The first person slain during a battle was known as the mataika, which meant the first fish – though the term literally means face of a fish. During the New Zealand wars a Te Arawa warrior, Metara, had a dream in which he saw a giant fish with his face. He took this to mean that he would be the mataika. He attempted to stay in the rear of the attack, but was still the first person shot in battle. Fortunately for him he survived.
Using this item
New Zealand Electronic Text Collection
Reference:
Maui Pomare and James Cowan, Legends of the Maori. Auckland: Southern Reprints, 1987
This item is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 New Zealand Licence
Add new comment