You give pleasure to my eyes, and in your ears has sounded the wisdom of Tiki.—Welcome, friends of my guest.
Welcome all!
Welcome!”
Hine-nui-te-po has swallowed the world again and Rangi looks down upon Papa out of his Eye of Night, the moon, and is slowly unfolding his beautiful garment, which is adorned with the stars—the eyes of the braves who fell in battle.
Fiery looks Maru down upon the women who kindle the cooking-fire; Maru was the god of war in Hawaiki, but he was an evil god, full of anger and wrath, and from him are descended illness and murder. He had many enemies, and at last they killed him, and devoured him; but his spirit flew up to Rangi, there to become the fiery and flashing star.
Rauriki, the oldest among the women who kindle the cooking-fire, murmurs, for she is old, but she is a woman and murmurs no wisdom; she murmurs incantations to the fire that it might listen to Maui, who once brought the fire into the world—to be bright and warm and to cook the food for the hungry and for the guest.
Silent and peaceful is the night. The Great Mother of Nature swallows silently a few old songs and the low-toned voices that sound out of the huts and the whare-puni.
Ngawai, Rauriki’s granddaughter now takes the embers to the whare-puni, and puts them to the feet of Tiki, to warm and light the house, and outside Night is working her grand and lonely wonders, while the old men, squatting around the fire and staring into the flames, narrate of the terrors of Hine-nui-te-po.
Musing and wondering thoughts light up the glow of the fire in the faces, fire flashes out of the pawa-shell eyes of the old ancestor, and patches of light flicker over the group that surrounds the fire, now lighting up the artistic lines of the tattoo in the faces, now again the phantastic carvings on the walls, or suddenly brightening a painted ornament, and covering the rest with impenetrable blackness.