Page:Picturesque New Zealand, 1913.djvu/92

 They built canoes for war and peace; they chiseled and polished weapons of strife; they made ornaments of greenstone, whalebone, and wood, and from the fibres of the flax, the kiekie, and the cabbage tree they wove clothing, mats, and baskets. They were rude surgeons, clever tattooers, hunters, fishers, tillers of the soil. Time they divided into seasons (summer and winter) and moons, and they searched the heavens; for many stars were known to them by name, and comets they dreaded. When the Maoris saw a comet headed toward the earth they recited incantations to prevent a collision.

In the moon the Maoris made a discovery that, if it should ever be substantiated, will forever relegate to the shades of oblivion the blithesome affirmation, "My lover's the man in the moon." For in Marama the Maoris found not a man, but a woman. Her name was Rona. And was Rona a divine and angelic creature? Ah, no. She was only a cook. At Kaipara, says legend, Rona was cooking, and was on her way to get a calabash of water, when she stumbled and fell. In her rage Rona cursed the innocent moon. The moon, becoming nettled, descended, and seized the angry wahine. The woman stoutly held to a tree, but the moon prevailed, and carried Rona, tree, and calabash to the sky.

One of the commonest of old Maori occupations was tattooing. Among both men and women it was the fashion to be tattooed. The men tattooed because they believed it improved their faces and made them look more resolute; and, further, because Maori women did