When the warriors, a little later on, were enjoying their meal of man-meat, some of the little children were heard calling out to their fathers: "_Homai he poaka mou_" ("Give me some pork to eat"). They had seen the meat carried up in flax baskets, and thought it was pork. Now the white soldiers' funeral pyre was set alight. An old man, Titokowaru's _tohunga_, or priest, walked up to it with a long stick of green timber in his hand, an unbarked sapling with a rough crook at one end. He stood in front of the pile as the flames shot up and chanted a song. Then, when the logs with their terrible burdens were well alight, he began a strange incantation. Using his long stick with both hands he turned over the burning logs, pushed them closer together to create a fiercer heat, and forked the bodies into the midst of the blaze. And as he did so he recited a pagan _karakia_, the chant of the _Iki_, anciently repeated over the bodies of warriors when they were being cremated on the battle-field. These were the words of the incantation (the mystic meaning underlying some of the expressions would require many notes to fully elucidate them): _Translation._ _Ka waere,_ Clear them away, _Ka waere,_ Clear them away! _Ka waere i runga ma keretu,_ Sweep them into the earth, _Ka waere i raro ma keretu,_ Into the stiff and useless clay. _Kei kai kutu ma keretu,_ There let them perish and _Kei kai riha ma keretu,_ decay. _Whakatahia te kukakuka,_ Sweep man's flesh to earth _Whakarere te kukakuka,_ again. _Te roua atu,_ Fork them that way! _Te kapea mai._ Haul them this way! _Roua ki Whiti,_ Fork them to Whiti, _Roua ki Tonga,_ Fork them to Tonga, _E tu te rou,_ To the ancient homes of man. _Rouroua!_ Here I hold my fork erect,