Leave it Alone.

In camping expeditions this holiday time the tramper and tent-dweller may profit by this bushcraft hint, among a hundred others. Don't use the kotukutuku, the native tree fuchsia (it is sometimes called the konini, but that is the name of the fruit only). The small, knotty, twisty tree is well enough known; it has a habit of growing plentifully along the banks of creeks, and an inviting camping ground will often be found closely neighboured by clumps of it. There is a temptation to use the bark, which often hangs in loose strips as if just waiting for the camper to make kindling of it. But the bark and branches both are about the worst wood for fuel; they refuse to burn well.

Once when boating around Paterson Inlet, Stewart Island, I learned a scrap of Maori folk-lore concerning this tree. We sailed into Kaipipi Bay; the sandy beach of the little cove was fringed with kotukutuku trees. Mohi, an old Maori of the island, was with us in the whaleboat. We set about gathering small dry branches to boil the mid-day billy. “Don't take any of that kotukutuku,” said Mohi; “it is unlucky wood.” He said that even if we succeeded in making it burn well, there was a baleful form of makutu in it, a wizardly property which affected unpleasantly anyone drinking tea or eating food prepared over the fire. Any person consuming kai from the kotukutuku fire would become afflicted with a kind of paralysis, a sudden weakening of the limbs. A curious old belief—which we did not put to the test. We hunted for some less noxious fuel.

My own theory, which I did not impart to Mohi, was that the weak-knee symptoms described by the greybeard of the Inlet were caused by the weary work of bending over a fire of fuchsia wood in the effort to induce the sulky stuff to get a blaze on.