MAORI AND THE MOA

Feilding Star, Volume 9, Issue 3798, 16 August 1932, Page 5

MAORI AND THE MOA

THEORY OP X.Z. BIRD CA USE OF EXTERMI NATION An adddress on the Maori and the moa- was'delivered by Mr J. B. Poyliter to the Tuirawhiti Maori, Association in Gisborne.

The speaker said data supported tlie theory tha t the moa wa s contemporaneous with the early Maori, According to a story of the old Poverty Bay chief Kalnitia, the 2.10 a, called kura,nu: in the early days, wa s <!i -'covered by Ilaukapanga, who arrived in Toi’s canoie. liaukapango, in an excursion inland from Alaketu, Bay of Plenty, saw what ho believed to be a reptile monster in the form of

a, bird. It came close enough for identification. Seventeen such birds were seen that day. Attempts were made to’ snare.* the birds, and after two tmsucces* ful efforts, in which, some of the birds were freed by another severing the rope with its beak, it was possible tot catch one of them. This one wa s led to the village, where it struck a man with, its foot, killing him. Th# moa was then killed. According tb the speaker’s information, the moa. was exterminated because a fire was run through the plains of t-lie country, at the order of Taniate>a, after his arrival in 13- r >o, so that the land should b c cleared. It was not thoiughf that the moa- would he exterminated by this notion, for it was believed the bird would geek refuge in the forests. It was believed afterwards however that the moa haunted the scrub covered purtion *, entering the. foresi only when the trecy were- in. fruit. There were two species of the mba, one. being about loft, and the other down to 2ft. Gin.