... Another
year passed, and a man by the name of Ure Honu
went to work in his banana plantation. He went and came
to the last part, to the 'head' (i.e., the upper part of
the banana plantation), to the end of the banana
plantation. The sun was standing
just right for Ure Honu to clean out the weeds
from the banana plantation.
On the first
day he hoed the weeds. That went on all day, and then
evening came. Suddenly a rat came from the middle of the
banana plantation. Ure Honu saw it and ran after
it. But it disappeared and he could not catch it. On the
second day of hoeing, the same thing happened with the
rat. It ran away, and he could not catch it. On the
third day, he reached the 'head' of the bananas and
finished the work in the plantation. Again the rat ran
away, and Ure Honu followed it.
It ran and
slipped into the hole of a stone. He poked after it,
lifted up the stone, and saw that the skull was (in the
hole) of the stone. (The rat was) a spirit of the skull
(he kuhane o te puoko)
...
Ure
Honu was amazed and said, 'How beautiful you are! In
the head of the new bananas is a skull, painted with
yellow root and with a strip of barkcloth around it.'
Ure Honu stayed for a while, (then) he went away and
covered the roof of his house in Vai Matā.
It was a new house. He took
the very large skull, which he had found at the head of
the banana plantation, and hung it up in the new house.
He tied it up in the framework of the roof (hahanga)
and left it hanging there ... |