- 4 Tra n sact io ns. — Miscella neous. 



]>lace the wood-carriers called to the people there : ** We have found a slave." 

 ]a the evening all the people assembled in the large house, Tihiomanono. 

 AVhakatau walked in with them and sat down, as an old slave, in whom no one 

 took any interest. The people talked over the affair that had happened the 

 day before; and Whakatau silently surveyed the house, so as to form his plan. 

 While he was doing this, the bones of his father, which were hanging under 

 the roof, began to cry to the son. The people heard the sound in the dry 

 bones, and remarked that they were crying for vengeance, and wondered whom 

 they could mean to be the avenger. Then the conversation turned upon the 

 stranger who had slain so many of them the day before, and they questioned 

 Mongotipi, the man who had returned alive, what sort of man that stranger 

 was. Mongotipi said he could not describe him, he was such an extraordinary 

 man. Some one of the company asked, "Was he like me?" "No, not at 

 all," was the answer, "he was a very different man." "Was he like me?" 

 asked another. "No, not at all; there is no one like him here," said 

 Mongotipi. 



"Was he like me?" asked Whakatau, who had by this time rubbed off 

 the ashes and charcoal, and who had now drawn himself up in his natural 

 bearing. Mongotipi looked at him, stared in silent wonder, and then ex- 

 claimed : " That is the man !" Now all the people jumped up to rush at him. 

 But Whakatau quickly caught up a vessel with water and poured it over the 

 fires. Now all was confusion and darkness, and while the people were 

 scrambling one over the jther Whakatau snatched the bones of his father, 

 rushed with them out of the house, barricaded the door, and then set fire to 

 the house, and burned the people in it. 



That night Apakura, Whakatau's mother, was sitting on the top of her 

 house, watching the sky in the direction of Tihiomanono. At last there shot 

 up a red glare, and then she rejoiced that now her son Whakatau was a hero ; 

 he had avenged the death of his father. 



With Whakatau the line of those ancient heroes ends ; at least as far as is 

 kiiown here in the south. 



As, at the end of the period of the gods, in Part I., wo had a rounded-off 

 tale in the mythical figure of Maui, which, though not connected with the 

 j)receding gods, yet partook something of their supernatural mysteries: so 

 likewise here, at the end of the period of the ancient heroes, we have again, in 

 the following, a well rounded-off tale, which, also unconnected with the 

 preceding heroes, represents, like these, the human side of that i>(»iiod. 



Tiie northern natives, according to Sir George Grey's book, make the 

 lieroine of the following tale to be Maui's sister, whose husband was trans- 

 formed into a dog by h'-r wickctl l)rother; and who thereupon threw herself 



