and put away, to be fastened on again with new lashings the next season. These bird-spears are termed here among some tribes.

In order to hang a spear up to a tree, a small hooked piece of wood, a piece of a branchlet, was tied on to the shaft near the point end. This hook was called a pekapeka. Also, when climbing up a tree, the fowler would thrust the spear up and hook it on to a branch, thus leaving both hands free for climbing. The pekapeka is attached merely by a small cord, and is detached in a moment when the spear is about to be used. Care is taken not to allow the spear to lie, or be put away, in a bent form, or such bend would be liable to become permanent and much impair or destroy the usefulness of the implement. So long and slight were the shafts (about 1 in. in thickness) that, when spearing birds, the manipulator had to rest them on the branches as he thrust them slowly forward towards the bird. When the point was near the bird, the fowler, by a quick forward thrust, impaled the bird upon the long thin makoi, or spear-point. Birds were always speared in the breast—or, at least, such was the aim of the fowler.

The butt end of these spears is called the hoehoe. The thin, barbed point or head of the spear is termed makoi by the Tuhoe people, sometimes tara. Some tribes call it a kaniwha. Tara means “a point,” and taratara “notched.” Makoi seems to have a similar meaning, as a comb is also known by that name. The head of the spear, just where the point is lashed on, is styled the matahere (first two vowels long). “Ko te tao wero manu ka mahia ki te tawa, he mama hoki. Koia ra i kiia ai he tawa rau tangi, mo te mahinga hai pena.” (Bird-spears were made of tawa because of the lightness of that timber. Hence that tree was called tawa rau tangi [murmuring- or rustling-leaved tawa], because it was used for that purpose.) Thus old Paitini. The above may be a natural sequence to the primitive mind, but it is too abstruse for pakeha mentality.

The makoi or spear-points were made of mapara (hard, resinous heart wood of the kahikatea), of maire (a hardwood), of human bone, rarely of greenstone, and in latter times of iron. Temporary unbarbed points were sometimes made of katote, the hard black part of trunks of tree-ferns. The greenstone points were very rare: only one is recorded in this district—viz., the one from which the hill-peak Tara-pounamu was named. This one belonged to Tamatea-kai-taharua, a gentleman who flourished about two hundred and fifty years ago. He speared a pigeon at that place one day, and, the point becoming detached from the spear-shaft, the bird flew away with the point sticking in its body. But the agile Tama is said to have followed that nefarious bird even unto far Putauaki, fifty miles away, where he recovered his tara pounamu. This tradition is undoubtedly true, for Tara-pounamu hill still stands to prove it.

The favoured material for spear-points in former times was human bone, the long bones of the thighs. The bones were those of enemies slain in battle. I bought two such makoi of human bone from Ngai te Riu, of Ruatahuna, paying a bag of flour for them. They had been fashioned from bones of members of Ngati-Ruapani, of Wai-kare Moana, slain during the fighting at that place in the early part of the nineteenth century, when Tuhoe came down like a wolf on the fold, his cohorts gleaming with purple and gold—or, at least, with war-paint.

When the Natives began trading with Europeans they soon found out the usefulness of iron. Pieces of bar iron were much sought after for the purpose of fashioning from them points for bird-spears, by means of filing. Iron gridirons—the old-fashioned kind—were highly prized, the bars thereof

being filed down into barbed points. One such lying now before me is 11 in. in length; another obtained was somewhat longer. The one in my possession is ¼ in. wide at the butt or lower end, and tapers (koekoeko) gradually to a fine point, a flattened point. The butt end is flat on one side that it may fit on the flattened end of the spear-shaft, where it would be lashed on. When the outer side of the base of the makoi was filed down, two slight ridges of the iron bar were left, one at the extremity and one an inch from it, so that the point could not be pulled free from the lashing. The barbs were formed in like manner as the bar was filed down. There are ten barbs, which also decrease in size towards the point of the makoi. These barbs are arranged in sets of two and three, points of barbs about ½ in. apart, but the space between the sets is from 1 in. to 1 ½ in. These spear points are admirably made, as were those of bone and hardwood fashioned during the Stone Age of the Maori.

Tarewa-tao is the name of a rimu tree that stands on the Purenga Block. It was so named because in former times fowlers were in the habit of hanging their bird-spears thereon. The trunk of the tree being concealed from view by a dense growth of climbing plants, the spears were thrust up through this growth, and were so hidden from view.

Tuhoe always lashed the makoi firmly on to the spear-shaft. I had read Heaphy's account of a spear-point that was detached by the struggles of the transfixed bird, and hence made inquiries. I have seen such an apparatus among the Indians of the Pacific Coast north of California, who use such in salmon-spearing. The point was lightly bound to the shaft, and was detached by the struggling fish, which could not, however, escape, because the point was connected with the shaft by a loose cord or lanyard.

