40 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



abroad ; or casually brought into New Zealand, And here I should 

 mention (lest it might be considered to be a matter of small moment), that 

 with the Maoris, the name or names of the persons (chiefs) engaged, — 

 including their wives, their canoes, their paddles, and their balers ; and 

 also the name of the plantation first planted, and even of their wooden 

 digging-spades used, — is almost everything ! Many of them are said to be 

 still preserved in their legends, and with them (the Maoris) their possession 

 is unanswerable ! 



(a.) According to the Maoris of the East Coast (Table Cape to Cape 



Kunaway), especially the large Ngatiporou tribe,- — a New Zealand chief 



named Kahukura went in his canoe from New Zealand to " Hawaild" to 



fetch the kumara for planting. Arriving there, he found the kumara-crop 



had been already harvested ; but he turned-to and cut down a portion of 



the cliff where the kumara grew spontaneously ; when, aided by his 



powerful spells, the kumara fell, and soon filled his canoe, which was called 



Horouta. This done, he again laid his spells on that spot, to stop the 



kumara from falling down the cliff, and then brought the kumara with him 



to New Zealand. On returning to the East Coast, he first landed at Cape 



Runaway, where he first planted some of his kumara ; thence he carried 



them, coasting south, to Waiapu (East Cape), to Poverty Bay, to Table 



Cape, to Hawke's Bay (south side), and across the straits to the coast 



between Cape Campbell and Kaikoura: — "all this distribution of the 



kumara to those several places, was done by that one person Kahukura." 



This statement, however, is stoutly denied by other Maori tribes, especially 



by those residing on the West Coast, and at the Thames. Here the names 



of both the chief and his canoe should be noted ; that of the chief being one 



of the Maori names for the rainbow, and that of the canoe meaning, (The)- 



falling-down-(of-the)-mainland (cliff). Also, a statement which is firmly 



believed by the Maoris, and which I have often heard from several of them, 



who asserted they had themselves seen it, namely, — that at Cape Eunaway 



the kumara grows indigenously,* — that is, without annual planting ; the 



scattered small tubers left in the ground in the cultivations invariably 



spring the following season, which they never do anywhere else, and this, 



they say, is another proof of the first imported kumara having been planted 



there. From the very favourable position, however, of the sea-side lands 



inside Cape Runaway, lying so far to the east and so protected from the 



south, such may very well be accounted for naturally. 



(b.) According to the Maoris of the West Coast, the kumara was first 

 brought by their progenitor, Turi, in his canoe named Aotea, on his 

 emigrating from "Hawaild; " when he came to New Zealand, and landed 

 * See this alluded to, in Grey's " Polynesian Mythology," p. 143. 



