Moemoea

For some time the native bird kino had been mistaken for the traditional Maori mythical (feathered) animal Moemoea. The reasons for this mistake are two. One, at least four traditions transcribe the chirping of Moemoea as “aroha”, which bears a great deal of resemblance to the actual kino tweet. Two, they look alike; both birds are described as having a disproportionately large round head, short beak, very long legs, and green feather. But perhaps the most striking coincidence is that both are supposed to be flightless. So far so good. Yet not long ago biologists began to look into the true dispositions of kinos and the new scientific discoveries that followed would shatter the dream of many who naively thought Moemoea might have come to life in reality. First, kinos actually CAN fly. Although they are not aviation experts kinos could take it to the air with an admirable speed when pushed. Nothing has been at all mentioned regarding this possibility in the case of the Moemoea. Second, kinos are surprisingly and unpredictably aggressive. Some scientists have managed to regress their seemingly periodic aggressive behaviour on a number of factors. Preliminary evidence from this line of research has tentatively identified TIME as the most critical variable: These birds have been shown by some to be most ready to attack just about anything in sight at an interval of roughly three months. Nevertheless, some newer studies have failed to replicate this finding. The Moemoea, on the other hand, is depicted as the most loving and peaceful angel sent by God to suffer for people. Third, further into the aggressive nature of kinos, scientists have shown that they make practically no distinction between friends and foes. They will attack their own families out of no obvious reason. Some experimental biologists have even shown an INVERSE relation between displayed aggression and social distance: Attacks of unbelievable cruelty are often directed toward sexual partners and members close in blood relation. No one knows exactly why they do this. But hypotheses have been put forward to relate such behavioural patterns to their extreme self-centredness; the so-called “selfish gene” does appear to be quite unconstrained in terms of its manifestation in kinos. One may ask given such aggressiveness why they still manage to live in social groups. The answer has to do with their state-of-the-art camouflage skill: Each member is born with a UNIQUE conversion system (neurologically hardwired) which governs and dictates an extremely complicated pattern of translation between categories of tweet and the behaviour that follows. Hence for one bird under a particular circumstance, “aroha” is followed by mating behaviour but for another bird under exactly the same circumstance, the same tweet could indicate extreme hatred motivating no less than complete annihilation of the other party. In short, they are the best liars you can find in the entire animal kingdom, of which man is generally not considered a member.

New Zealand Maori and Pakeha alike are so upset, discouraged, and disappointed by these findings, for the bird once thought to be the best candidate for the mythical Moemoea turns out to be nothing but a treacherous living demon. Therefore a lesson is learned, and a deep gash is left upon the national psyche.