THE OLD-TIME MAORI.

Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 467, 27 March 1909, Page 6

THE OLD-TIME MAORI.

HIS FOWLING ART. SOME ECHOES OF THE WAE. (BY OUE SPECIAL aEPOHTER.) A palo-faco, Booking an audience with that remarkable personage, Rna, way back in the Urowora, was informed that the prophet politician was out somewhere in the bush with his peoplo, who wore engaged on that day "taking the kaka." A glance about the kamga indicated some of the means employed to luro the bird of the iorest, for there, in their littlo shelters, not unlike pigeon-lofts, stood several specimens of tho tame kaka, known as "mokai" when they aro merely occupying the place of household pets, or, if in actual employment for decoys, as "timori." The mokai, with his hooked beak and parrot mannors, dancing to and fTo on his perch, with a flax .tether attached to a littlo bone "bracelet" on ono leg, is an attractive personality. He screams loudly, and is apparently a contented captive, so long as he is fed. His natural diet of grub is largely replaced by potato, but the mokai does not seem to mind. When poked at, he declaims in shrill notes, and that is why he is here. It is his soream-powor that makes him so valuable a decoy.

The Urewera Forest-Dwellers. Before he used guns, tho Maori was expert in all branobes of bird-taking, and a volume could bo written on tho fowling art of the aboriginal if someone could extract the whole story from one of the decreasing band of old-time experts. The decoy-bird, the callloaf, the snares, the wakas (troughs at which the pigeon, keroru, would drink), the pigeonspear (made in two lengths, one about 20ft., one as much as 40ft.), were all instruments employed in an elaborate system of fowling, which comprehended the habits of each bird, a bird's different habits and diet at different seasons, the change of seasons, the exact dates at whioh various trees flowerod and bore fruit, and a heap of detail which would escape pakeha observation altogether. Not only was the Maori an observer, but his nomenclature was most complete and definite. Ho not only saw, but named, everything. Each species of tree had its name, and oven the difference of the male and tie female in some trees was observed, and a distinguishing appellation was used. Then, most of the noted bird-snaring trees had each a name of its own, its individuality being deemed sufficiently important. Necessity nad a great deal to do with making the Maori a fowler, and nowhere, was this tie case more than in tie Urewera mountains, where the country was too high and cold to ripen the kumara, and where, until the advent of the potato, the aboriginal depended mainly on fern-root, rats, and the birds of the forest, and, it is said, did not refuse occasionally- a diet of worms. Fowling was lifo itself, and the opening of various seasons was an occasion for great religious ceremony. Religion also did a great practical work when it made tne close seasons a port of tapu. Wanton Maoris, who might havo decimated tho birds of the forest, and thus : impaired or porhaps destroyed the people's scanty food supply, were bound by wie iron bonds of superstition. Methods of Fowling. With the aid of a mokai, or timori, the kakas were often brought near enough to be (grabbed with the hand. Responding to the call of its captive brother, the inquisitive bird of the wild .would sidle with its peculiar swaying motion down an inclined polo erected for the purpose, to whore the fowlor stood under a screen of fern and forest foliago, forming a sort of littlo arbour. The note of thovmokai was not the only means of decoy; the bird was made to flap its wings, or was given a piece of bone to gnaw, or was allowed to scratch tho ground, suggesting to passing birds a successful search for grubs in that locality. When the Maori himself sounded a call ho generally used a leaf, with the aid of which he could produce with his own mouth some effective woodland notes. When the pigeons were feeding on a particular blossom, snares on the running-knot principle, sometimes baited with tufts of bloom, would be set on prominent boughs and perching places, for the birds to entangle themselves in. A whata was a stage sot in a tree, from which, concealed by his verdant screen, the fowler would personally operate a number of snares. By moans of a pole contrivance, ho could, after pulling a string, take down both the snare and the captive bird to his lurking place, subsequently resetting the snaro. Wbatas aro ntill in evidence in the Urewera. also the waka, or trough of water, to which the pigeon, when busy on some thirst-inducing berry, would have recourse, getting caught in tho snares sot by the wily Maori. The. snaring system had all sorts or modifications and variations, nccord- | ing to the bird and tho season. In using the long spear, the Maori gradually advanced it through the thick foliage towards the breast of the pigeon; then, when the point was at short range, a sharp push drove it homo.

The Taking of Small Birds. A fcaanga pihipihi seen at Haepipi consisted of two upright sticks, with a picco of supplejack arched horizontally across them, at a height of about five feet. Pihipihi is the httle green blight bird, which just now seems to be in huge numbers all' over the North Island, and which, from a Maori culinary point of view, makes up in numbers what it lacks in body. The supplejack is erected for the little bird to alight on. and the slayer, crouching under a fern screen at the foot of one of the uprights, holds stiffly erect a wand or striker, which traverses like a flash the supplejack perch as soon as the feathered quarry reaches it. Thus bird after bird is knocked down,'until, in the course of an hour of two, the Maori can show a gourd containing a hundred or two. They are often preserved in fat, half plucked and uncleaned, and are eaton solid. When ho takes his # station at the taanga pihipihi, the presiding genius imitates the familiar note of the little bird. When one or two have fallen wounded before his wand, he ties them with strips of flax to a lino Btretched horizontally beneath the supplejack, where their cries and fluttering t i nn. raa ? 7 , i ot ] :or P'nipiW to a similar fato. The sight of a grave old Maori crouching m ambush and striking down scores of these feathered atoms is a striking illustration of the importance that fowling in all its branches once had for the forestdwellers who were compelled unaided to oke out an existence in the Urewera mountains. Tho same fact is curiously handed down in the name Haepipi (hae, meaning "suspended by tho neck," while pipi is, as everyone knows, a form of shell-fish). Near Haepipi was a white pine tree on which were hundreds, of snares, and it used to catch so many tuis that tho scores of black-plumaged songsters, mournfully suspended by the neck, recalled to the appreciative Maori mind tho strings of dried pipis which, when taken from their shells and hung up to dry, turn black like tho tui. >

