Ngā Rauropi Whakaoranga

Cowan"s informants were Tiemi, Kupa Haereroa and Hone Te Paina from Colac (Oraka) Bay, Southland. Various incidents outlined.

Of ethnobotanical interest: The "Takitimu" immigrants, under their chief Tamatea settled at Tarahau-kapiti, near the base of Takitimu Mountain, and established villages around the foot of Te Anau, where eels and birds were abundant. "[They] ... discovered soot made from the bark of certain trees made an excellent indelible blue dye or pigment (kārehu: North Island, ngārehu) for tattooing. The pit or hole made for burning the bark, etc., was called "Te rua o te moko" (the pit of the tattoo). This, say the Māoris, was the origin of the phrase "Te Rua-o-te-Moko", used as in reference to the country round Te Anau, and now often applied by the Southland natives to the region extending from the lakes to the west coast." [The trees referred to are likely to be rimu and kahikatea. See other references for tattooing.]

References to mōkihi, rafts built of kōrari (flax stems) and raupō.

The coast dwelling remnant of Ngāti Mamoe were defeated on the shores of Preservation Inlet. In one strategy, a Ngāti-Kurī chief named Maru, dressed in a rough cloak of tōī leaves, acted the part of a seal gambolling on the beach, and decoyed Ngāti Mamoe down on the sands, where they were slain by their concealed enemies. Ths same chief is the one (according to Te Paina) who later boarded Cook"s ship, the Resolution, in Dusky Sound in 1773.