loo Transactions, — Miscellaneous. 



accordance with their own ideas respecting them ;* hence they called 

 the horse, the kuri (or kararehe) ivaha-tanyata = the dog [or beast) which 

 carries a man, and this was the name by which the horse was long known 

 in the Bay of Islands, where it was first introduced ; so with the sheep 

 which was called jnrikahu (from its wool), and the cat = ngeru ; while the 

 fowls, which were given by Cook to the old chief who boarded his ship off 

 Blackhead, on the East Coast,! were called by them (in my time) koitareke 

 pakeha = foreign quail. 



3. In the proverbs I have quoted concerning the Moa, the first one 

 runs, I " He koroniiko te wahie i taona ai te Moa ;" and I have there said that 

 the verb used in the proverb for cooking, tao [taona, pass.), is that which 

 pouits out the particular mode, viz., baking in a ground oven ; but here it 

 may be observed, that the common verb for burning, taha (tahuna, pass.), is 

 of similar short pronunciation, and is also sometimes used for cooking, and 

 such may have been originally here intended, § as we find another analo- 

 gous verb for roasting, scorching, tumi {tnnna, pass.), is also used in those 

 few songs II in which the Moa is mentioned ; this supposition is further 

 strengthened by what is uniformly said in their legends of its sudden dis- 

 appearance by fire. To this I may also add, that frequently in my early 

 travelling in this country (some 45-46 years ago), my Maori companions, 

 on nearing a pa or village among their own tribe (especially if emerging 

 from a forest near), would call out, " Tahuna he kai," and " Tahuna he kai 

 ma matou !" instead of " Taona he kai," etc., although this latter was intended 

 (Bake some food for us) ; as the firewood in the ground oven must be first 

 burnt (tahu) before that the food could be baked therein (tao). 



Conclusion. 



It will, I think, be seen that I have written exhaustively on this subject, 

 at least I have endeavoured to do so, and that for two reasons : — 



1. I wished to tell all the httle I knew — all I had subsequently gleaned 

 since first publishing about the Moa in 1842 ; in hopes of others hereafter 

 following up the quest. 



* Nor is this to be at all •wondered at, for the Greeks and the Eomans did just the 

 same thing to new animals ; hence the Greeks named the animal from the African rivers, 

 Hippopotamus (river-horse), and the Eomans the Elephant, Lucas bos (the Lucanian ox), 

 because they were fhst seen by them in Lucania. (Pliny, ^at. Hist., lib. viii. c. 6 : Varro, 

 de Ling. Lat.) I am led to mention this here in a note, because some of our " superior 

 race " colonists have ridiculed the Maoris for so doing, and in doing so have displayed 

 their own ignorance ! 



f Vide Trans. N. Z. Inst., Vol. X., p. 146. I Page 84, ante. 



§ It should not be overlooked, that it is only of late years the Maori Proverbs, Songs, 

 etc., have been reduced to writing, so that it would be very easy for a writer to make such 

 a slight error as taona for tahuna, especially if he were a young person writing down 

 old and almost obsolete sayings from the dictation of aged men. 



II Vide page 87, ante 



