the site of this now fair city, the story of the fight of Purakanui may be cited, and we may feel assured that similar scenes were enacted where many a peaceful home now stands. Very trivial grounds were sufficient to give rise to a bloody fight, and though the Maori proverb says that "land and women are the causes of all evil," yet even childish differences at times gave rise to bloodshed. This was the case at Katiki (now called Kartigi), near Moeraki, where a bloody battle arose from a boy belonging to one hapu being bullied at play by a boy belonging to another family. Neither were these feuds confined to those who were aliens and natural enemies to one another; for at Purakanui the contestants were brothers, in the Maori language, which probably signified cousins more or less remote. Sir John Lubbock, in his "Origin of Civilization," tells us that it was no uncommon thing for savage races to have no distinctive word for the relationship we now call cousin, and he says that, "Among Aryan races the Romans and Germans alone developed a term for cousin, and we ourselves have, even now, no word for a cousin's son." However, the connection was not ignored, but those standing in such relationship to one another were called brothers. This was the case with the Maoris, so that close investigation must often be necessary before the exact relationship between different individuals can be satisfactorily elucidated.
The victor of Purakanui, a chief named Taonga, came from the north on a friendly visit to his younger brothers, Te Wera and Patuki, who may really have been older men than their visitor, for among the Maoris the issue of elder sons were deemed the elder brothers of the children of a younger son, even though they were younger in years. Be this as it may, in the present instance, Taonga adopted a very domineering tone towards his relatives, whose pride was therefore offended to such an extent that Te Wera killed a woman belonging to Taonga's party. After having murdered his victim, Te Wera put to sea with a number of his tribe, and paddling close to the shore whereon Taonga was camped, he showed the latter the body, and after taunting him in Maori fashion, shaped his course to Oamaru, where many of Taonga's people lay. There Te Wera landed, and falling suddenly on Taonga's tribe, took them by surprise,
