constant communication with them, making war on them, ousting them from the lands, and enslaving them.
The same Nga-Puhi tradition which was quoted a few paragraphs back, goes on to state, "Some of the people of those parts were very black, a people who smelt very strongly when near, * * their hair was bunched out to be stiff and appeared in tufts, and their appearance was ill-favoured." This is, in brief form, a fair description of a Papuan or Melanesian.
Maui, the Ancient Hero.
During the period that the people were dwelling in Avaiki-te-varinga, which is certainly in Indonesia, we meet with the story of Māui, the great Polynesian hero or demigod. He is said by Rarotonga history to have been the son of Tangaroa, by the wife of Ataranga (Maori, Taranga), named Vaine-uenga. It seems that this Tangaroa was really a man, and not the god of that name, though in the process of time the attributes of the latter have been in some cases ascribed to the man Tangaroa. It is scarcely necessary to say that Tangaroa has been used as a man's name from remote times down to the present day, as a reference to the genealogical table at the end hereof will show. I suppose this particular Tangaroa to have been one of the adventurers and voyagers of the Indonesia sojourn; and he is accredited with having discovered a new kind of food, or fruit, the name of which, however, does not throw much light on what it was. It is called in Rarotongan history ui-ara-kakano,[1] and was found by
- ↑ I can only make a guess at the meaning of this word. Ui is the Rarotongan name for the yam. Ara has no sense in this
