This carving in a meeting-house at Manutuke, near Gisborne, depicts the bird on whose back Pourangahua flew to Aotearoa. How the Kumara Came to Aotearoa Pourangahua was a man who lived on the east coast of the North Island, near where the town of Gisborne now stands. He and his wife had a small son whom they loved very much. Now when this child grew big enough to run about, they noticed something very strange. Their son kept on poking out his tongue, and he did this always in the same direction, toward the sea. If he was walking along he would turn around and poke it out; if he was lying down he would roll over and do so. Pourangahua and his wife asked themselves what this could mean. They thought of many things, but in the end Pourangahua said, ‘Perhaps our son is hungry’, and his wife agreed that this must be so. Then the two of them brought the child great quantities of the best food they could find: fernroot and berries, fish, eels, pigeons and tuis. But it was no use; still he continued to poke his tongue in the direction of the sea. Then Pourangahua said, ‘The food for which our son hungers must be across the sea. I will go in my canoe to find it’. So he said farewell to his wife and son, and paddled out into the vast ocean. For many days he travelled, and saw no land. Then at last he reached an island. The people on this island made him welcome and took him to their village. There they set before him a strange food. Porangahua ate this, and found that it was much better than any food he had ever tasted. It was the kumara, which was not grown in his own land. Then Pourangahua knew that it was the Kumara for which his son had been hungry. Pourangahua stayed for some time on the island as a guest of that people and their priest Tane. But after a while he became homesick, and wished to go again to his own country. However his canoe had disappeared, and there was no way for him to return. Tane saw that his friend was sad, and asked