THE ART OF NETTING LEARNED BY KAHUKURA FROM THE FAIRIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2649, 21 December 1904, Page 18 (Supplement)

THE ART OF NETTING LEARNED BY KAHUKURA FROM THE FAIRIES.

(Ko te korero mo nga patupaiarehe.) Once upon a time, a man of the name of Kahukura wished to pay a visit to Rangiaowhia, a place lying far to the northward, near the country of the tribe called Te Rarawa. Whilst he lived at his own village he was continually haunted by a desire to visit that place. At length he started on his journey, and reached Rangiaowhia, and as he was on his road he passed a place where some people had been cleaning mackerel, and he saw the inside of the fish lying all abotit the sand on the seashores surprised at this, he looked about at the marks, and said to himself, "Oh, this must have been done by some of the people of the district." But when he came to look a little move narrowly at the footmarks he saw that the people who had been fishing had made them in the nighttime, not that morning, nor in the da}- ; and he said to himself, "Tliese are no mortals who have been fishing here — spirits must have done this ; had they been men, some of the reeds and grass which they sat on in their canoe would have been lying about." He felt quite sure from several circumstances that spirits or fairies had been there; and after observing everything well he, returned to the house where he was stopping. He, however, held fast in his heart what he bad seen, as something verjr striking to tell all his friends in every direction, and as likely to be the means of gaining knowledge which might enable him to find out something new.

So that night he returned to the place where he had observed all these things, and just as he reached the spot back had come the fairies too, to haul their net for mackerel ; and some of them were shouting out, "The net here ! tho net here!" Then a canoe paddled off to fetch the other one in which the net was laid. and as they dropped the net into the water they began to cry out, "Drop the net in the sea at Rangiaowhia, and haul it at Mamaku " These words were sung out by the fairies as an rncotiragement in their work, and from the joy of their hearts at their sport in fishing. As the fairies were dragging the net to the shore Kahukura managed to mix amongst thorn, and hauled away at the rope; he happened to be a very fair man, so that his skin was almost as white as that of these fairies, and from that cause he was not observed by them. As the net came close into the shore the fairies began to cheer and shout. "Go out. into the sea some of you in front of the rocks, lest the nets should be entangled in Tawatawauia-a-Teweteweuia,'' for- that was the name of a rugged rock standing out from the sandy shore; the main body of the fairies kept hauling at the net, and Kahukura pulled away in the midst oi them.

When the first fish reached the shore, thrown up in the ripples driven before the net as they hauled it in, the fairies had not yet remarked Kahukura. for he was almost as fair as they were. It was just at the very first peep of dawn tnat the fish were all landed, and the fairies ran nastily to pick them up from the sand, and to haul the net up on the beach.

They did not act with their fish as men do, dividing them into separate loads for each, but everyone took up what fish he liked, and rin a twig through ihe ; r gills and as they strung the fish thoy continued calling out, "Make haste, run here, all of you, and finish the work before the. sun rises." Kahukura kept on stringing his fish with the re^t of them. He had only a very short string, and. making a slipknot at the end of it, when he had covered the string with fish he lifted them up, but. had hardly 1 aised them from the ground when the slip-knot gave way from the weight of the fish, and off they fell ; them some of the fairies ran goodnaturedly to help him to string his fish again, and one of them tied the knot at the end of the string for him but the fairy had hardly gone after knotting it before Kahukura had i-nfastened it, and again tied a slip-knot at the end : then Vc began stringing his fish again, and when he had got a groat many on up he lifted them, and. off they slipp r d as before. This tridc he repeated several times, and delayed tin fairies in their work by getting them to knot his string for him, and put his fish on it. At last full daylight broke, so that there was light enough to distinguish a man's face, and

the fairies saw that Kahukura was a man ; then they dispersed in confusion, leaving th_ir fish and their nat, and abandoning their canoes, which were nothing but stems of flax. In a moment the fairies started for their own abodes. In their hurry, as has just been said, they abandoned their net, which was made of rushes, and off the good people fled as fast as they could go. Now was first discovered the stitch for netting a net, for they loft theirs with Kahukura, and it became a pattern for him. He thus taught his children to make nets, and by them the Maori race ware made acquainted with that art, which they have now known from very remote times.