THE following narrative shows the cause which led Turi, the ancestor of the Whanganui tribes, to emigrate to New Zealand, and the manner in which he reached these islands. Hoimatua, a near relation of Turi, had a little boy named Potikiroroa; this young fellow was sent one day with a message to Uenuku, who was an ariki, or chief high-priest, to let him know that a burnt-offering had been made to the gods, of which Uenuku, as ariki, was to eat part, and the little fellow accidentally tripped and fell down in the very doorway of Wharekura, the house of Uenuku, and this being a most unlucky omen, Uenuku was dreadfully irritated, and he laid hold of the little fellow, and ate him up, without even having the body cooked, and so the poor boy perished. Turi was determined to have revenge for this barbarous act, and to slay some person as a payment for little Potikiroroa, and, after casting about in his thoughts for some time as to the most effectual mode of doing this, he saw that his best way of revenging himself would be to seize Hawepotiki, the little son of Uenuku, and kill him. One day Turi, in order to entice the boy to his house, ordered the children of all the people who dwelt there with him to begin playing together, in a place where Hawepotiki could see them; so they began whipping their tops, and whirling their
The labours of Kupe consisted in this, that he discovered these islands, and examined the different openings which he found running up into the country. He only found two inhabitants in the country, a bird which he named the Kokako, and another bird which he named the Tiwaiwaka; he, however, did not ultimately remain in these islands, but returned to his own house, leaving the openings
151:1 The discovery of a plot by guessing the meaning of a song which persons were overhead singing was a common circumstance with all the races and throughout all the islands of the Pacific; for instance, in Pitcairn's Island, when first occupied by part of the crew of The Bounty and some Tahitian men and women, we find: 'Brown and Christian were very intimate, and their two wives overhead one night Williams's second wife sing a song. Why should the Tahitian men sharpen their axes to cut off the Englishmen's heads? The wives of Brown and Christian told their husbands what Williams's second wife had 155:1 It will be seen that they did not follow Kupe's directions, thinking that he was deceiving them, he being probably friendly to Uenuku.(The Progenitor of the Whanganui Tribes)