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The Sailing-Leaf.

The pastime of the koki, or koke, was one of which the Rotorua and neighbouring tribes were particularly fond. Nearly half way up the precipitous face of Matawhaura, where that forested mountain juts out like a wall over the deep waters of Lake Rotoiti, there is a bare bluff called Pakipaki, to which a steep track leads from the canoe landing below, and on which in former times a little fortified pa stood. Here the young people amused themselves with the game of the darting leaf. They gathered the large leaves of the wharangi plant (Brachyclottis repanda) which are dark green on the upper and white on the under side. These were attached to a light stem of some strong grass, and tails or streamers (hihi) were added, made of wiwi or other reeds or rushes, sometimes two or three feet in length. Then the leaves were held up and balanced in the hand, and after repeating a song in chorus the players darted them out over the lake, each striving to cast his rau-wharangi farthest. If there was a fair wind blowing, the leaves with their dancing hihi were carried for considerable distances. This is the song which the players chanted as they held their sailing-leaves aloft, a chant often heard at the present day among the Maoris of the Rotoiti villages:—

Ma tiki koki ki runga,
E tae ra koe
Ki wai-o-rikiriki,
Ki wai-o-rakaraka,
Te piho o te rangi.
Hoki hoki hoki mai, hoki!

(Translation.)
Sail away, my leaf on high,
Sail thou o'er the waters far,
Fly up to the sky, and then
Come, come back to me again.