2. Rua Excavated out of Sloping Ground

This style of food-storing pit was never made of so large a size as many of the form described above, for obvious reasons, except such as were made on the brink of terrace formations. It is made by excavating a rectangular pit or chamber in sloping ground, as the side of a hill or slope of a terrace. The earth forms the walls and back in many cases, but they are sometimes lined with trunks or slabs of tree-fern trunks. A -shaped roof is placed over this chamber, which, again, is often covered with earth, and a door is made in front. When potatoes or kumara are stored in these pit chambers the floor is first covered with fronds of rarauhe (Pteris aquilina) or Dicksonia squarrosa, on which they are placed. Potatoes are placed loose and heaped anyhow in such places, but much more care is taken in storing the kumara, or sweet-potato. Each tuber is handled separately and carefully examined for any signs of bruise or abrasion, as such defects mean rapid decay; and all sound ones are then stacked up in rows, one by one, with the greatest care. A well-kept food-store is a striking example of care and neatness.

In all cases these pits and semi-subterranean stores are so tended that storm-water does not collect near them. In many cases small drains carry off such waters.

Tregear's Maori Dictionary gives rua-tirawa, a store with an "elevated floor." We do not know of any kind of rua with an elevated floor. Probably in error for "excavated." The tree-fern Dicksonia squarrosa is termed tirawa by the Ngati-Pukeko folk, or at least its trunk is, and a shed the walls of which are composed of such trunks is known as a whare tirawa.

Williams's Dictionary gives patengitengi, a storehouse for kumara; rua-koauau, kumara store; rua-tahuhu, potato-store; rua-tirawa, a store with an excavated floor.

The Rev. T. G. Hammond says: Rua-pare, a storehouse built on the ground; rua kopia, an excavated store-pit (cf., rua kopiha); patakitaki, divisions in a storehouse; koropu, a low house.

Tregear gives koropu, a hole for storing food in; and another authority gives koropu, an underground house; though Williams's Maori Dictionary gives it as "a house built of wrought timber."

Pakorokoro is given by one authority as a storehouse. Tregear gives pakoro, a potato-stack (? a heap); and pakorokoro, as a place in which to keep pigs.

These rua kai or pit storehouses were constructed for use only, and were not ornamented, as were raised stores in many cases. In these two forms of rua already described a little carving might be seen on the lintel of the doorway, but not often, and in the true pits to be described nothing was heeded but pure usefulness.

The following notes were obtained from Te Whatahoro, of the Wairarapa district:—

In the case of the more important store pits or huts, wherein were stored the bulk of the crop for preservation, a certain karakia (charm, invocation, &c.) was recited over each such store when completed, on account of the task having been brought to a satisfactory conclusion; being equivalent, or almost so, to the kawa recited over a new house. Another charm or invocation was recited over each such store when it was filled, and just prior to it being closed. These ceremonies were performed by a priestly adept. This latter rite rendered the store and its contents tapu. No women were allowed to enter a store that had been made tapu. Men only stored away the crop in such places, and men only took the contents out when required. Having been taken out by men, women carried the baskets to the rua kopiha, the pit store in which products for present use were kept, placed them therein, and took them therefrom as wanted, inasmuch as this type of store is not tapu.

When a tapu store of kumara is opened for the first time since it was filled and closed, the man who opens it puts in his right hand and takes out a single tuber, taking one from the pile on his right as he faces the interior of the store. He takes this tuber and roasts it at a fire kindled out in the open, not in a cooking-shed, and then gives it to his elder brother or his grandchild to eat, or possibly to his own wife, in which latter case it is said to be tamawahinetia. This ceremony is performed in order to take the tapu off the contents of page 84

Fig. 43. A Rua Kai or Food-store Pit, East Coast.

the store, that they may be used. The small tubers known as koai, and medium-sized ones termed taranga, were taken for the use of the people to whom the crop belonged, and these were consumed ere the large tubers were taken, though the fine large ones were always selected for the use of visitors.

When one of these stores was closed the door was slid to close the entrance aperture, and a cord, one end of which was secured to the door, was passed through the wall, drawn taut, and secured to a peg driven firmly into the ground, after which both peg and cord were covered with earth, so as not to be easily detected by any person seeking to rob the store. This cord is called the taura miro of the store, and sometimes the taura whakarae, the former being the truer or more genuine name. In many cases, however, where the type of hut permitted of such a usage, the cord was led along the side wall to the rear wall, passed through it, pulled taut, and secured outside in some secret place, underground or otherwise, so that it could not be seen.

These food-pits were often given special names, just as pataka and dwellinghouses were—such as Te Rua-titi, a pit store belonging to Te Whatahoro I, an ancestor of the Wai-rarapa peoples.

Te Whatahoro knows nothing of the doors of stores having been narrowed at the top, as described by Polack.

Mr. C. O. Davis, in a paper on "Ancient Stone Images of the Maoris," says, "Due attention also was paid to the building of storehouses year after year; and when the crop was gathered in the storehouses and their contents were declared to be tapu or sacred, after the performance of the necessary ministrations. All that remained of the crop outside the consecrated building became by right the property of the tohunga."

The following is taken from a description of a Maori village by Sir George Grey: "Storehouses in which their vegetable products were stored were sunk in the ground, the pit thus made being neatly roofed over; they were entered by a carved door, and the roots were built up on each side of the storehouse in stacks, with a neat central passage running between their perpendicular sides; a ladder led down into the pit, the door being kept carefully closed. The neatness and convenience of such storehouses was complete."