Kaka Tells a Story

Forest and Bird, Issue 39, 1 February 1936, Page 10

Kaka Tells a Story

(By E. T. Frost).

“The Good Old Days”and Now.

As I sat up in the top of a dead kauri tree digging out nice fat grubs for you youngsters, I heard two men, who were sitting down close by having their lunch, talking. One of them was holding a piece of paper and looking hard at it. Every now and then he would talk and say something to his companion. I could not hear all that he was saying, but just caught scraps here and there of the conversation. I heard words like these : “hard times,” “depression” ; and several times he mentioned an incident which he evidently thought had a good deal to do with these “hard times,” as he called them. It was something that apparently had taken place some years ago, and he called it the “Great War.” He said that before the “Great War” had taken place how everybody had plenty, and he referred to that time as the “good old days.”

When he mentioned that term, “good old days,” I wondered if he ever gave a thought to the fact that that term applied to other creatures besides man, and that quite near him in the forest were birds whose near relations had lived in what was the “good old days” of bird life in this country, and that it was not a “Great War” that had brought hard times in our bird world, but just the thoughtless acts of this man’s kith and kin.

In those “good old days” we were not confined to a small forest such as the one in which we now live on these Mangamuka Mountains, but we could fly up and down the land as we pleased, and when food was scarce in one place, as it often is here, we could fly off to other places where berries were plentiful and good sweet honey was to be had in abundance, to say nothing of nice fat grubs in the dead wood.

Now when food is scarce on these mountains we have nowhere else to go, and sometimes we become very hungry and weak. My mother used to talk to me often about those -times, of which she had heard from her grandparents. They all lived in these mountains, but had many trips up and down the coast. When certain berries were scarce here, and our

tribe thought they would like a change of food, they would all set off on a fine morning in autumn for a flight down the coast. It must have been a wonderful sight to see thousands of our tribe, with red wings flashing in the morning sun, all talking at once, gathering up in the air to set off on the southward journey. At a signal from the leader off the whole host would fly.

Keeping just inland from the sea, where the snow-white breakers could be seen dashing against the rocky coast, they sped on southward to a forest, where some of the wise old leaders had been the year before, and where they knew that at this season of the year food would be in abundance. Here and there a large river and a broad harbour would come into view/on whose banks men and women could be seen digging up something out of the ground. My mother said that these were not the same people whom we now see so plentiful in the land, but were a brown-skinned race, which, like our own bird tribe, has become much less numerous since the white-skinned men and women came to this country. These brown-skinned people, although they took a lot of us for food, did not destroy our feeding grounds, and our race kept up its numbers. Not until the white-skinned people came and cut down and burnt our feeding grounds and homes, and pointed those "dreadful fire sticks at us, which made such an awful noise and killed us high up in the trees, did our numbers begin to dwindle.

Now I must tell you of one trait in our characters which led to the undoing of many a fine fat bird which flew away on that autumn morning. It was inquisitiveness, which was not confined to birds only. From scraps of conversation I have heard between people who sometimes wander into the forest, a lot of their children also have it. This is a big word for you young birds, but it means in our common talk “poking your beak into places that you ought not.” I will tell you of an incident that occurred on that journey which will illustrate what

I mean and will be an object-lesson to you not to be too inquisitive. “Joey” was a brilliantly-coloured young chap who thought, as he flew high up there above sea and forest, that he had nothing to learn from the wiser old birds who were leading the flock; so, gathering a few young bloods like himself, he left the main party and settled down in a forest, near where people were seen digging. There were wise old men in that village who knew the habits of our tribe very well, and their keen eyes saw “Joey” and his companions detach themselves from the main flock and settle in the forest near-by, and they immediately made preparations to catch them. They had with them one of our tribe, which they had taken from a nest and reared, and which lived with them in the village. This bird they took with them into the forest, and there they built a small hut with leaves of nikau and ponga, leaving only a small hole in the top out of which they put a small stick. Hiding themselves in the hut, the men made the tame bird call out, and it was not long before “Joey” heard it. He knew from its call that it was not one of his companions, and so he thought he would find out for himself. Nearer and nearer he drew until he perched on tfte stick that led down the hole. As it was dark inside he could not see down into the hut, but as the bird inside kept on crying out he sidled down the stick until he was almost out of sight. Just then a strong hand was thrust up out of the darkness, and poor “Joey” paid for his inquisitiveness with his life, and I am sorry to say that he was not the only one of that flock to do so.

One bird managed to escape from his captor and fled away screaming to take the sad news to the others of the main flock, which had settled in a large forest on the Waitakere Ranges. Later on the flock moved further south, flying across the Manukau Harbour and the Waikato River. There they found a very large forest, where many of them settled down for good.

Later on, towards the spring of the year, a number of the flock came back to the old home on the Mangamuka. Now no more can we fly up and down the land as we used to. The forests are nearly all

gone, and we have to be content with our own little world, and it is to be hoped that this will not be taken from us. There are signs, from what I can hear, that these white people are now sorry that they destroyed so much of our forest home and that they are now going to keep as much as possible of what is left for us and our children’s children, but we will never have the “good old days.”