482 Transactions. — Mkcellancons. 



Again (p. 156) — " While they regarded the rainbow as a divinity, * * 

 to their organ of sight it presented one characteristic tint, and that was ma 

 (white), or allied to light." 



This assertion I have already fully met in my paper (siqyra) ; but I 

 would further ask — Why, then, was it so commonly called Kahukura — 

 " scarlet," or red, garment ? 



Mr. Stack also quotes the well-known passage in Isaiah i, 18, for 

 "scarlet and crimson." But the "scarlet" of King James' days (the 

 time of the translators of the English Bible) was not the same identical 

 colour as the scarlet of to-day. Our modern scarlet was not then 

 known. 



Again (p. 155), Mr. Stack says, " Poiinamu, or greenstone, * * * is 

 sometimes used now as a colour-term. Karupounamu=^gxeen.-ejedi, is the 

 term applied to persons with light-coloured hazel eyes, but I never heard 

 jwmiamu used to describe the colour of the sea." 



I refer Mr. Stack to one of " the few standard works " which he quotes 

 — Sir G. Grey's " Mythology," pp. 158, 159 (or to his " Poetry of the New 

 Zealanders," pp. xciii., xciv.), where he will find two sentences in excellent 

 Maori, re the colour of the eyeball, and of the water, in both of which the 

 pouiiamu is used as a simile.* Evidently, he has also overlooked the little 

 bird called Titipounamu fAcanthisitta chloris) ;] the shark called Taha- 

 p)ounamu ; the lizard called Pounamu-kakanorua ; the early winter potato of 

 the Ngapuhi tribe called Poimaimi ; our northern lakes called Rotopounamu / 

 and the Aupounmnu, the Waipiounamu, etc., etc. Again, in my two editions 

 of the Maori Bible (one in 12mo. and one in 8vo.), the passage in Esther i. 

 6, contains the yi oxdi pounamu for green colour, and not that " Maoricized" 

 abomination — karini — which Mr. Stack quotes. 



Mr. Stack also says (p. 156), " At the suggestion of Europeans the indigo- 

 blue plumage oiihepakura (Porphyrio melanotus) is sometimes employed to 

 indicate the colour, which before mtercourse with Europeans was unrecog- 

 nized.'''' These two statements (which I have italicized) I deny; and I 

 should not care to do so here, only to show that I had written to the direct 

 contrary in 1865 ("Essay on the Maori Eaces," § 33). | 



Further, Mr. Stack says (same page), "No words are found in the Maori 

 language to express violet, brown, orange, and pink colours ; but there are 

 no less than three words to express pied or speckled objects." This is 



* See " Trans. N.Z. Inst.," vol. xi., pp. 97 and 98, for my translation. 



t Observe here how Dr. Sparrmann (who accompanied Captain Cook to New Zealand) 

 naturally hit on the same term in colour for this bird (cMoris) as the Maoris had formerly 

 done. 



\ " Transo N.Z. Inst.," vol. i., p. 37 of " Essay." 



