500 
HOUSES. 
on high horizontal poles to dry ; and before they were so, 
generally became quite putrid ; it was a winter food, a small 
quantity being cooked as a relish for their kumara, which, 
in flavor, nearly corresponds with our rich rotten cheese. 
The tam,ure, or snapper, and the Jcahawai, mackerel, were 
taken with a hook attached to a piece of the haliotis shell ; 
being deceived by its resemblance to a fish, they were easily 
caught j the hapuhu , or cod, is the most prized of sea fish, 
and often attains a very large size, weighing fifty pounds or 
more ; the conger eel is also eaten. Some fish are taken 
with the seine, which they make of great length. 
Seals were formerly abundant, and much prized as food ; 
in fact, all was fish which came to the net, even bats and 
Owls were not despised ; oysters, mussels, and other shell- 
fish, formed also a portion of their support, these were dried, 
and hung upon strings for winter’s use. 
Houses. 
The European traveller who crawls into a native hut for 
the first time, will see nothing particularly interesting in it ; 
he will, perhaps, only view it as a dark smoky hovel ; but 
when he becomes acquainted with native customs, and 
observes the order and arrangement displayed, the careful 
way it is constructed, and how perfectly the object aimed at 
is attained, he will not withhold its meed of praise. 
The principal houses are called ivare-puni, or warm houses ; 
this name may be given either from the number of persons 
generally residing in them, or from their being so built as to 
exclude the external air ; they are usually sunk one or two 
feet in the earth, and nearly always front the sun ; the sides 
of one are seldom more than four feet high, being formed of 
large broad slabs of totara, the most durable timber, having a 
small circular groove or opening cut into the top to receive 
the rafters, helce ; these slabs are either adzed, and painted 
with red ochre ; or, if it be a very superior house, each one 
is grotesquely carved to represent some ancestor of the 
family, in which case they become a kind of substitute for 
