TRADITIONS AND LEGENDS. 
279 
Bay, were inhabited by a race of fairies who were called 
the Karitehe; the)'- are described as being a little yellow- 
haired people, with a white skin like Europeans, these 
fairies used to come and fish in the bay near the caves ; an 
ancestor of Nopera Pana Kareao on one occasion surprised 
them whilst thus employed, unperceived he got amongst 
them, for he was very fair, and likewise small in stature, 
as soon as they had enclosed a great number of fish in 
their seine the kokiri, he lifted up one corner of it and 
allowed them all to escape, the fairies exclaimed, there is 
the smell of man, and immediately both fairies and net 
vanished away. On another occasion he again mixed 
amongst them, and succeeded in capturing one of them, a 
young girl, who became his wife, and from her Nopera 
Panakareao, the late chief of the Rarawa, was descended ; 
after this fairy was captured, the Karitehe abandoned the 
Kauhoehoe, and never returned. The Rarawa state, that 
formerly the Karitehe used to haunt the forests of the north 
until white people came, and frequently surprised young 
girls who went into the woods to gather tawhara, the fruit of 
the kiekie ; those girls who were thus seized never returned 
again to their homes. 
The Story of the Where, or Monster Cuttle Fish 
of Raukaua (Cook's Straits.) 
The many tales of canoes pulled under water by this 
monster cuttle fish having reached Wanganui, two of its 
chiefs were seized with a desire to go and destroy it. Popea 
and Tamangakau having heard the tales of the great cuttle 
fish, whose abode was Ko nga watu kai ponu, which is near 
Titapua maunga, and close to Nga tata o te waka o Kupe, 
went and adzed out a canoe in the forest near the stream 
Maruia, near Waipakura ; when the canoe was finished 
they hauled it out, and reached the cliff at Kaimatira, near 
Waipakura, and there shot it down from the top of the 
precipice, to test its strength, that they might have a token 
of its suitability for the work ; it was not broken, it dived 
