Te Matanga went to work again and experimented with the berries of the tutu or Coronaria, extracting thence a beverage as grateful as that which he had quaffed from the chalice of the flax-flowers. Yet the berries, eaten whole, are poisonous.
The beverages which Te Matanga gave to his countrymen were neither noxious nor degrading. It was the civilised Christian who introduced to the pagan savage that "enemy which steals away men's brains." Left to themselves, the Maori showed no inclination towards intoxicating liquors. Even in later days they proved remarkably temperate, their barter with the Pakeha rarely including a supply of what they characteristically designated "stink-water." They did not even brew the highly stimulating yaqona, so popular with the South Sea Islanders; which is remarkable, since the plant (Piper methysticum) grows wild in New Zealand.
Our wise man also taught his compatriots the value of the edible fern, Pteris esculenta, whose bright-green fronds waved ten feet or more above the ground. The underground stem was cut into plugs and matured, and, this done, was eaten plain, or cakes were baked of the flour beaten out of it.
It was not ordained that the Maori should subsist entirely upon a vegetable diet. Te Matanga searched for something more stimulating and readily found it. He showed his people fat eels in creek and river, while from the sea they drew Mango, the shark, Tawatawa, the mackerel, Hapuku, the cod (not that of northern waters) and a hundred other varieties of fish, which they cooked or dried or smoked. It was sometimes their good fortune to slay great Ikamoana, the whale, and Kekeno, the seal, both of which they ate with relish; while for sauce, Tio, the oyster, sat upon the rocks and gaped while they scooped him from his shell.
The dwellers inland had eels and the delicious little green, whitebait-like Inanga of the lakes to eat with their fern-root and kumara. And well for them it was so; for, with the exception of Pekapeka, the bat, who swept by them in eerie flight when the long-lingering day grew pale about them, not a mammal roamed the plains or haunted the deep woods. Kuri, the dog, and Maungarua, the rat, they also ate; for Maungarua[29] multiplied exceedingly, while Kuri took to the bush and ran wild.
Ngara,[30] the lizard, frisked in the sunshine; but no son of Maui looked upon him if it could be avoided; for Ngara were dread beasts, in whose bodies the spirits of the dead found an abiding-place. Even such stalwarts as Ngahue and Te Turi would blanch at sight of any of that terrible race. Moreover, Taniwha,[31] the great, the horrible, whom to mention was unsafe, and to set eyes upon was to perish, was not he, too, a lizard? Nay; close the eyes and mutter a karakia[32] should Ngara cross your path.
How blessed the Maori were in the absence of other reptiles they did not learn till much later. Australia abounds in snakes, from the huge carpet-snake, cousin to the boa, to the "deaf-adder," whose bite is almost certainly fatal; but in New Zealand, as in Ireland, not even a toad is to be found wherewith to point the sweetness of the "uses of adversity."
The clever men now sought food among the birds, and found on land pigeons, plovers, rails, ducks, quails and parrots innumerable. Of these last, one, the kakapo, was almost as big as a fowl, like which it ran about the ground, feeding; for its wings were short and feeble, and it rarely used them except to fly from a bough to the earth and up again. Conscious of its weakness, it chose the late twilight or the night for its rambles, hiding away during the day. Like so many of the interesting birds of New Zealand, it is now nearly extinct.
Among sea-birds, many of which were eaten, particular choice was made of Titi,[33] the Mutton-bird. These birds flew inland at night, and the Maori, anticipating their coming, would choose a likely spot upon the verge of a cliff and build a row of fires. Behind these they lurked, armed with sticks and, as the birds, attracted by the light, flew past, they were knocked over in immense numbers. As the flesh was oily, they were preserved in their own fat, packed in baskets of seaweed and stored until winter, when they formed a staple and highly flavoured dish. The inland tribes made annual pilgrimages to the coast for the purpose of procuring a supply of mutton-birds.
Of all the birds which the Maori found on their arrival the most singular were those which are either extinct or fast becoming so. These were the Struthidae, or wingless birds,—such as the ostrich, the rhea, and the emu,—which were represented in New Zealand by the gigantic moa[34] and the kiwi.[35]