CoLENSO. — On the Vegetable Food of the Ancient New Zealanders. 18 



they took to the cultivation of the introduced potato. At their large and 

 noted tribal feasts,* {liakari, at the north, kaihaukui, at the south,) enormous 

 quantities were used, as well as at their commoner feasts held on account 

 of births, betrothals, marriages, deaths, etc. ; on such great occasions the 

 quantity v/as often increased through profuse ostentation, for which, while 

 the chief and the tribe gained a great name, they all (especially the women 

 and children) subsequently suffered severely. 



But, in my opinion, one of the most remarkable things pertaining to this 

 useful root, or tuber, has yet to be noticed ; namely, its many marked 

 varieties, which were also old and permanent. I have, I think, known 

 more than thirty varieties ; and I have lists from the north and the south 

 of several others ; and have also heard of others, possibly ten more ; while 

 some old sorts were known to have been lost.f In this respect the tubers 

 differed just as potatoes do with us. Some were red-skinned, some purple, 

 and others white ; some were rough-skinned, and others smooth ; some had 

 red flesh, or were pink, or dark pm-ple throughout, others were white ; some 

 were even and cylindrical, others were deeply grooved or regularly 

 channelled ; some were short and thick with obtuse ends, others were long 

 and tapering with pointed ends ; and I never once noticed that there was 

 any mixture (as it were) of the several varieties ; all came true to sorts 

 planted, as in the potato with us ; their only sign of degeneration through 

 soil or drought was in the size. Now all those several varieties were of old, 



* That some correct idea may be formed of the large amount of cultivated vegetable 

 food consumed at those great tribal feasts (hakari) — seeing all such has long gone into 

 disuse, I may state that the food was generally piled up in the form of a pyramid, from 80 

 to 90 feet high, and 20 to 30 feet square at the base, gradually rising to its apex. To 

 build up this, the straight trunk of a large tree "was first obtained from the forest, and 

 dragged out with no small difficulty to the spot fixed on for the feast, there it was dis- 

 barked or dubbed down and set up, other strong poles were then set up around it, 

 a series of horizontal stages were then made all round the scaffolding at from 7 to 9 feet 

 apart, and the whole was filled in and built up with food packed into baskets ; presenting, 

 when finished, one solid mass of food ! The getting-up of one of those feasts always took 

 a long time, often more than a year, though many willing hands were employed, and the 

 labour expended was prodigious ! At a small feast (comparatively) of this kind, and 

 almost the last in those parts, held at the Waimate (Bay of Islands) in 1835, and given to 

 the iDeople of Hokianga, 2,000 one-bushel baskets of kumara were used ; and at a similar 

 feast given by the noted warrior chief Te Waharoa (father of the equally notable "Wiremu 

 Tamihana Tarapipipi), at Matamata, in 1837, to the people of Tauranga, the following 

 inventory of the food was taken down at the time by a credible eye-witness : — " Upwards 

 of 20,000 dried eels, several tons of sea-fish, principally young sharks (a great Maori 

 delicacy), a large quantity of hogs, 19 big calabashes of shark oil, 6 albatrosses, and 

 baskets of potatoes (sweet and common) ivithout number.''^ 



t See Appendix A. 



