ted its bark. It knew the ground birds, also, huis, weka, kiwi, kakapo and the others. Except for an occasional swooping raid from the hawk species, they grew rapidly and lived fearlessly, so that even keruru the pigeon had nothing to fear. About the year 1350 the great migration of canoes reached Aotearoa from Hawaiiki and the peace and solemn quietude of the East Coast were invaded and shattered. Paoa and his men found their way down the coast, settled a little lower down at a place they called Turanga and began to press around up the coast and inland. They became the Rongo Whakaatu and the Aitanga Mahaki and they occupied all land around what is now Poverty Bay. Paikea came and landed at Whangara, a few miles from our tree. The peace of the forest was broken. These strange new creatures called men, preyed upon the children of Tane, the birds. They made snares and cut spears to take the birds of the forest, disdaining not even the smallest of them miromiro the wren. They turned loose the kiore, the rats they had brought with them from Hawaiiki, until they were well established in the forest, and then laid snares on their tracks and took them as they took the birds. What they did not eat at the time, they stored in gourds for the winter. Trees they felled, with stone adzes and pokai, and with fire, to build their canoes and their houses and their stockaded forts. Many cast a covetous eye on our tree, which was now grown a giant some 6 or 7 hundred years old, a youngster still and in the prime of life, but a stalwart trunk, straight and true for some thirty feet from the ground to the lowest branch. But some forgotten chief of Ngati Konohe put a small tapu on it to preserve it and it was left to grow. Somewhere around the 1500's when Britain was being torn in strife with Scotland and with Wales, the descendants of Paikea in turn also had their differences to contend with. Porourangi, great-great grandson of Paikea had two wives, and one of them turned from him to his brother. So it was from his second wife, Tamatea Toi, that there descended the main line of Paikea, the tribes Whanau a Iri te Kura, Te Aitanga a Hauiti, and Whanau a Rua-Taupari which collectively are still known to men as the Wahineiti signifying their descent from Porourangi's smaller or second wife. From Porourangi descended the great tribes of the coast, those we have mentioned and those who sprang up further north, Ngati Uepohatu, Ngati Pokai, and Ngati Ruawaipu, all of whom are collectively designated by the title of Ngati Porou. Still our tree gathered the years in her branches. In the reign of King James I, in the land of Ngati Porou, there was Tamahai, mighty toa of Whanau Apanui, and unbeaten master of the Taiaha. He came down the Coast from north of Hicks Bay, which men in those days called Wharekahika, as far as Turanga where he fought and bested the great red-haired chief Kuriteko. He paused at Whangara almost within sight of our tree, to make a friendly pact with Konohe, ancestor of the present Ngati Konohe. Back up the coast he pressed, to fight, or exchange insults with, a variety of chiefs. He had many adventures, a bout with Makahuri at Waiomatatini, and a skirmish at Ruatoria wherein he, accidentally some say, slew the Queen Hine Tapora and buried her body in the pit of the slave Toria, thereby gaining the locality its name. At Tikitiki he attacked the small dark ugly man Putaanga, who bested him in wordy warfare. At Rangitukia he had differences with Hikutaia, another small man who, however, likened himself to the small greenstone adze which felled even the mightiest of totara. These belligerent junketings of Tamahai are part of the story of our tree, for because of his slaying of Hine Tapora there took place one of those wars which the Maori so enjoyed. The story of that war is too long a story to be told here. Many great chiefs were involved in it, among them Konohe, Pona Patukia, Karuai, Mahiti and Rerekohu. Rerekohu spoke out of turn and made himself unpleasant, with the result that he found himself at the wrong end of the fight and, to escape ignominy and perhaps a haangi, gave to Konohe his daughter Tataingaoterangi.

THE TREE IS FELLED It was somewhere in the early 1700's, while Clive was cavorting about in India, that Konohe took Tataingaoterangi back to Whangara and wedded her to his son. From that union was born Hinematioro, in whose blood converged the lines of greatness of all the East Coast chiefs, and she was so distinguished in her lineage that her fame spread far and wide as the great Queen of the East Coast. The rise of Hinematioro was the cause of the fall of our tree. In the person of Hinematioro there occurred one of the fusings of the leading lines of exalted descent which made her the outstanding chief-tainess of her time. She became known throughout the country as the great Queen of the East Coast, though, because her mother had been given to Konohe, there are some who claim her greatness was modified by that circumstance. However, it may be expected that there were few who were game to make such a statement at that time, or they might have come to a grim end. To so great a person there came, in those ancient Maori times, a constant flow of gifts. Food was here by right of mere being, and tributes of birds, fish, roots, rats and berries flowed in from all who desired to show their loyalty. There would be gifts too of toys, kites, jumping jacks, and other trifles beloved of Maori children, and their elders too. As far as can be gathered Hinematioro was