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Updated: May 19, 2025
Katipo and another dog that we have picked up have taken to lapping at the creek in the gully, and laying themselves down near the stream, seem inclined for a brief snooze. The two Maoris are hacking at some nikaus, and extracting the pith therefrom; and the Saint and I think it well to do likewise.
Then Katipo discovers a small family of pigs comfortably stowed away among the dense vegetation of a little marshy hollow. These give the three of us some diversion; we manage to kill two of them, and drive out the remainder upwards through the bush.
A certain venomous spider, the "katipo," of the Maoris, whose bite is often fatal to the natives, had been very highly recommended to him. But a spider does not belong to the order of insects properly so called; it is placed in that of the arachnida, and, consequently, was valueless in Cousin Benedict's eyes.
Get a hand between the struggling forelegs, gently, along the neck! Now then, out with the ready sheath-knife, and dig it in! There! Right to the heart, till the blood spurts out over us! Hurrah! Good! There's another mother of a family the less! And now we may take breath for a minute or two, praise old Katipo, and cut off the pig's ears as a trophy.
Each man has got his little parcel of bread or biscuit and meat, tied up firmly in flax, and fastened to his belt; but besides this, the bush is affording us other kinds of tucker. Katipo killed a kiwi in the course of our morning's hunt, and this bird is now being skinned, cut up, and roasted on sticks.
Then triumphantly does Old Colonial put his knee on the boar's belly, calmly he presses back the snout with one hand, while, in the other, his knife glitters for a moment in the sunshine, and is then driven well home. In another minute, with Old Colonial's whoop of victory ringing in my ears, I, too, am engaged. A great, heavy sow passes close before me, with Katipo tearing at her ear.
The pig is screaming like a hundred railway engines; kicking, plunging, stamping, tearing, twisting from side to side in a vain endeavour to rid herself of us, or to get at us with those formidable jaws; shaking Katipo a big mastiff-like cur about, as a cat would shake a mouse.
Deep and dire are the maledictions heaved at the unhappy Shark, and in which his companions, Rimu and Toto, Wolf and Katipo, have unjustly to share.
Following them up hotly for about a mile, Katipo lays hold of one after another, which we turn over and stick as we can, killing two or three more in this way. But the work is very arduous, and the day is wearing towards noon, and is consequently very hot March being here equivalent to an English September, but much warmer and drier.
The "katipo," found in sedges on the beach of New Zealand, is dreaded by the Maoris, who traditionally refuse to sleep nearer than half a stone's throw from the water, that being the extent of range of the spider.
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