doLENSo.^O/i the Moa. 8l 



killed the Moa at Te Wau-ere."* On his return to Hawaiki he related that 

 " he had seen the land containing the green jade stone and the Moa." 

 2. The Legend of the Destruction of the Moas by Fire, etc. 



A few years ago, while engaged in prosecuting my Maori etymological 

 enquuies for the New Zealand Lexicon, I received the following from an 

 old intelligent chief of the East Coast respecting the Moa : — 



" Anciently the land was burnt up by the fire of Tamatea ; then it was 

 that the big hving things, together with the Moas, were all burnt. Two Moas, 

 however, sui-vived with difficulty that destruction — but only two ; one of 

 these hved at Te Whaiiti, and one at "Whakapunake.f The feather of this 

 one at Whakapunake has been seen and found ; it was preserved as a plume 

 decoration for the heads of dead chiefs of note, when then- bodies were laid 

 out on a sumptuous bier for the funeral obsequies. The name given to that 

 feather was ho-te-rau-o-piopio (= the special plume of Piopio). The fore- 

 fathers of the Maoris heard of the Moa, but they never saw its body, only 

 its bones." 



Palhng-in lately with an old chief of the Ngatiporou tribe, from Toko- 

 maru, near the East Cape, and enquiring of him, if he knew anything of 

 the Moa ? He replied, " No ; all that was known by them was the old 

 tradition from their forefathers, that the Moas all perished through the fire 

 of Tamatea, save one which escaped to the mountain Whakapunake ; where 

 it was said to sit in its cave with its mouth open, and hence to live on air." 



Here I would observe, that Tamatea is a very ancient name in the New 

 Zealand mythological history, and is frequently mentioned both in their 

 proverbs and songs. It occurs, also, several times with varying suffixes full 

 of meaning in their old astronomical lore (of which more anon). Tamatea 

 is said to be one of the sons (or grandson) of Tato, who, according to some 

 genealogies, was the fifth lineal descendant from the first man Eangi = 

 the sky ; then- names are thus given together in one of their old genealo- 

 gies : — " Now I will begin to rehearse the coming hither of Tamatea, his 

 fathers, and elders ; these are the names of his children, Eongokako, etc. ; 

 these are all the children of Tato,"| And these are also said to have come 

 hither in the waka (" canoe") Takitimu. While another genealogy (that 

 of the Hawke's Bay tribe — Ngatikahungunu), commencing also with Tato, 



* Probably the cliff and waterfall of that name near the river Waihou, between 



Tauranga and Matam'ata. 



t Vide Part I., pp. 64-68. 



X I give also the Maori of this, on account of some of the names :— " Ka timata tenei 

 1 te haerenga mai o Tamatea ratau ko ona matua ; ko nga ingoa enei o anatamariki, — ko 

 Eongokako, ko Hikutapuae, ko Hikitaketake, ko Eongoiamoa, ko Taihopi, ko Taihapoa, 

 ko Kahutua, ko Motoro, ko Te Angi, ko Kiipe, ko Ngake, ko Paikea, ko Uenuku,— ko nga 

 tamariki enei a Tato." 



6 



