Explore "The Curse of Manaia" by George Grey on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
When the Tainui and the Arawa sailed away from Hawaiki with Ngātoroirangi on board, he left behind him his younger sister, Kuiwai, who was married to a powerful chief named Manaia. Some time after the canoes had left, a great meeting of all the people of his tribe was held by Manaia, to remove a tapu; and when the religious part of the ceremony was ended, the women cooked food for the strangers.
When their ovens were opened, the food in the oven of Kuiwai, the wife of Manaia, and sister of Ngātoroirangi, was found to be much underdone, and Manaia was very angry with his wife, and gave her a severe beating, and cursed, saying, "Accursed be your head! Are the logs of firewood as sacred as the bones of your brother, that you were so sparing of them as not to put into the fire in which the stones were heated enough to make them red hot? Will you dare to do the like again? If you do, I'll serve the flesh of your brother in the same way; it shall frizzle on the red-hot stones of Waikororā."