alight. An old man, Titokowaru's tohunga, or priest, walked up to it with a long stick of green timber in his hand, an unbarked sapling with a rough crook at one end. He stood in front of the pile as the flames shot up and chanted a song. Then, when the logs with their terrible burdens were well alight, he began a strange incantation. Using his long stick with both hands he turned over the burning logs, pushed them closer together to create a fiercer heat, and forked the bodies into the midst of the blaze. And as he did so he recited a pagan karakia, the chant of the Iki, anciently repeated over the bodies of warriors when they were being cremated on the battle-field. These were the words of the incantation (the mystic meaning underlying some of the expressions would require many notes to fully elucidate them):
| Translation. | |
| Ka waere, Ka waere, Ka waere i runga ma keretu, Ka waere i raro ma keretu, Kei kai kutu ma keretu, Kei kai riha ma keretu, |
Clear them away, Clear them away! Sweep them into the earth, Into the stiff and useless clay. There let them perish and decay. |
| Whakatahia te kukakuka, Whakarere te kukakuka, Te roua atu, Te kapea mai. Roua ki Whiti, Roua ki Tonga, E tu te rou, Rouroua! |
Sweep man's flesh to earth again. Fork them that way! Haul them this way! Fork them to Whiti, Fork them to Tonga, To the ancient homes of man. Here I hold my fork erect, |
