[14] The reference is to the gigantic, wingless bird, now extinct, the Moa—Dinornis moa.
[15] Good! Hurrah!
[16] Sweet potato—Ipomoea batatas.
[17] Corynocarpus laevigata.
[18] Water-hen—Porphyrio melanotus.
THE MEN WHO CAME
The foregoing is more or less traditional among the Maori as to their migration from some other place and settlement in New Zealand. Some facts have been handed down for generations, but the traditions are confused. When the first Pakeha[19] arrived, every Maori believed that certain events had happened in the far past; but there was little agreement as to the manner or sequence in which those events had occurred.
Many investigators—notably Sir George Grey—have inquired in the truest spirit of antiquarian research into the traditions of the Maori; and what between the discoveries of such trained observers, the dabblings of the amateur, and the luck of the "rolling-stones," who have picked up a tale here and a legend there, we have a fairly clear account of the coming of the Maori to New Zealand, as far as it is uncertainly known and hazily remembered among themselves.