Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 11, Issue 9 (December 1, 1936)

To Hide You From Your Foes

To Hide You From Your Foes.

You never know—you may yet need some effective mask from an enemy; it is convenient even in peace to vanish from the common gaze sometimes. I offer this recipe for emergency use, a huna, or charm, to conceal one from hostile eyes. It was given me many a year ago by my old friend Rangiriri, of Utuhina, Rotorua, who had been in his time a warrior for the White Queen, fighting the Hauhaus on many expeditions. He said he had found the little prayer to Ruwaimoko (shortened to “Moko” in the karakia) of service aforetime in bush skirmishing:—

Pungawerewere, heiheia mai aku mata,
Popokorua, heiheia mai aku mata.
E Moko e!
Tu mai ki waho,
Moku to taua rua.
Titiro ki runga,
Titiro ki raro,
Titiro ki whenua noa atu.

(Translation.)

Spiders, hide my face;
Ants, obscure me from the foe;
Oh, 'Moko, god of the underworld,
Come forth from out thy pit,
And let me enter it.
Search all around,
Gaze up and down. See nothing but the empty land.

The charm appealed to the spirits of the soil to hide the fugitive in the earth with them, and called on the spiders to weave their webs across the path behind him. You may read in the life of Mahomet how he hid in a cave from his enemies and the spiders wove their webs across the mouth of it; this put his pursuers off his trail. The huna also was said to have the effect of raising a friendly fog, to obscure a fugitive from those in chase of him.