46 Transactions.— Miscellaneoits. 



For this purpose, also, another strange plan was long observed by the 

 Maoris of the interior. A portion of an ancient relation I received from 

 them runs thus : — " Tia* and his party " (who, it is said, had come to New 

 Zealand from "Hawaiki" in the canoe Arawa), "did not return from 

 Taupo (inland), whither they had gone, to Maketu (on the coast); they all 

 died inland at Titiraupenga, where their bones and skulls long were, and 

 were, indeed, also seen by the Maoris of this generation just past. Those 

 skulls were annually brought out, with much ceremony, and placed in the 

 kumara plantations, by the margins of the plots, that the plants might 

 become fertile and bear many tubers." 



Captain Cook also relates, that in the plantations of kumara at Tolaga 

 Bay, which he and his companions visited (on his first voyage to New 

 Zealand), — " they saw there, a small area of a square figure, surrounded 

 with stones, in the middle of which one of the sharpened stakes which they 

 use as a spade [koo] was set up, and upon it was hung a basket of fern- 

 roots : upon enquiry the natives told us, that it was an offering to the 

 gods, [?] by which the owner hoped to render them propitious and obtam a 

 plentiful crop."t This is in the main correct, as I have myself proved, — 

 omitting the words " an offering to the gods." 



It is just possible, that the kernel of this charm or invocation to Pani, 

 may be among the very oldest known ! 



And here, to make it still more plain, I will just briefly give a simple 

 analysis of the contents of this Invocation, with a few explanatory notes ; 

 through which, I think, its suitability, beauty, and regularity, will be the 

 more clearly perceived. 



Analysis. 

 I. A statement of the celestial signs of Spring being fortunate, or favourable, for 

 their work, according to tokens discerned by the tolnmga from over both 

 land and ocean : lines, 1-2. 

 II. Of their work being begun according to old descended custom ; mentioning the 

 names of four of Tinirau's eight sisters, — who were sent over the sea in 

 their canoe to carry off Ngae (or Kae) for his theft of Tinirau's pet whale. | 

 Possibly they were here mentioned, on account of that memorable night of 

 high glee and jollity spent in all manner of games by those women and their 

 assistants, through which plan they also succeeded in detecting and carrying 

 off Ngae ; — the bare mention of this always caused pleasing mirthful ideas 

 to the Maoris and was just as politically useful to the working-class among 

 them at the beginning of their heavy annual working-season, as the festival 



* Tia's name is mentioned in connection with the Arawa, p. 146, Grey's "Polynesian 

 Mythology." 



t First Voyage, Vol. III., p. 472. 

 \ See Grey's " Polynesian Mythology," p. 90. 



