The Vanished Canoe-Men.

There are three low green islands in this northern arm of the lake. About the largest, which the Wakatipu people call Pigeon Island, I got a place-name to a story many years ago from a Maori veteran of the gold-diggings, Henare te Maire, of the Waihao Country, South Canterbury, who was hunting for treasure in the famous Shotover away back in 1862. Wawahi-waka—“splitting canoes”—he said was its name. To this little island the Ngati-Mamoe and other tribes resorted in the stone age to fell and split trees for the purpose of making canoes. Totara pines of large size grew on these isles—now covered with koromiko and other shrubs—before they were overrun by fire. Greenstone axes and ornaments of the vanished Maori have been found on Wawahi-waka.