Wrap for baby, East Coast. (photo: charles hale.) maori baby's toilet by W. J. Phillipps As with us the toilet of the infant babe was a vital matter to the old time Maori mother. A special hut termed ‘whare kohanga’ (or nest house) was usually erected for the mother to occupy before and during the birth of the child. When the child at last entered the world of light and life, it was in part smeared with oil from the titoki tree, if that was available. Its little body was then usually enveloped in a bandage made from the beaten soft fibres of the lacebark tree, a New Zealand tapa cloth. Each day it was washed, and dried with the selected soft tow of phormium fibre (muka). The next requirements of the tiny baby were diapers and some sort of a wrap to keep it warm at night. These items were considered essential, and it is a little curious that all books on Maori life studiously avoid them. Aristocrat or plebeian, high or low they are the necessary heritage of all. Before the birth of the infant, masses of the finest tow (muka) of the flax plant were prepared and separated into bundles to serve as diapers. Sometimes quantities of moss were preferred. Mr J. M. McEwen supplies us with the name ‘kukukuku’ for this soft tow, kuku being the mussel shell used in the preparation of flax fibre. However, the name for the actual diaper, collected from districts as widely spaced as Southland and Te Kuiti, is ‘kope’. This name was also supplied by Mr Rangi Royal, Maori Affairs, Wellington, ‘Rope’ appears to be the Ngapuhi term. Concerning the wrap which held the kope in place, information is hazy; though it seems that lacebark was sometimes used. Recently Mrs Hetit and Mrs Tumohe told us that at Te Kuiti the wrap is taka or rapaki. In the North Island most of my informants used the word ‘whariki’. However, the most authoritative account which we have comes from Bluff. From here Mr E. P. Cameron (one of Herries Beattie's informants) writes: