CoLENSo. — On a better Ivnowledge of the Maori Race. 45 



52. Let them be carefully carried about. 



53. Be (you) diligently occujiied in planting carefully. 



54. Planted, verily planted (are the seed of) my baskets. , 



55. Spread open, empty, verily scattered around, (are) my (empty) used seed-baskets ! 



56. Above (there) in the sky (thou art) far away out of sight, hidden ; — 



57. Give, therefore, here in this place, as a reward 



58. Of the believing this, — or our making it (to be) real and truthful, — 

 . .59. And let it be alike trutliful and real (to us) ; 



60. Yes ; just so, indeed. 



(The figures beginning each verse, are added merely for the sake of 

 reference : — See Analysis, infra.) 



Few subjects among the many of this class known to me have afforded 

 half the satisfaction I have obtained from this one ; but I have only gained 

 it through a long, patient, and tedious amount of heavy labour ! The 

 translation of this semi-poetical charm, or invocation, being exceedingly 

 difficult, owing to so many archaisms, allusions and ellipses. Desirous, 

 however, of laying it before you in its original beauty — of meaning and 

 arrangement — I have studied to translate it as literally as possible, consistent 

 with perspicuity and the dissonant idioms of the two languages. 



Of the various spells, etc., anciently used in planting the kumara, that I 

 have acquired from several tohimgas during many years, there are no less 

 than three which contain this direct invocation to Pani; and while the 

 introductory words of those three forms vary a little, the kernel — the 

 invocation itself — is almost literally the same in them all ! This ckcum- 

 stance, together with its evident antiquity (as shown from their genealogical 

 tables), the fact of its being one of the very few known forms of direct 

 invocation to any being or personification ever used by the ancient Maoris,'-" 

 its poetical structure, and its regular fitting and progressive disposition, — 

 make it a subject of extreme interest if not of importance. 



Those charms, when used, were always muttered in an under-tone by 

 the toJmnga, who performed this duty while walking about the plantation, 

 solus. This one, used in the spring, at the first planting season, serves to 

 remind us of the vernal sacrifices and prayers of the ancient Egyptians and 

 Eomans,t and other ancient Northern nations ; and like those by them, it 

 was used to precure fertility ; and when simple, (as in this instance), they 

 may be regarded as among the most beautiful and becoming of the rites of 

 natural religion. 



* I should, however, also state, that besides those three charms, or invocations, 

 already mentioned, containing direct invocations to Pani, I possess, among several charms, 

 etc., from the North, another charm used for the restoring of a sick person to health, in 

 which Pani is also invoked together with her husband Tiki, and both simply and separately 

 called on to grant health to the patient. 



t Virgil, Ec. V., 74, 75 : Georg. I., 335-350. 



