ovens for cooking, thrown on the roofs of the houses: the Pa too was full of the steam of cooked food. As for the woman, she was placed for concealment in an oven. So the Fairies feared to come near; for how could they enter the Pa in their dread of the kokowai, and the steam of the ovens which filled the court-yard. So great is their dread of cooked food.
Then the tohunga Maori all standing up sung a karakia to put to sleep the Fairies.
Thrust aside, thrust afar.
Thrust aside your sacredness,
Thrust aside your tohunga:
Let me, let me mark[1] you,
Let me mark your brow,
Give me thereupon your sacredness,
You mana, your tohunga,
Your karakia give me,
To place beside the oven-stones,
To place beside the cinders,
To place beside the kokowai.
Now these rest on your head,
On your sacred places,
On your female Ariki.
Your sacredness is undone.
By the time this karakia came to an end, all the Fairies were seated on the ground. Their chief then stood up, and sung thus:—
Which now oppresses me.
I stretched out my hand
To the mate of Tirini.
Followed were my footsteps,
And charmed was returning love,
- ↑ With kokowai, or red-ochre.
