42 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



and strangely, and that was owing to lier having transgressed with 

 one of her male slaves. But the plantings of Whakaotirangi all came 

 up true to their various sorts, and from them the whole island was sub- 

 sequently supplied. Hence, too, arose the proverb, which has been handed 

 down to us, — ' Greatly blessed {or gladdened) art thou, food-basket of 

 Whakaotirangi ! '* So let all Maoris know, that from the canoe Tainui 

 came her kumaras, her kites, her antes, and her paras, and her karakas 

 (which last, sprang from the used skids which her crew had brought away 

 in her), and, also, her kiores (rats)." 



(d.) Another still more strange and far-fetched tale, concerning the 

 introduction of the kumara into New Zealand, is also related by the Maoris 

 of Hawke's Bay (south), which may also be briefly mentioned here, if only 

 for its singularity. A chief of old, named Pourangahua, was getting his 

 canoe ready to go to sea, to seek some better-relished food for his infant 

 son, Kahukura ;f the child having rejected with fearfully loud noises its 

 own mother's milk, also the soft liver of the fish kahawai ( Arripis salar), 

 with which it had been fed. (From that liver, however, so rejected by him, 

 sprang the flying-fish.) The canoe being dragged down and all ready, the 

 chief, Pourangahua, returned to his house for something forgotten, and 

 while absent his four brothers-in-law (Kanoae, Paeaki, Eongoiamoa, and 

 Taikamatua), embarked in the canoe and sailed away. Pourangahua, 

 nothing daunted, went after them on a canoe (or float) made of a duck's 

 feather ; a squall, however, coming on, he was soon sent to the bottom ! 

 Emerging to the surface, he swam and battled away against the seas, and 

 finally got on to a whale's back, on which he managed to keep himself by 

 means of his powerful spells. Afterwards, he met his own canoe with his 

 brothers-in-law returning, he joined them, and on reaching the shore, and 

 calling the kumara which they had brought by its own proper and special 

 name of Kakau§ (to which the kumara itself answered, by asking, " Who he 

 was that had spoken — or divulged — its name ? " etc.), he obtained from 



papyrifera), and called, also, by its name, " Paper Mulberry ;" there being a great common 

 superficial likeness in the leaf, bark, size, etc., of the two shrubs. While the fourth 

 counterfeit is evidently a fern, and very likely one of the large common tufted thick- 

 growing coalescent ferns, — e.g., Polypodium pennigerum, Lomaria discolor, or L. gigantea, 

 the smaller Dicksonice, etc. The Maori name of Horokio is now variously given by dif- 

 ferent tribes to different plants. 



* This circumstance, however, is very differently related in Grey's " Polynesian 

 Mythology," p. 142. 



t Same name as under (a.) supra. 



§ Curiously enough, this is the same special name that is given to the kind of 

 kumara said to have been brought from " Hawaiki '" by Turi iji his caiioe (&., supra). See 

 Grey's "Polynesian Mythology," p. 212, 



