CoLENSO. — Traditions of the Maoris. 13 



them was cooked and properly served up and eaten, and then they might 

 depart, saying to them, "Do not fear anything; remain quietly; let the 

 food which has been purposely prepared for you he well and properly 

 cooked and served ; then eat it and depart." Therefore they did so ; and 

 when their meal was over, they left the i^a in silence, and dragged down 

 their canoes to the sea. While doing this, Uenuku's people were again very 

 desirous to fall upon them and kill them, hut Uenuku restrained them, and 

 so they escaped without harm.* As, however, they were leaving the shore, 

 Uenuku called out to Tawheta, — " Depart peaceably, Tawheta ! ere long, 

 I, also, shall go thither to our children ; thou art not a warrior, but an 

 evil-doer." [Lit. Thou slayest not (thy foe) openly and manfully, but 

 evilly and fraudulently). To this Tawheta replied, — "By what possible 

 means indeed cans't thou venture to go thither ; to the home of the many, 

 of the multitude, of the numberless ? " f On hearing this, Uenuku rej oined, — 

 " Go away, depart ; soon I shall be going thither ; thou wilt not escape me ; 

 to-morrow thou shalt be devoured by grass-hoppers ! thy bravery in battle 

 is slippery; go away, depart!" These were the last parting words of 

 Uenuku, and Tawheta and his party returned to their own place. 



After this, Uenuku stirred up all his people to get ready his fighting 

 canoes ; so they were all newly caulked, and put together in order, and got 

 ready, and launched to go to war. Then it was that one of his brave fighting 



* This higUy chivalrous (?) conduct, — or, rather, the noble trait in their character, 

 never to allow the open public rites of hospitality to be infringed, (Uenuku, too, having 

 loudly welcomed themUnto his village, or fort), — was sometimes strikingly exhibited. The 

 Eev. S. Marsden, of Paramatta, informed me (in 1834) of a notable instance which had 

 taken place while some head New Zealand chiefs were staying there at his house. It 

 happened that two of them had come to Sydney by different ships, one was from the 

 Thames, and one from the Bay of Islands, — two tribes who were then at deadly feud in 

 their own country, and so it would have been between those two chiefs on their suddenly 

 and unexpectedly meeting there ; but the one said to the other, — "Here, thou and I will 

 dweU quietly, and eat, every day, at the same table together ; but when we return to New 

 Zealand I will attack thy fort, and will kill and eat thee : " and all this was carried out to 

 the very letter. It was from the utter want of this feehng on the part of the British (in 

 the Maori estimation), that the early colonists were so greatly twitted by the Maoris 

 during the war of 1860-6 ; notably by the chief Eenata Te Kawepo, in his upbraiding letter 

 to the first Superintendent of the Province of Hawke's Bay. (See, also, "Essay on the 

 Maori Eaces," " Trans. N.Z. Inst.," Vol. I., § 34, end. 



t This sentence deserves to be more j)articularly noticed : — " Ki te kaainga o tini, o 

 te mano o te rororo, o tini o te hakuturi : " lit. to the dwelling place of (the) many, of the 

 numberless of the ants, of (the) multitude of the imps (elves, or fairies). A cmious 

 figurative sentence, not however uncommon nor untruthful in the olden time, showing the 

 very great number of his people. (See Houmea, (infra), p. 27, and note there). 

 The same simile of ants, to express a great number, is also used by the Greek and Eoman 

 poets : " Theoc. Id. XV., 45. Vieg. ^n. IV., 402. 



