CoLENSO. — On the Maori Baces of New Zealand. 389 



name, and the word be changed for another. After his death, or after he 

 began to be forgotten, such new names and words might drop, and the old 

 words be again commonly nsed ; but if such a chief had lived long, had great 

 influence, and was either severe or greatly loved, so as to make him to be 

 respected and the disuse of the said words more general and certain, it is 

 easy to see that the old terms would not always be restored ; which in time 

 must tend to make a great alteration in the language. No doubt to this 

 source not a few of its strange aberrant words are to be rightly attributed. 



44. They have many proverbs and sayings, and not a few fables, most of 

 which are very amusing, even to a European. Their proverbs are mostly 

 derived from observation and experience ; many of them express much 

 wisdom, and serve to prove how very highly industry and skill were prized by 

 their ancestors. One or two may be here quoted, although, like all others' 

 they lose much by translation : — 



"For the winter seek fuel, but food for the year." 



" Plenty of food, plenty of vigour." 



" Stand (to work) and tkrive ; squat and want food." 



"Hasty to eat, lazy to dig." 



"The seeker finds." 



"Lazy hand, gluttonous throat." 



"A wooden spear can be parried, not so a mouth one " (an accusation). 



"Will the escaped wood-hen return to the snare ? " 



"Dark skin and red skin united wUl do it" (that is, the cultivation by chiefs and slaves 

 together ; formerly the chiefs always anointed themselves with a red pigment) . 



" With the brave in war is great uncertainty ; with the brave in cultivation is sure 

 reward." 



"A lazy and sleepy man will never be rich." 



"Labour's gains are carried oif by do-nothing." 

 Their sayings were mostly laconical expressions of men of other days, in- 

 dicative of their feelings at having lost or gained ; and (as their stories 

 were well-known) were used as cautions and warnings. Their fables 

 were very natural and correct, and mostly conversational between animals 

 or natural objects ; such as between the large rock lizard and the red 

 gurnard, the cod-fish and the fresh-water eel, the common shark and the 

 large lizard, the rat and the green parroquet, the sweet potato and the 

 edible fern root, and the paper-mulberry tree and the New Zealand cork 

 tree. Had they more and larger animals, they might have had a volume of 

 fables rivalling those of ^Esop or Pilpay. 



45. Their poetry was plentiful and various, and suited to all times and 

 conditions — peace or war, work and ease, love and death, constancy and 

 despair. Being naturally of a cheerful disposition, they were often humming 

 a stanza or verse ; and frequently beguiled the monotonous drudgery of 

 some of their heavier work, performed together in company, with suitabl 

 inspiriting chaunts and songs, in which all joined in chorus, and which always 



