38 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



Then the best was again separated, thus : — 



1. Kowhiti ='hes,i selected; for the chiefs. 



2. Hi/ira?( = a hundred together in company ; for warriors. This 



was stored up in their hill-forts for sieges and fighting 

 times*. 



3. Prtfca = dried ; for general feasts. 



4. Ngapeliapeha = x'mdi%, skins ; for common daily use. 



There were also other names for the third best and inferior sorts, as 

 pakakohi^diXiQdi and gathered scraps ; j^itojjito = ends ; and 23akii2mku=s'mBM in 

 size (broken parts of the choicer kmds) ; tuakau, pararaa, etc., etc. — (See 

 " Trans. N.Z. Inst.," Vol. XII., p. 122, Proverb 55.) 



Art. II. — Historical Incidents and Traditions of the Olden Times, pertaining to 

 the Maoris of the North Island, (East Coast), New Zealand ; highly 

 illustrative of their national Character, and containing many peculiar, 

 curious, and Uttle-knoivn Customs and Circumstances, and Matters firmly 

 believed by them. Now, for the first time, faithfully translated from old 

 Maori writings and recitals. By W. Colenso, F.L.S. 



[Read before the Haivke's Bay Philosophical Institute, 12th July, 1880.] 

 These Maori relations which I bring before you this evening, are selected 

 from several other similar stories which I possess, and I have no doubt but 

 that other parts and other tribes of this island have, or have had, many 

 such ; so, also, those other unhappy tribes who preceded them — and of 

 whom not a vestige remains ! 



From the earliest traditionary times this country seems to have been ex- 

 posed to the rage and curse of desolating wars, which every now and then 

 sprang up from very slight beginnings (as it appears now to us), and which 

 were too often carried to fearful lengths. This sufficiently accounts for its 

 great depopulation. Nearly all their wars seem to have been of that kind 

 so pathetically and truly deplored by Lucau — " as leaving no cause for 

 triumph." Nothing struck me more forcibly in travelling, (pretty exten- 

 sively and always on foot, before the country became colonized and partly 

 settled), than to find in all directions strong indications of a once heavy 

 piopulation, or a series (so to speak) of populations. And that those people 



* This kind was what Cook, Crozet, and others of their early European visitors saw 

 stored up largely in their forts and fighting places, which quantities excited their astonish- 

 ment. Moreover, the Maoris would not sell them any. 



