MAORI BELIEFS.
'• All sorts of care was taken' by the old-timo Maoris to appease their god of I the seas before a fishing expedition was i undertaken," said Colonel Porter durum' ' nil address on Maori customs in Welling- | ton, " for should anything have given 1 him cause for offence nothing but bad luck, I they firmly believed, could come upon the party. Their canoe would be upset and : the fishers gobblod up by the taniwha, |or they would, in cases, of less serious j disaster, catch no fish and generally enI joy the worst o; 1 luck." Colonel Porter mentioned several other strange Maori .beliefs regarding fishing. One was that I certain fish must bo cooked in a certain way, otherwise not another school of that 1 particular fish would pass along that seeI of the shore. Referring to the tradition of the fishing up of the North Island, l"Ika Nni-a-Maui," by tho god Maui, the speaker mentioned that an inland tribe of (the North Island, though hotly pressed on all sides and ordered to surrender, had steadfastly refused, for they in the centre of the island were "tho entrails of the fish," and as such were essential to the ell-being of the whole "fish."
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Bibliographic details
New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17041, 24 December 1918, Page 8
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205MAORI BELIEFS. New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17041, 24 December 1918, Page 8
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