Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 28, 1917.djvu/387

Rh In addition to the finding of the first egg two other cermoniesceremonies [sic] were mentioned in connection with Orongo and Motu Nui: they were known as "Manu" and "Také" and frequently spoken of together, but to obtain detailed information was a matter of great difficulty. On the subject of Take I have notes of twenty conversations with nine different persons, none of which was really satisfactory; it finally transpired that no first-hand knowledge existed as the rites had been abandoned thirty years before the coming of the missionaries and not as the result of their teaching. All that can be safely said is that those concerned went into retreat on Motu Nui, living, it was stated, in the cave where the hopu awaited the birds; the period was generally given as three months, A vigorous discussion took place on the subject between the oldest man and woman on the island seated on a log in the garden of the old lady; she was positive, in agreement with other authorities, that také was for children, "the boys and girls went in a canoe to the island"; he firmly adhered to the statement that his father went for také after he, the son, was born. The only remaining native who knew anything of the art of hieroglyphic writing stated that také formed the subject of one of the tablets and drew one of its figures, which bears no resemblance to any other known symbol.

Information since acquired of practices elsewhere in the Pacific has suggested the possibility that the retreat was in connection with tattooing and not directly with the bird cult. In some confirmation of this tattooing is stated to have been practised at Mata-Gnarau, the carved rocks of Orongo, and a folk-tale speaks of the earliest exponents of the art as living in a specified cave, not that of the hopu, on Motu Nui. The practice was admittedly on the down grade even before the cataclysm of the sixties.

The details of Manu were more satisfactory. It was known as "Te manu mo te poki," or "the bird for the child," and the child so initiated became a "poki manu,"