WE left Hinauri floating out into the ocean 1; we now return to her adventures: for many months she floated through the sea, and was at last thrown up by the surf on the beach at a place named Wairarawa; she was there found, lying as if dead, upon the sandy shore, by two brothers named Ihuatamai and Ihuwareware; her body was in many parts overgrown with seaweed and barnacles, from the length of time she had been in the water, but they could still see some traces of her beauty, and pitying the young girl, they lifted her up in their arms, and carried her home to their house, and laid her down carefully by the side of a fire, and scraped off very gently the seaweed and barnacles from her body, and thus by degrees restored her. When she had quite recovered, Ihuatamai and Ihuwareware looked upon her with pleasure, and took her as a wife between them both; they then asked her to tell them who she was, and what was her name; this she did not disclose to them, but she changed her name, and called herself Ihungaru-paea, or the Stranded-log-of-timber. After she had lived with these two brothers for a long time, Ihuwareware went to pay a visit to his superior chief, Tinirau, and to relate the adventures which had happened; and when Tinirau heard all that had taken place, he went to bring
away the young stranger as a wife for himself, and she was given up to him; but before she was so given to him, she had conceived a child by Ihuatamai, and when she went to live with Tinirau it was near the time when the child should be born. Tinirau took her home with him to his residence on an island called Motu-tapu: he had two other wives living there--they were the daughters of Mangamanga-i-atua, and their names were Harataunga and Horotata. Now, when these two women saw the young stranger coming along in their husband's company, as if she was his wife, they could not endure it, and they abused Hinauri on account of her conduct with their husband; at last they proceeded so far as to attempt to strike her, and to kill her, and they cursed her bitterly. When they treated her in this manner the heart of Hinauri became gloomy with grief and mortification, so she began to utter incantations against them, and repeated one so powerful that hardly had she finished it when the two women fell flat on the ground with the soles of their feet projecting upwards, and lay quite dead upon the earth, and her husband was thus left free for her alone. All this time Hinauri was lost to her friends and home, and her young brother Mauimua, afterwards called Rupe, could do nothing but think of her; and excessive love for his sister, and sorrow at her departure, so harassed him, that he said he could no longer remain at rest, but that he must go and seek for his sister. So he departed upon this undertaking, and visited every place he could think of without missing one of them, yet could he nowhere find his sister; at last, Rupe thought that be would ascend to the heavens to consult his great ancestor Rehua, who dwelt there at a place named Te Putahi-nui-o-Rehua, and in fulfilment of this design he began his ascent to the heavenly regions.
58:1 See . 64:1 The part of the tradition which relates to the death of Kaitangata is considerably shortened in the translation, as not being likely to interest the European reader.
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