88 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



With the chief Kahungunti ; 



So that the bird's phxme here present, 



That is to say of the Moa 



Shall be stuck into the hair of my principal chief (or beloved one) . 

 Meaning, the principal one spoken of, or being now bewailed. 



I should say (1) that this song is not a very ancient one ; (2) that it 

 must have been sung by some of the Maoris of the East Coast, descendants 

 of Kahungunu ; (3) that Hawea's statement throws great light on it ; (4) 

 that such a song would be highly suitable, and wholly in keeping with what 

 would be sure to take place, as preliminaries, on the assembling together 

 at the death of a chief, — say, the first day or evening of meeting ; (5) that 

 on such occasions the assemblage would begin with their tribal progenitor 

 (Kahungunu) and come down gradathn to the one lately deceased (lying 

 before them), who would thus have the last word ; (6) that it is more parti- 

 cularly applicable (t-om the last two words) as a lament 'over a young person 

 of high rank. 



4. Another song fi-om the East Coast concludes with this stanza: — 



" Tu tonu Puhirake, ko te Moa kai hau, 

 He whakareinga rimu ki o pou, raia."* 

 Which, as the song is a XDeculiarly tauntmg one, may be thus translated : — 

 Poor betrothed beauty, there thou art alone and forlorn, standing con- 

 tinually in the midst of the dense thicket, even as the Moa feeding on air, 

 thy posts (supports or fences) are only for the long, shaggy, ash-coloured, 

 lichen to fly and adhere to, nothing more ! 



To the Maori those two lines possess a whole multitude of suitable 

 images and ideas. 



5. In an ancient dirge-hke song, or chaunt,! of great poetical depth 

 and beauty, and very carefully composed, — often used in times of heavy 

 disaster and death, the old and common proverbial saying already noticed, | 

 (" Kua ngaro i te ngaro a te Moa .'"), is brought in with thrilling effect at the 

 end of the thu'd stanza. 



Here I may mention that, in 1852, at a season of extraordinary calamity 

 here in Hawke's Bay, I both re-wrote [a-la-Maori] with variations, and 

 translated into English, this composition ; and on my reciting it, in Maori, 

 before several chiefs who were assembled here from several places in the 

 southern portion of this North Island (one of whom was the late Earai- 

 tiana), I was not a little surprised to find they could all join in many of its 

 parts, including the ending of all its stanzas. I then discovered that it had 

 long been a truly national poem (so to speak), and, like very many others 



* " Poetry of the New Zealanders," p. 96. f " Poetry of the New Zealanders," p. 9. 

 J Vide "Proverbs" [ante), p. 86, 



