A Little Boy Meets Captain Cook Is the last issue of ‘Te Ao Hou’ there was published a Maori account of Captain Cook's first visit to the Bay of Islands. Several other stories tell of Cook's visits to other places, and of the first reactions to the strange customs and possessions of the Pakeha. This story of Cook's visit to Whitianga, on the Coromandel Peninsula, appears in John White's ‘Ancient History of the Maori’, volume V. It was originally told by Te Horeta Te Taniwha, who had been a small boy at the time of the visit. But since White publishes two similar versions of the story, apparently written by different people. it seems that Te Horeta Te Taniwha's account was known to a number of story-tellers and had become part of the folklore of this people. For reasons of space one episode in the story is omitted here. I ngā rā o mua noa atu, i a au e tino taitamaiti ana, ka o mai te kaipuke ki Whitianga; e noho ana hoki mātou ko taku iwi i reira. Ehara i te tino noho tupu; he haere nō mātou ki reira, ki ērā whenua o mātou, whakauruwhenua ai, i te mea hoki, he tikanga tēnei nō ō mātou tūpuna iho, arā, ka noho mātou i tētahi wāhi o ō mātou whenua, ā, ka heke te iwi ki tētahi wāhi noho ai, ngaki ai, kia mau ai te mana o ō mātou whenua i a mātou, kia kā tonu ai ā mātou ahi i te nuku o ō mātou whenua, kei riro aua whenua i ētahi iwi kē. Ka noho rā mātou i Whitianga, ka puta taua kaipuke nei ki reira, ka kite atu ā mātou kaumātua i taua kaipuke. Ka mea rātou he atua. ā. he tupua ngā tāngata o taua kaipuke. ā, ka tū te kaipuke, ā, ka hoe mai ngā poti ki uta. Ka mea aua kaumātua, ‘Koia anō he tupua, he kanohi kei ngā muri-kokai, inō e hoe tuarā mai ana ki uta.’ Ka ū mai aua tupua ki uta, ka mataku atu mātou ngā wāhine me ngā tamariki, ā, ka oma mātou ki te tahora (ngahere). Ko ngā toa anake i noho i ārō atu ki aua tupua. A nō ka roa. ā. kāhore kau he hē o aua tupua ki ō mātou toa, ka taki hokihoki mai mātou, ā, ka mātakitaki aua tupua, ā, ka mirimiri ō mātou ringa ki ō rātou kākahu, ā, ka mihi mātou ki te mā o ō rātou kiri me te kahurangi o ngā kanohi o ētahi. Ka mahi ka kohi tio aua tupua, ā, ka hoatu he kūmara, he ika, he roi e mātou ki aua tupua; pai tonu mai rātou, ā, ka noho mātou ngā wāhine me ngā tamariki, ka tunu pipi mā It was a long It was a long time ago, when I was a very little boy, that the ship came to Whitianga. Our people were living there at the time, though it was not our permanent home; we were there to preserve our title to the land. In this we followed the custom of our ancestors, staying for a while in one part of our territory then shifting to another place, living there and cultivating our gardens so that the mana of our land would remain with us, and our fires would stay alight throughout our lands. This was to prevent them being taken by other tribes. While we were at Whitianga this vessel came there. When our elders saw it they said it was an unearthly thing, and that the men in it were spirits. Then the ship came to anchor and the boats were rowed to the shore. ‘Yes. these must certainly be spirits,’ our elders said then, ‘for they have eyes at the back of their heads; see how they paddle with their backs towards the shore!' When these strange creatures landed we children were frightened, and so were the women; we ran away into the bush. Only the warriors stayed there, face to face with the foreigners. But when they had been there for some time and had not harmed our warriors at all, we came back one by one, and gazed at them, stroking their garments with our hands, and admiring the whiteness of their skins and the beautiful colour of the eyes of some of them.* The word used to describe their blue eyes is ‘kahurangi’. This has the meaning of ‘prized, precious’, and is also used to refer to the colour of a light-toned variety of greenstone.