NAMES. 
327 
given to that chief by his father's murderer, who said, if he 
caught him he would be a relish for that vegetable. 
Huia, the daughter of Pomare, gave her infant the name 
of Kota, north star, the vessel on board of which Pomare was 
kept as a prisoner, in defiance of a flag of truce. The widow 
of Matene Puta, who was taken prisoner at Porirua, during* 
the late war, and cruelly hung, to commemorate the event, 
called her infant, which was born after its father’s death, 
Repeka , the hung. 
Some derived their names from their occupations ; Rua 
kiri kiri , gravel pit, was the name of a slave, chiefly em- 
ployed in digging and carrying gravel to the kumara and 
taro grounds, which are so covered, nearly a foot deep, 
in order to obtain better crops. Names are occasionally 
taken in defiance, although originally given by way of 
reproach, or as a curse ; thus, when a woman made a 
song on Poto, a great chief, and said, “ Taku kuru kanga 
ko koe e Pcfto, te kai mo roto ko te Rangi wakarurua ” 
which is, literally, You are the pounder of my rotten corn, 
0 Poto ; the food for my stomach is Rangi wakarurua, 
your father ; this was a great curse, and to show his indig- 
nant defiance, Poto took the name, Kuru Kanga , and his 
friend Taui, who was his relative, to show his entire sym- 
pathy with him, also took as his name Te kai o roto. Hori 
Patene’s first name was Taui, but afterwards this became 
his surname. 
Chiefs frequently acquired names from their peculiar way 
of fighting; Mawa/L, a creeping plant like the cucumber, 
which climbs over the fortifications of a pa, is a name given 
its original bearer, to commemorate his crafty way of sur- 
prising pas ; Heuheu implies that the chief suddenly came 
upon his enemy by sculking amongst the brush-wood ; 
Tinirau signifies the warrior, who slew many hundreds with 
his own hand. Other names mark the lofty pretensions of 
their owners ; Rangi-iri-hau is the heaven lifted up above 
the wind or storm, to show that he was too great to be 
moved by any of the outbreaks of his enemies ; Rangi i 
rung a , the heaven above, one of the ten heavens, is a name 
