their mother out of the captivity in which she was held by a dis- 

 gusting people. But that tale is not known here; I must therefore leave it out. 



3. Karihi and Tawhahi. 



When the children of Hema were grown up, the two boys, Karihi and 

 Tawhaki, made excursions over the sea in order to avenge the death of their 

 father ; but they could not find the land of their enemies. Once, when they 

 came home from a fruitless voyage their sister, Pupumainono, said to them: 

 "You should have asked my advice." Then she taught them an invocation, 

 by the reciting of which she said they would be more successful. 



It will be remembered that the grandmother, Whaitiri, having taken 

 offence, left her husband and child and went away to her former home in the 

 sky. That place, it seems, was not in a perpendicular, but in an horizontal 

 direction, far away over the sea. By virtue of the invocation taught them by 

 their sister, the two young men, Karihi and Tawhaki, found the place of their 

 grandmother. The old woman, who was now quite blind, was sitting among 

 bunches of tall reeds, beating about her with a weapon, so that if any- 

 thing came within her reach she would kill it, and then add it to the store 

 of her food. She happened to be in the possession of ten pieces of provision 

 which she was in the habit of counting now and then feeling them with her 

 hands. She did not know that her grand-children were then standing before 

 her and watching her movements. So she began to count her provisions: 

 " One, two, three," and so on. But meanwhile Karihi took away one piece, 

 and when she had counted so far as nine she felt about for the tenth, but it was 

 nowhere. Thinking she might have made a mistake, she began again to 

 count : " One, two, three," and so on. But now Tawhaki had also taken away 

 a piece, and when she had counted as far as eight, then there was no more to 

 be felt. Again she began to count, but found every time that there was a 

 piece less. Now she suspected that she was being robbed or made a fool of, 

 and became very angry, scolding and beating about j but her grandsons kept 



out of her reach. 



c 



