HAKARI. 
169 
chiefs of the Ngatiraukawa tribe formed a kind of club amongst 
themselves, and determined to give up their native customs, 
and adopt those of the Europeans. They had good houses 
erected, and took their meals in the same way we do, which 
they have persevered in doing, and this has become a great 
means of raising their tribe in the scale of civilization. 
The hakari, or feast, was formerly given either as a paremata, 
or return for a previous one, or on some particular occasion, 
such as a marriage, the making of peace, or the stirring up of a 
war, for the obtaining of help either to build a house or make a 
canoe, or to hunt, or fish. They were sometimes given by indi¬ 
viduals, but more frequently by the inhabitants of one place to 
those of another. The hakari was often on a very grand scale, 
proportioned to the wealth and influence of those who gave it. 
Sometimes a number of poles were planted in the ground, 
being fifty or sixty feet high, which were made to support 
eight or ten stories, heaped up with baskets of food to the 
very top. At other times, long walls of kumara w r ere erected ; 
these were made with the greatest care ; they were generally 
about five feet high, as many broad, and were crowned with 
a covering of pigs roasted whole. Several hundred were often 
thus killed for a single feast, or else their place was supplied 
with dried fish, and with what is considered a very great 
delicacy, birds, or pork cut up in small pieces, and cooked in 
their own fat: these are packed up in large hua, calabashes, 
or in ornamental dishes, made of the bark of the totara, and 
tastefully decorated with feathers, they are called papa. When 
the guests arrive they are received with a loud welcome, and 
afterwards a person, who acts as the master of the ceremonies, 
having a rod in his hand, marches slowly along the line of 
food, which is generally placed in the marae, or chief court of 
the pa, and then names the tribe for which each division is 
intended, striking it with his rod. This being done, the chief 
of that party receiving the food, sub-divides it amongst his 
followers. The food is then carried off to their respective homes. 
The calabashes are often tastefully ornamented with carving, 
red ochre, and feathers. These feasts are generally political 
meetings; both before and after the division of food, many 
