The Sun is setting, and our canoe is gliding, slowly, with the tide, up the river. Hupene, sitting in the prow, is staring to the west, and mutters lowly to himself; Ngawai plays lazily with the paddle, and is listening to what the old man is muttering, while the sandhills slowly pass by.
Hupene is staring into the broad reflexion of the Sun over the sea, but he has to close his eyes; and, bending his head, he commences a low-toned chant. Of Maui he sings, yes, of Maui, the hero of his people.
He sings how Maui and Irawaru once went together out to catch fish, and how Maui could not catch any, and Irawaru caught many.
Lower sinks the Sun whilst Hupene is murmuring, and the mighty spectacle of the sunset illustrates his chant. There is the Sun God Maui ready to steer his Sun-canoe into the Lower Worlds again, singing his song of farewell to his sister Hinauri, the earth.
Irawaru, the husband of Hinauri, had followed Maui in the morning upon the sea, to catch fish—Irawaru is the reflexion of the sun over the sea, wandering forth with the sun in the mornings to catch fish—what else could a man do on the sea?
Maui’s fish-lines are the rays, shining through and between the clouds, and his sharp-pointed fish-lines may enter deep into the sea among the fish, but, having no barbs, they are not able to hold and land the fish in his canoe. But Irawaru’s fishing-lines have many barbs, which you may see in the ripple of the water, and you may see too, the fish caught, and playing among Irawaru’s fish-lines.
“Ah” (sings Hupene) “Irawaru caught many fish, a great many, and therefore Maui, who had not caught a single one became very angry, and in his wrath he entangled the fish-lines! Irawaru’s line had caught a fish, and Maui, feeling it tear and try to free itself, hauled up the lines with all his might. Ha, when he lifts the fish now out of the water, he sees that it is caught by Irawaru, but he also sees the secret of the barbs on Irawaru’s fish-hook.”
The Sun is nearly touching the sea; Hupene is smiling cunningly to himself, and the canoe is gliding noiseless in the broad Reflexion of the Sun.
“Yes, Maui wanted to kill Irawaru, because he had deceived him with his barbs. His face becomes red with rage, and he asks Irawaru to help him land his Sun-canoe upon the shores of the Lower World, for he had reached Mahiku-rangi, the End of Heaven. Maui is cunning, and Irawaru, not knowing Maui’s wrath, crawls under the Sun-canoe to help him lift it upon the shores of the Lower World, when Maui, with all his mighty strength, began to jump in the canoe, pressing it down, and nearly killing Irawaru. Then, springing out of his canoe, he jumped and danced upon Irawaru till his body grew longer and longer and took the form of a tail; and then with incantations Maui changed Irawaru into a dog.”
So sings Hupene. The blood-red Sun seems to tremble and dance, before he sinks below the sea: he changes Irawaru into a dog which is now running as the last shade of light upon the mountains, whilst the Sun is entering the Lower World.
Our canoe is putting ashore to leave Hupene behind; but his sing-song is not ended yet, and he is standing on the shore before the golden evening-sky, and finishes his song, which Ngawai in the noiselessly on-gliding canoe is listening to and translating:
“Hinauri asked the parting Maui what he had done to her husband, for she did not see him coming back with him, and Maui answered that Irawaru had crawled among the bushes on the mountain; that she must go and call out to him: mo-i-mo-i, Irawaru, mo-i-mo-i. Hinauri did as she was told, and called and called, till at last a dog came running towards her, and she knew it was Irawaru, her husband, whom Maui had so cruelly changed into a dog. She broke out in a great lament, and at last she cast herself into the sea.”
The earth follows the parting sun into the darkness.
Far up in the misty mountains dwell the Patu-paiarehe, the fairies of Maori Land. They are seldom seen; and, indeed, most mortals who have no gift of imagination and no mana-tapu cannot expect to behold the good people; and many who know no better deny their existence.
