E pori, e rangi wawa. Porirua pah. [image of page 51]
plate xx. E pori and her daughter e rangi wawa. E pori is wife of one of rangihaeta's warriors; she is celebrated for her skill in the art of witchcraft, and is regarded as a priestess by the surrounding people. She resides at the small pah of porirua, near taupo pah, on the shores of cook's straits. Her dress is a simple kakahu, of coarse and unprepared flax; and in her ear is a bunch of the feathers of the albatross, worn as an ornament. The blue lines on her face, are the outward signs of mourning for her friends, having been cut with pepi shells during the paroxysms of grief to which the women yield themselves, on the death of a favorite individual belonging to their tribe. E rangi wawa is regarded as a beauty amongst the inhabitants of porirua; she is about seventeen years of age, modest and retiring in her manner, and displays that playful and child-like naivete, which is so characteristic amongst the girls of new zealand. The dress is an ornamental variety of e koroai, a white flax mat, with rolled and twisted strings. In the foreground is a calabash used for carrying water, and beyond is represented a portion of the fence-work of porirua pah, with a whata, or raised store-house for food, and a stile leading into a court-yard, the step to which is formed by one of the vertebrae of a whale. Date: 1847.
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