There was a kind of variation on the _tapu_, called _tapa_, of this nature. For instance, if a chief said, "That axe is my head," the axe became his to all intents and purposes, except, indeed, the owner of the axe was able to break his "head," in which case, I have reason to believe, the _tapa_ would fall to the ground. It was, however, in a certain degree necessary to have some legal reason, or excuse, for making the _tapa_; but to give some idea of what constituted the circumstances under which a man could fairly _tapa_ anything, I must needs quote a case in point. When the Ngapuhi attacked the tribe of Ngati Wakawe, at Rotorua, the Ngati Wakawe retired to the island of Mokoia in the lake of Rotorua, which they fortified, thinking that, as the Ngapuhi canoes could not come nearer than Kaituna on the east coast, about thirty miles distant, they in their island position would be safe. But in this they were fatally deceived, for the Ngapuhi dragged a whole fleet of war canoes over land. When, however, the advanced division of the Ngapuhi arrived at Rotorua, and encamped on the shore of the lake, Ngati Wakawe were not aware that the canoes of the enemy were coming, so every morning they manned their large canoes, and leaving the island fort, would come dashing along the shore, deriding the Ngapuhi, and crying, "_Ma wai koe e kawe mai ki Rangitiki?_"--"Who shall bring you, or how shall you arrive, at Rangitiki?" Rangitiki was the name of one of their hill forts. The canoes were fine large ornamented _totara_ canoes, very valuable, capable of carrying from fifty to seventy men each, and much coveted by the Ngapuhi. The Ngapuhi, of course, considered all these canoes as their own already, but the different chiefs and leaders, anxious to secure one or more of these fine canoes for themselves and people, and not knowing who might be the first to lay hands on them in the confusion of the storming of Mokoia, which would take place when their own canoes arrived, each _tapa'd_ one or more for himself, or, as the native expression is, _to_ himself. Up jumped Pomare, and standing on the lake shore, in front of the encampment of the division of which he was leader, he shouts, pointing at the same time to a particular canoe at the time carrying about sixty men, "That canoe is my back-bone." Then Tareha, in bulk like a sea-elephant, and sinking to the ankles in the shore of the lake, with a hoarse, croaking voice roars out, "That canoe! my skull shall be the baler to bale it out." This was a horribly strong _tapa_. Then the soft voice of the famous Hongi Ika, surnamed "The eater of men," of _Hongi kai tangata_, was heard, "Those two canoes are my two thighs." And so the whole flotilla was appropriated by the different chiefs. Now it followed from this that in the storming and plunder of Mokoia, when a warrior clapped his hand on a canoe and shouted, "This canoe is mine," the seizure would not stand good if it was one of the canoes