It is supposed by some that they were really tribes of aborigines whom the Maoris found dwelling in this wild new land when they arrived here from the isles of Polynesia. But the old Maoris say that they still inhabit certain of the lofty forest-clad mountains of Aotearoa—a numerous people, some of them tiny gnomes and elves and pixies, some of them in the presentment of men and women of this world but smaller and exquisitely-shaped and with fair hair and fair skins just like Europeans. They are known to the Maoris by several names: Turehu, Tahurangi, Maero, and Patu-paiarehe; but their common designation is Patu-paiarehe. They are a bright, cheerful race, and take great pleasure in music. They are skilled in charms and the art of enchantment, and many a strange adventure has happened to the Maori who has had the temerity to venture into their haunts.
Like the elves of other countries, these fairies of Maori Land dread daylight, and appear only by night. Sometimes, on dark and gloomy days, when the thick mists descend and envelop the bare crags and deep ravines of the mountains of the South, the fairy people will be heard chanting songs in a thin sweet cadence, and then too will be heard the doleful sound of the fairy trumpet, and the faint and plaintive music of the Koauau, or nose-flute, and the voices of the fairy children laughing and singing above the clouds. But most of all they love the thickly-wooded mountains of the North, the Fish of Maui, where they live in their little pas, palisaded like those of the Maoris, and adorned with quaint little carvings and diminutive figures of fairy ancestors. Few mortals can discover those pas. They are hidden far away in the shadiest recesses of the bush, where the mist-maidens hover all day long, and where the Goddess of the Clouds descends nightly and covers her fairy children with her loving mantle. A Tohunga alone can perceive those stockades and houses of the Patu-paiarehe. To ordinary folk who penetrate the fairy country, those works of the little people are to all appearance mere trees and rocks and beds of ferns. But, if you have the wise eye and the Tohunga’s understanding, you will see that the great rimu pine, with its drooping waterfall of golden foliage, and the lance-like kahikatea, tall and stately, the knotted and gnarled rata, the graceful nikau palm, and the lovely tree-fern, swishing gently its broad feather-fronds, are all part and portion of the Patu-paiarehe dwellings. For the fairies are ever of the forests: with the forest-trees they live, and with the passing of the forests they, too, pass away.
Many are the stories told of the fairy people and their encounters with mortals. One story says that it was from a party of fairies who were fishing by night for mackerel (tawatawa) in a bay in the far North, where they were joined by adventurous Maoris, and who, being surprised by daylight, fled, leaving their nets on the beach, that the Maori people first learned the pattern and hitch used in making the large seine fishing-nets.
Harmless as the Patu-paiarehe ordinarily were, they yet could worry mortals considerably on occasion. Some hapus of fairies, for instance, were in the habit of making periodical nocturnal expeditions to the homes of the Maoris and carrying off their wives. The korako, or albinos, sometimes seen amongst the Maoris are said to be the offspring of these unions; though in the far North they are spoken of as the children of kehua (ghostly visitants) and the women of this world. One of these stories of wife-abduction by the fairies relates to Mt Pirongia.
This beautiful mountain, with its dense woody ridges and valleys, its cascading brooks and its rocky fastnesses, is in Maori eyes the abode of hosts of Patu-paiarehe. In the dark moonless nights the lone eel-fisher out on the Waipa banks would start in affright when on his imaginative ear broke the sound of the fairies singing in their pas, and he would promptly fortify himself against their magic wiles by reciting potent karakia or incantations, and would chant a high quavering waiata to scare away the goblins of the night.
One day long ago Te Puhi and I were out pigeon-shooting far up the wooded slopes of Mt Pirongia. Evening had come upon us while we were intent upon bagging the “wing-flapping children of Tane”, and, as we had a long and toilsome journey down the bush ridges and across rapid creeks to make before we reached the old frontier township of Alexandra, my Maori companion and I decided upon spending the night in the forest. So, selecting a comfortable nook beneath the spreading branches of a fine old rata tree, we were soon enjoying a savoury meal of fat pigeons roasted over the camping fire, with the turnip-like pith of the nikau palm in lieu of bread. Tama-nui-te-Ra sank down beyond the westernmost peak into his ocean cave. The evening mists crept up from the murmuring streams and the gloomy gullies, and stole noiselessly along the dark forest ranges; and the Hau-ma-ringiringi, the soft fog-born dews, descended on the earth. And there was something uncanny in the long dancing gleams of light which shot through the forest from our bivouac fire. The black shadows of the woodland swayed like ghosts with the flickering of the flames; and, Puhi, squatting close by the fire, gazed half fearfully down the gloomy forest aisles. And presently, in subdued tones, as if he were chary of arousing the genii of the bush by too loud a tongue, he told the story of the fairies.
