With the ice now broken a quick succession of suitors both male and female stood up to press their claims. “I will have Tangaroa”. “I will have Pungarehu”. “I am no longer my own for Hitana has charmed me”. “Kiriana is my singing bird”. “My choice is Purewa”. “I intend to have the daughter of Poananga”. So it went on until a number of happy couples had been mated and then there was singing and dancing to follow. At last the gathering broke up. Those who had been successful went laughing into the darkness with their loved ones. Others who had been rejected or not even asked at all dragged their footsteps towards their whare and silence descended on the village. The annual courtship in the Whare Matoro was ended for another year. For the next few days Paratene went about his work and every time the wind whistled in the trees he seemed to hear the voice of Hinauri saying “Your finger nails are too long. You avoid work as Ruru the owl avoids the light.” It was true of course that Paratene was a little vain but he was certainly not lazy and the unjustness of the remark made him only the more determined now to get what he wanted. He guessed that the real cause of Hinauri's resentment was the fact that one night in the House of Amusement, he has teased her after beating her in one of the games of skill with which the young people occupied themselves. Had he but known it, Hinauri secretly admired him for his fine looks and his skill at arms but like most women she was very stubborn where her pride was concerned and her mind was made up that Paratene would never be her husband. However, Paratene also was very determined. Despite her insults he loved Hinauri and he was determined to one day make her his wife even if it meant kidnapping her to do it as was sometimes done. He did not relish such a course however because it would make him an outcast from the tribe. So he waited and hoped always afraid that someone might claim in marriage the young lady whom he regarded as his. Paratene spent much of his time in the forest snaring birds and as he worked his mind never ceased grappling with the problem of how he could take Hinauri as his bride. One day he and his brother were out setting up their perch snares. They had selected a poroporo tree laden with rich ripe berries. A perch snare needed someone to sit in the tree and pull a string to spring the trap when a bird landed on the perch so the brothers had first to build a rough platform with a little shelter for the fowler to hide in. Paratene shinned up the tree and then his brother attached the materials for building the platform onto a rope which Paratene pulled up into the tree. The two were experienced workers and it did not take long for them to set up their little bower. Leaving Paratene to set the snares, his brother moved on down a nearby stream to inspect other snares which they had set there several days previously. Paratene hummed a little song to himself as he selected branches on which to hook his perch snares so that they would stick up above the foliage and attract birds to come to roost on them. When all was ready he settled down, nor did he have long to wait. As the birds landed on one of the perches, Paratene was kept busy pulling the string so that the loops caught the birds around the legs and imprisoned them against the upright portion of the snare. As a bird was caught, Paratene climbed up and killed it with a quick twist of the neck. Then he unhooked the snare, took out the catch, reset the loop and hooked the whole thing back into position. Paratene was just about to remove a fat parrot from the snare when he heard a rustling in the bushes beneath the tree. He saw a flash of a white heron's feather and his breath caught in his throat and he recognised the slim form of Hinauri moving slowly through the forest gathering up fallen hinau berries. Now Paratene well knew that love charms or atahu were sometimes used by young men to win the affection of an unwilling maid. These atahu were recited over some object such as a bunch of leaves. The leaves were then placed where the girl was likely to see them. If her curiosity tempted her to pick them up she immediately came under the influence of the spell. Another way was to recite the atahu over a bird, preferably the riroriro, and then the winged messenger would fly with uncanny instinct to land on the young man's beloved, no matter how distant she was, and she was then under the influence of the spell. Paratene was no ‘tohunga ta makutu’ and he knew little of the magic arts. Moreover the bird in his hand was no riroriro but he somehow knew that this was his chance to secure that which he most wanted and he knew that if he hesitated he might lose that chance forever. Snatching the parrot out of the noose he locked its wings across its back, recited an atahu chant over the bird and dropped it quietly to the ground. However because he was no expert, the spell did not work quite as Paratene had hoped. To his dismay the parrot began to hop away through the undergrowth. Hinauri saw it hopping around unable to fly and she set off after it hoping to capture this delicacy for her oven. The parrot was small and very elusive and it darted out of her reach. Suddenly as Hinauri brushed through some bushes, a long trailing branch of thorns caught on her cloak and dragged it from her shoulders and she stood disconsolate and naked. Paratene could not stand it any longer and he burst into roars of laughter from his tree. The brown of Hinauri's skin turned a rich red with embarrassment and anger for it was a matter of shame for a woman to be seen entirely naked and she hurriedly dragged the cloak from the thorns and wrapped it around her and looked angrily at Paratene as he sat on his little platform smiling at her.