The Autobiography of a Maori
A Strange Game
A Strange Game
1 After the sinking of Huripureita, of all Uenuku's sons, Paikea was the sole survivor. A taniwha in the form of a whale took Paikea on its back and brought him to Aotearoa, landing at Ahuahu. By rolling in the hot sand he revived himself. Paikea married Huturangi, a descendant of Toikairakau and the issue of the union is the Ngati-Porou tribe. It is the boast of young Ngati-Porou that their great ancestor came to New Zealand on the back of a taniwha as befitting the descendants of gods, and not in a prosaic material canoe.
Whitiwhiti te ra, pokopoko te ra.
Shine, shine, sun; out, out, sun.
It never occurred to the reciter that the sun was severely impartial; that it shone alike both on the just as well as the unjust. Invariably the losers always murmured that the winner must have been sparing in his spitting.
When a mother appeared carrying a big stick in her hand, it was not then a case of imploring for mercy—there was only one thing to do, pick up your shirt, or even without it, and make a bee-line for home, there to await the tyrant and her big stick.
1 Incantation.