MAORI MEMORIES.

Waikato Times, Volume 113, Issue 18878, 23 February 1933, Page 3

MAORI MEMORIES.

INTERESTING VIGNETrES. (Recorded by FLESH, FrSH, OR FOWL Of th® two latter there was abundance, captured and made more dainty by the skill of the hunter and the art of cooking in the Maori oven of heated stones. Fishing with the home-made hinaki, or eel net of tough aka vines, In the lake or the river, or watching the flocks of Karoro (seagull) to locate the surfaoe run of flsh shoals *t sea, they followed in canoes to flsh with hone hooks and glistening paui shell for halt. The kaka parrot was ' lured by the cries of a tortured captive bird and seized from beneath the oover of leafy branches. The kereru, the largest pigeon in the world, was snared by loops over a canoe-shaped vessel of water placed in the branches of the trees where the birds drank after a gorge of berries. Flesh was a rarity except where cannibal feasts were justified by Utu or satisfaction for Injuries received. The native kiore, a blue rat, was the four-legged flesh food. Colonel Porter described his dainty feed of kumara and Maori cabbage with four little legs of what he thought were two small fat roast birds sticking out. But when he found they had but one body he smuggled the rat into his coat pooket rather than disclose a breach of etiquette.