Hauhau Ambushes. The route through the Urewera, from Te Whaiti on the Rotorua side to Waikaremoana and the Bast Coast, abounds in spots of historic memory, Here, somo great inter-tribal fight took place; there, some stand by Te Kootils Hauhaus against the pursuing pakeha. General 'Whitmore's expedition of 1869 took the pa at Te Wbaiti, and then advanced towards Ituatahuna in order to junction with tho conveying columns from Waikaro-moana (which, it seems, got no farther than that lako) and from tho Whakatanc. The usual and probably the only possible plan was followed, that of advancing up tho creek-beds, which afforded tho best means of penetrating tho dense bush. Placed in the bottom of a steep gully, with no means of throwing out a flanking party, an advancing force is liablo to ambush almost anywhere, and tho only rocourse it has is to send out an advance party to draw fire. Thus'a series of advance guard engagements occurred, generally attended by but few casualties. The Natives, armed with muzzle-loaders, usually dropped back after firing a volley; they did not, it would appear, attempt anything so ambitious as an envelopment of flanks, though there are many spots where, aided by high ground, a defending force' might havo laid an ambush resulting in much slaughter. Advancing from the Whirinaki up its tributary tho Okahu, and thence up a sub-tributary whoso name is given as tho Manawa-hiwi, Genoral Whitmore's advance party fell into ono of these frontal ambuscades. The men in front that day included Big Jim, the Taranaki .Maori guido—who was woArintr, tho gold

watch and chain given him for his valour by the Imperial forces—and Tom Adamson, ono of tho European guides, a man of tho old Forest Ranger typo. Suddenly, from the cover of a matai log, ten Uroweras fired a volley, wounding two or three Europeans and fatally wounding Big Jim. The supports dropped thoir swags and "doubled up," leaping over tho prostrate form of Big Jim, smiling grimly in his pain, but tho Hauhaus wore gone. A largo camp-fire, it is said, formed that night the tomb-stono and monument of tho departed Maori guide, and in tho morning the ashes covored tho spot beneath which lay tho mortal remains of Big Jim. That was done lost tho Hauhaus, looating the freshly-turned earth, should exhume tho body and eat it. And this was only forty years ago. You may soe now in the gully, by the side of tho peaceful streamlet, tho matai log from which, according to the Maoris, the death-dealing volley was discharged.

Tara-Pounamu. Still pressing on, General Whitmore's foroo had to cross the high hill, Tara-Pou-namu. ("tara" being the point of a pigeonspear, while "pounamu" is greenstone). Somo great man of old had a spear tipped with greenstone, and when ho plunged it in a pigeon on this historic bill, the bird flew off with the point in its breast, and the owner had to pursue it to Mount Edgocum bo (Te Teko) in order to recover his property. Descending towards lluatahuna, General Whitmorvs troops, and their Arawa allies, narrowly escaped an ambush by taking a trail which the Maoris did not expect' them to follow; also, the troops saw the smoke--puffs of the rifles of their allies from .the Whakatane. who were taking tho Maori pah at Kontawhero (Ruatahuna). That night General Whitmore's men encamped at a spot between Kontawhero and what h now known as Omakoe, and the General, it is recorded, took a bugler and a couple of men, climbed the heavily-bushed peak nearby, and caused a call to bo sounded which, echoing across hill and valley, evoked an answering bugle-call from tho other force, telling that all was well. Nest day a junction was effected. Tho ambushes and tho skirmishes and the taking of pahß does not seem to have amounted to much in tho way of effective warfare) probably the destruction of shelter and crops and food supply was tho most serious blow the Hauhaus received. A number of Te Kooti's one-time warriors now live quietly in tho Urewera. Thero is one particularly reputable Maori couple, of whom the husband was a participant in the Mohaka massacre, and the wife guided Te Kooti through the Urewera when he oluded pursuit by making for Taupo. It is recorded that, on one occasion, hor swag_ caught in some supplejacks, ana Te Kooti himsolf came back and released it, being slightly wounded in the hand as he did so. Almost every' turn of. this Urewera Road reveals some spot that figures either in pakeha history or Maori lore. By way of conclusion may be cited the legend concerning Onini, since it goes back- to the very beginning, the origin of the Urewcras, first known as the Nga-Potfki. At Onini, Maunga (the mountain) came to earth and lured thither the Maid of the Mist, Hine-pukobu-rangi, and Potiki, the offspring of that union, founded the Nga-Potiki. Hence, no doubt, arose the affinity of mist and mountain, whoso nuptials have never ceased from that time onwards.