MAORI LEGENDS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1073, 13 May 1882, Page 4

MAORI LEGENDS.

On the first day of the native gathering at Rewiti, Tawhiao, in conversing with some of the Europeans present on the ancient history of New Zealand alluded to some native legends with which the public are not likely to be familiar. Pointing to two of his chiefs from Kawliia —Hone Wetere and Pikia —he said they are the descendants of an ancestor named Tirewa, a seer who many generations ago from a dream predicted the advent of the Europeans, by proclaiming that a race yet unknown to the Maoris would come to New Zealand in ships, would wear many colored garment, and ride upon animals larger than dogs. That prophecy had been fulfilled. Tawhiao also mentioned as a singular coincidence that one of his ancestors, before European settlement, while walking in the bush near where are now situate the Taupiri coal mines, met a fairy Patupaiarehe, who in a song told him that the name of this land was Tirani —the Niu Tireni or New Zealand of of to-day. He also gave an interesting account of the various methods of divination practised by the tohnngas or priests for ascertaining whether peace or war would ensue between two tribes, or whether a certain warrior would die in battle or have a natural death. The methods referred to somewhat resembled those employed by the Roman augurs. His own future had been partially revealed by the art of divination, and among other things disclosed was that Tawhiao will never die by drowning. His body may, however, be eaten by a fish. The ground of this belief is that one of his ancestor was capsized in a canoe out of sight of land, and immediately * whale rose, upon whose back he at once scrambled, and it took him •straight to Kawliia Harbor, where he landed in safety, he being an eicellent swimmer. Tawhiao concluded by remarking, archly, that these legends, though implicitly believed in the olden time, did not seem to have so great a hold upon the mind of the people in the present day.