“O friend of mine, listen! This is the belief of our people. This peak of Pirongia is an enchanted mountain; and it is well that you, a pakeha, are with me, else would I perchance be visited by the fairy tribe who dwell upon these heights. Pirongia is a Maunga-hikonga-uira, that is a ‘lightning-flashing peak’. Sometimes, when it is fine weather below on the plains, thunder will be heard rolling along the summit, and the lightning will be seen darting downwards upon its topmost peak. That is a tohu maté, an omen of death or misfortune to the Maoris: some chief of our tribe will die, or some untoward event will overtake the people. And high up around the top of the mountain live the Patu-paiarehe.
A great many years ago, many generations before the pakeha came to these shores and when the plains below us here were covered with the fires of the Maoris, there lived at the foot of this mountain, near the Waipa River, a chief named Ruarangi of the tribe to which I too belong. His wife was named Tawhaiatu, and she was a woman of fine appearance, a beautiful woman in the eyes of the Maori. And the fairies of the mountain also considered her a fine wahine, for one morning when Ruarangi returned to his house in the early dawn, after having been out all night eel-fishing, he found that his wife had disappeared. He searched long for her, and called her name aloud, but to no avail. When full daylight came, Ruarangi, greatly sorrowing, took his spear in his hand and placed his stone weapon in his belt and went along the track in the direction of the mountain where the fairies dwelt, for he knew that his wife had been carried off by a Patu-paiarehe. And, as he paused awhile on his way, he stretched forth his spear towards the fairy-mountain and wept, and chanted his song of lamentation for his vanished wife:
And lying in wait for two days near the forest pa, Ruarangi performed the ceremonies and repeated the incantations to recover his ravished wife. By stratagem he gained the place where she had been taken to by the fairy—the Patu-paiarehe did not perceive him, else had he been a dead man; and in haste he took her, before her fairy husband could follow in pursuit, and they reached their village on the banks of the Waipa in safety.
But Ruarangi and his wife knew that, though they were back in their home, the fairy chief or his followers would come by night and endeavour to regain possession of her. Their hearts sank as they communed long with one another in the shelter of their raupo house and planned how to prevent the fairies from again carrying Tawhaiatu away. And at night there came the spirit of one of their priestly ancestors, and it sat on the ridge-pole of their house and the thin whistling voice of the wairua spoke down to them as they sat by the fire in the centre of the whare:
‘Oh, friends, I greet you! Hearken to my words. Smear the sacred paint of kokowai all over your bodies, and paint the inside of your house and the door-posts and the door and threshold also with the kokowai, for the Patu-paiarehe fear the kokowai as they do the fire of man. And, when the fairies come and see that you have covered everything over with kokowai, they will be afraid to enter into your house at night to steal the woman.’
So in the morning Ruarangi and his wife went forth and gathered kokowai earth (the sacred red ochre of the Maoris), and, mixing it, painted the whole of the inside of the house and the lintel-posts and the door, and also painted their bodies with it, and as evening came on they lit a fire in the house and awaited the coming of the fairy.
And at night, in the black darkness, there came to the house of Ruarangi the fairy chief from the misty mountain-top. He stood in the marae outside the door, and, as he looked into the house and saw the red kokowai on the posts and walls and on the bodies of the man and woman who sat by the fire repeating incantations, he grew afraid, and remained outside in the courtyard. He raised his voice in a song of lamentation, for he loved Tawhaiatu, but he could not prevail against the sacred kokowai and the powerful spells of Ruarangi. And then the fairy returned sorrowing to his dwelling on lofty Pirongia.”
“And,” said the pakeha, “Ruarangi and his wife lived happily together for the rest of their days.”
“Ae ra” (“Yes,”) gravely returned the Maori. “And who should know if not I? For Ruarangi and Tawhaiatu were my own ancestors. And perhaps I am half a Patu-paiarehe myself. Who can tell?”
