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Tanoa is a large kainga on the Otamatea river, and lies about sixteen miles across the bush from our farm, or somewhat more by the water-road. It contains a population of two or three hundred; men, women, and children. This Maori town may be considered the metropolis of the Ngatewhatua tribe.
Tanoa is prettily situated, for the Otamatea, though a larger river than the Pahi, is very picturesque in parts. The kainga lies embosomed in orchards of peach and pear, cherry and almond, and extensive cultivations and grass-paddocks surround it. Most of the houses are, of course, the usual raupo wharès, but there are carpentered frame-houses in the kainga as well.
There were chiefs, such as Tanoa, Tuiveikoso, and Tuikilakila, who had literally eaten hundreds of their fellow men. But among these gluttons Ra Undreundre ranked highest. Ra Undreundre lived at Takiraki. He kept a register of his gustatory exploits. A row of stones outside his house marked the bodies he had eaten.
He mixed it thoroughly and then with his hands formed balls of the oozy mass, from which he squeezed the juice into another tanoa glazed a deep, rich blue by its frequent saturation in kava. When this trough was quite full of a muddy liquid, he deftly clarified it by sweeping through it a net of cocoanut fiber. All the while he chanted in a deep resonant voice the ancient song of the ceremony.
Water is then added in sufficient quantity till the tanoa is half-filled with a thin yellowish-green liquid, which is carefully strained by a thick "swab" of the beaten bark of the fau-tree. This straining operation is performed only by a very experienced lady, and is watched in respectful silence. Then the drink is handed round in a polished bowl of coconut-shell.
Old Colonial and the Saint had taken to making their cattle-hunting expeditions invariably lead them to Tanoa; where they said they went to talk to Mihake about stock, but where, it was remembered, too, pretty Rakope and her sisters dwelt.
The ariki of the Ngatewhatua lives at Tanoa. He is between forty and fifty, if as much, a very tall and very portly personage. He is a great man, corporeally certainly, and, perhaps, in other ways as well. Arama Karaka, or Adam Clark in Pakeha pronunciation, has had more English education than Tama, and is altogether of larger mind.
We have tried to urge the Little'un, or the Saint, or even O'Gaygun into some such match; but they are shy, I suppose, and do not seem to fancy taking "a savage woman to rear their dusky race." Yet it would be unfair to call the brunette beauties of Tanoa savages. Place aux dames! Let us get on to consider the ladies.
Navindi's answer was, `It is good. The women's cause was gained, and old Tanoa thus pronounced his judgment: `Those who are dead, are dead; those who are alive shall live. The heroic ladies retired with their three rescued fellow-creatures, and had the satisfaction besides of discovering that their daring efforts had produced a more than hoped-for effect.
A dozen older women, skilled in grating the breadfruit for popoi making, awaited us there, squatting in a ring on the low platform. The root, well washed in the river, was laid on the stones, and the women attacked it with cowry-shells, scraping it into particles like slaw. It was of the hardness of ginger, and filled a large tanoa, or wooden trough of ironwood.
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