TUWHAKAIRIORA Na Mohi Turei Translated by Archdeacon H. W. Williams This story is a real classic of Maori literature, and the bestknown literary work of Mohi Turei. It is reprinted by the kind permission of the Journal of the Polynesian Society, where it first appeared in 1911, in an issue now extremely rare and valuable. The circumstances leading up to Tu-whakairiora's conquest of the Ngati-Ruanuku, some time in the sixteenth century, are told in Colonel Gudgeon's paper, The Maori Tribes of the East Coast of New Zealand, also to be found in the Journal of the Polynesian Society (Vol. IV). The places mentioned in this story may still be found near the East Cape today.—Editor. Poroumata and his wife Whaene were well born, being descendants of Porourangi. Their tribe was Ngati Ruanuku. The chief clans of the tribe were Horo, Mana, Te Koreke, Te Moko-whakahoihoi, Te Pananehu, and Pohoumauma. When the tribe procured food, they brought for Poroumata game, fish, and all other kinds of food. When the tribe made a catch of fish, the attendants of Poroumata's pa went to the landing places to fetch the fish day by day; for some time all went well with the fetching then trouble arose. It had come to be the habit for them to take the fish themselves from the thwarts: the fish that were left they cut off the tails, the belly-fat, and the heads of the hapuku. *These were the choice portions of the hapuku. His sons had been taking part it this business; for himself, he knew nothing of it; he cherished only kindly feelings for the tribe. The tribe laid a plot to slay Poroumata. One night he looked at the clouds beyond the crayfish beds, resting close and compact, at the Milky Way and the Magellan Clouds, at the flakes of mist running together and settling in masses on the mountains. He said: ‘It will