“The Path of the Spirits”—the mind of the young Maoris runs far now from battle and bloodshed, and but few bear the blood of the warriors in their veins, that blood which suddenly boils into powerful deeds.
Few carry the blood of the Rangatiras, who were masters over the bloodthirsty savages, or of the women, who were slaves, but who were sometimes Tohungas and powerful masters over the savage passions.
Out on the sea is the tribe, enjoying life and fishing under the summer sky; the pa (village) is lifeless, and the semi-darkness of the whare-puni broods lonelily over the past. The past, full of history for Ngawai—Hine-aroha, the friend: it is the whare-puni of her ancestors. Carved is there Tama-te-Kapua, the great Chief—Tohunga, her ancestor, who came from Hawaiki.
Silent is the whare-puni; silent are the carved ancestors; and silent is Ngawai, watching the mist covering the snow-clad mountains in the distance.
It is the hour of the fairies and the spells; the hour when the sun hides; and Tawhiri-matea, the God of the Winds, is resting—the happy hour when man forgets his wishes, and the path of his mind is guided by the spirits of his destination: it is the hour when the woman-Rangatira knows that she is a woman, and will be a slave.
Ngawai’s ancestors live in her veins, and her spirit wanders along the path of the past. She stretches out her arms commanding the spirits; her mind perceives; and speaks:
“Look, friend: many men and many women of my people lived and died, yes, a great many, since Tu-poho came, the great chief of the Nga-puhi tribe—ah, great was the number of his warriors—they came in the darkness of night, and their hearts were full of rage. Ah, a very great many were the slain of my people, and many were offered to the God of War by Tu-poho.
Day upon day lasted the feasting, for great was the hate of the Nga-puhi toward my people, and they ate them, and scattered the bones of my ancestors; ah, my friend!—The joy of the Nga-puhi was great, when they found Matike the beautiful sister of Tihi-o-te-Rangi; and they made her a slave.
Tihi-o-te-Rangi, the warrior and ariki, ah, he was in the mountains whilst this battle happened, and he was hunting for kiwis and pigeons whilst the women of the Nga-puhi tribe, day after day, were preparing the food for their warriors off the slain of his people, killing the women and children to feast the enemy.
Ah, terror would have been Tu-poho’s! Tihi would have offered his blood to the War God; he would have swallowed his eyes; he would have eaten him and scattered his bones!—ah, Tihi was in the mountains; Tihi was in the mountains.—Ah, my friend.
At last a message came to him. Two women of his tribe came to him; they came naked and torn, the white flower of the clematis in their hair. By night they came and brought the head of their husband; they lit a fire before Tihi’s house, and commenced their frightful tale of woe. They were cutting their faces and breasts with sharp stones, so that blood covered them all over, and terrible was their weeping and wailing.
Fearful to behold were the blood-covered women, calling for help and revenge, filling with fire of rage the heart of Tihi-o-te-Rangi.
He killed the little bird Ma-tata, and offered his blood to the War God Maru, that the war-tapu might come over him, and then he went his way to find Tu-poho.
Matike, the sister of Tihi-o-te-Rangi, was given to Te-marama, Tuwhare’s daughter, as her slave, and great was the beauty of the two maidens. Matike, with her long flowing hair and tall figure, was the flower of the mountains; but the great eyes and soft swaying movements of Te-marama was the beauty of the flowers of the Pohutukawa, swaying on the shores on the North.
Crossing the rivers and walking along the shores of the sea was the tribe of the Nga-puhi, when they were followed by Tihi-o-te-Rangi.
He had held the Tangi over his burned pa and the bones of his tribe, and then he went and followed his enemies to free his sister. When he found the great party, he mingled with the slaves and carried baskets of food, and did the work of the slaves—ah, my friend, Tiki, the chief of great mana, carrying food like a slave!
