and that is the bird of the Matahi o te tau of the Orongonui; the Orongonui is summer"). Herein, apparently, the phrase matahi o te tau does not bear its usual signification of the first month of the Maori year, for that comes in winter. Presumably it should read: That is the bird of the first (month) of the Orongonui season. The cuckoo arrives here in spring. In the myth of Mataora the month of Tatau-uruora [? November–December] is said to be one of the months of the Orongonui season. The same statement appears in the legend of the wanderings of Whatonga—"Ka kiia hei a Tatau-uruora o te Orongonui o te tau."
In the following extract from an old recital we encounter a puzzling remark: "Ko te koekoea, ko te wharauroa, he mea tuku hei whakaatu i te matahi o te tau i te Orongonui o te ngahuru tuhoehoe" ("The long-tailed and shining cuckoos are despatched in order to call attention to the first (month) of the season, the Orongonui of the autumn"). The expression ngahuru tuhoehoe is applied to the latter part of the Maori year, the last two months, or the tenth and eleventh months, before which time both cuckoos have left these Islands. In the above sentence it must be the spring that is referred to, because the cuckoos arrive here at that time, but I cannot understand the allusion to autumn. The wording of the sentence might lead one to surmise that it had been composed in some far northern isle, but yet the Orongonui is connected with autumn. In yet another old recital we find the sentence, "Hine-rau-wharangi was born in the Aonui (month) of the Orongonui." Now, Aonui is late autumn, and here again Orongonui is associated with the autumn. Again, in an old myth we are told that Te Ikaroa (personified form of the Milky Way) and two other beings were appointed as guardians of the Orongonui and Takurua seasons, to keep them separate, and so avoid confusion, lest one of them should become continuous. So that it would appear that the name of Orongonui was applied to a prolonged season, from September to about May.
Summer and winter are personified in two beings named Hine-raumati, the Summer Maid, and Hine-takurua, the Winter Maid. These damsels are said to have been the daughters of one Tangaroa-akiukiu, and both of them were taken to wife by Te Ra, the sun. The Winter Maid dwells out on the ocean and controls the food-supplies of that region, the innumerable tribes of fish represented by Tangaroa. The Summer Maid dwells on land, her task being to foster the food products of the earth. Ra, the sun, spends half a year with each of his two wives. At the time of the takanga o te ra, or changing of the sun of the Maruaroa (that is, the winter solstice), Ra commences to return from the ocean toward the land, there to dwell with Hine-raumati.
In certain myths the moon is alluded to as being of the male sex, and he also had, or has, two wives, Rona and Tangaroa-a-roto; the former is "the woman in the moon." The moon is ever connected with water, hence, perhaps, the association of the name of Tangaroa, an ocean being, with the moon. We have seen that several nights of the moon are named Tangaroa, while Tangaroa and Rona are said to be the "tide-controllers,"
