I take the cord and smear it with blood procured from an incision in the left side of my body. I then kindle a fire and burn the cord; also, I cook a single kumara or taewa at that fire. The cooked kumara I give to the ruwahine (a childless woman employed in various sacred rites), who eats it. Friend! That man is dead!
"Another method of averting the effects of witchcraft is to place the kumara beneath the paepae-poto (door-sill) of my house and get the ruwahine to step over it."
The paepae-poto is one of the most sacred parts of a house. The saying is, "Kia wehi hi te paepae-poto a Hou."
To describe the various rites, customs, and ceremonies of the natives of Tuhoe Land as they obtained in pre-pakeha days would require a volume, and also much care and patience on the part of the compiler, combined with a thorough knowledge of the Maori tongue, or, at least, the vernacular thereof, a qualification which I myself, unfortunately, do not possess. It is greatly to be desired that these matters should be placed on record during the next few years, for the present generation is the last which will retain such knowledge, and, indeed, only a few old men of this time can tell of the countless ceremonies of the ancient Maori. Much has been lost beyond recall, but much may yet be saved if a few capable persons will but take the matter up.
Art. V.—The Building of Hotunui, Whare Whakairo, W. H. Taipari's Carved House at Thames, 1878.
Told by Mereana Mokomoko, widow of the late chief, W. H. Taipari, to Gilbert Mair, 12th July, 1897.
[Read before the Auckland Institute, 6th September, 1897.]
My father, Apanui Hamaiwaho, chief of Ngatiawa at Whakatane, built the house Mataatua. Taipari, his father, Hotereni, and myself were invited to go to Whakatane to take away that house, but before we could go Sir Donald McLean visited Whakatane, and Ngatiawa, to show their aroha, gave him the house.
My father then said Ngatiawa would carve a house for me. This was in 1875. Accordingly the work was commenced forthwith, and in May, 1878, the posts were all finished, and about seventy Ngatiawa, under the chiefs Wepiha Apanui (my brother), Rangitukehu te Wharewera,