In the “Transactions of the New Zealand Institute,” vol. xii, p. 35, Colonel Heaphy gives an account of his accompanying a party of Maori bird spearers into the forest at Belmont, near Wellington, in 1839. He says, “The spears are about 12 ft. long … The point of the weapon is of bone, and barbed. This bone is hung securely by a lanyard at its base to the spear-head, but when ready for use is lashed with thin thread alongside the wood. The wounded bird flutters with such force as would break the spear were the whole rigid, but as arranged the thread breaks, and the bird on the barbed bone falls the length of the lanyard, where its strugglings do not affect the spear, and it is easily taken by the fowler's left hand. … The spears were very slender, not more than half an inch in diameter at thickest part. … This mode of capturing birds, very soon after our arrival (in 1839) went out of vogue. The spears were exceedingly difficult to make, and the few that were finished were eagerly bought by the whites as curiosities.”

The spears here mentioned were very short ones (12 ft.), and much more slender than any I have seen, which were about 1 in. in thickness, and none shorter than about 18 ft. The colonel states that the pigeons were very tame, and were speared on low trees, the spearers “sometimes even ascending the lower branches of the tree.” This was poor spearing. Tuhoe and other tribes with their long spears, climbed to near the top of high forest-trees when spearing birds. I distinctly remember an old Native living at Wai-kohu, Poverty Bay, in 1874, who used one of these long spears for taking pigeons in the little bush at Puke-matai. He was camped with two Ngati-Porou sawyers, Hare and Mokena, who were cutting out the Lorne homestead. This old chap had a rude ladder (rou) fixed on the trunk of a lofty kahikatea. He used to climb up to the upper branches thereof

and squat on a limb to practise his sylvan art. He kindly offered to teach me how to spear birds; but the base of operations was too near heaven for my fancy.

But about the makoi maunu: In answer to a query, Mr. Percy Smith said, “The bird-spears were in use in Taranaki as late as 1857 or 1858, as I have been with the Maoris when they used them; but I cannot remember the lanyard and loose head to the spear.”

I then wrote to Tamati Ranapiri, of Ngati-Raukawa, about the matter. He replied that he had never seen or heard of the loose point and lanyard, adding, “E he ana te korero nei kei te kapokapotanga o te manu ina tu i te here, ka maunu te tara i te houhanga atu ki te here. Kaore, e he ana tena. He mea tino hohou te tara ki te here, kia tino mau.” (Quite wrong is the remark that the fluttering of the bird when speared causes the point to become detached from where it is lashed to the shaft. Not so; that is wrong. The point is lashed securely to the shaft.)

Some time after the above episode I received another letter from Ranapiri, who said, “Friend, after I had sent my second letter to you I met Alfred Knocks, of Otaki, and handed to him the letter you sent me inquiring about bird-spears, and he at once said, ‘The remarks of that European (Colonel Heaphy) are quite correct.’ He explained that when a lad he lived with his father at Wai-kanae. He was about ten years of age when one day he accompanied Major Edwards on a pigeon-shooting trip. They came across Wi Parata spearing pigeons up on a karaka tree, and he noticed that the bird-spear used was one with a detachable point, as described by Heaphy. He said also that the spears used by the Natives at Otaki in those days were quite different, the point being a fixture, lashed securely on to the shaft.”

This would seem to show that this manner of manipulating the bird-spear was employed only by the Atiawa Tribe, who lived at Wellington and Wai-kanae, and not by Ngati-Raukawa.

A fowler would but very rarely allow his spear to leave his hand when spearing a bird, but only when he could not quite reach the bird with the point of it and at the same time the spear was in a horizontal position, resting across several branches, so that there was no danger of it falling. He might then allow it to leave his hand as he made his thrust at the bird. Ka kohema atu te tao describes the action.

These long spears were so slender and pliant that they could only be used with a rest, the branches of the tree being used for that purpose. In travelling through the forest, they were held by the point and trailed behind the bearer.

When about to make a bird-spear the Natives always selected a tree that stood well within the forest, and not one growing on its outskirts, as the latter are more difficult to split, and the timber not so easy to work—a fact known to all bushmen. The time and labour expended in making a long bird-spear must have been appalling, when we remember the crude tools of stone used by the Maori. Mr. S. H. Drew, in a letter to the Whanganui Chronicle (in 1898), said, “Bird-spears were made that took years to make. Fancy, if you can, the patience as well as skill required to cut a spear 30 ft. long out of a tree. The tree had to be felled with stone axes and fire, and this long 30 ft. of lance must be as straight as an arrow and about 1 in. in diameter. Imagine the labour in chipping and paring down the tree to the size wanted, with stone tools. One false stroke and the work of months would be wasted. We have two of these long spears in the