One evening he met Te-marama, the daughter of Tu-poho, and she looked at him disdainfully and spoke: ‘Truly, of all the warriors you are the strongest, and beautiful is the tattoo on your face and your body, and you do the dirty work of slaves! Ha, you have the face of the War God; but, truly you have the heart of a pigeon!’ And he answered: ‘You speak truth: I am a slave till I free my sister Matike; but soon I will show your warriors that they are women, for they fought women!’ And Te-marama spoke: ‘If you are Tihi-o-te-Rangi, truly then you are the best of all warriors, for you lower yourself to a slave to free a woman; but listen, Tihi: Matike is a slave no longer—for her beauty she is taken by the chief Takerangi to share his resting-place and his mana.’ When Tihi heard Te-marama speaking thus, joy entered in his heart and he said: ‘Sweet is it for the eyes to rest upon the Flower of the North, and her words give gladness to my heart! Listen! When Tihi-o-te-Rangi shall carry the powerful war-weapon of his tribe before his wrathful warriors into the land of Tu-poho, to kill and revenge my people, to eat and destroy the Nga-puhi, then shall revenge live in the one half of his heart, but it will carry peace in the other half, and joy and sweetness to the whare-puni of the Flower of the North!’
In the blackness of night he left the tribe, and went back to his destroyed pa again. There he sent messengers to all the tribes in the mountains calling them to revenge themselves upon Tu-poho. Warhapu after Warhapu followed his call, and all came burning for revenge—ah, a great many warriors all along the river were preparing for a great slaughter and a feasting on their enemy Tu-poho and his tribe, but the time for travelling was not yet come.
The greatest rage was in the heart of Tihi, and he built high palisades around his pa, the strongest and highest in all the land;—but in the shade of the evenings his mind kept ever forming the image of the beautiful maiden Te-marama: then his heart began to tremble, and the War God was hidden by clouds. And he sat lonely, and made presents to the Tohungas that they may hold incantations to the gods who govern the heart and desires of women. Ah, it was at that time that far in Nga-puhi Te-marama sat, listless and lonely, on the shores of the sea; ah, many days and many nights did she sit there, listless and lonely.
One morning, while the sun was rising out of the sea, she could bear it no longer: she called her slave to put some food into a basket, and bade her follow her.
Ah, my friend, that was the beginning of Te-marama’s great wandering over the pathless land, through the dark forests, and along the endless shores.
Ah, she followed the gods whose help the incantations of Tihi had gained, followed them, on and on, living on the wild berries of the forest and on the food that the shores of the sea offered her; sleeping under the rocks and upon the branches of the trees, always living in fear of the multitude of bad spirits—ah, the incantations of Tihi sent courage in her heart and the longing to overcome all fear.
At last she came to the pa Kau-ara-paua, and there she asked for Tihi-o-te-Rangi. But Tihi was living in his pa Tuke-a-maui; so she went up the river in a canoe, and the people of the pas on the shores were good to her, and gave her food, and marvelled at her beauty.
Many questions she asked as to where she might find Tihi-o-te-Rangi, and one evening, while resting in the whare of Rongo-mai, she related the story of her long wandering, and told that she was Te-marama, the daughter of Tu-poho—ah, my friend!
The face of Rongo-mai grew black! Ah, all his relatives were killed by Tu-poho! Up he jumped, and walking up and down before the assembled people he swung his Taiaha (war-weapon), and with rolling eyes and frightful jumps and movements he chanted terrible words to the spirits of his relations, who were still crying in the forest, for their bones were scattered over the world and their flesh was eaten, and their death never revenged. His rage was terrible, and, suddenly jumping forward, he killed Te-marama with one powerful blow of his weapon!
Ah, his frightful words had filled the hearts of the people with rage and revenge, and terrible cries of wrath and spite filled the whare! They took the heart of Te-marama, and offered a part of it to the crying spirits of their relatives; then they cooked the remaining part for Rongo-mai, who ate it in spiteful insult to Tuwhare. Then they cooked the body of the girl, who came to give gladness to the heart of Tihi-o-te-Rangi, their most powerful chief, and feasted upon it!
Ah, my friend, Tihi was near, but the joy of his heart and the sweetness of his mind was killed; the heart, beating for Tihi, was offered to the gods of revenge—ah, my friend!
The slave escaped, and her tears were floods, and frightful her cries, and terrible her words of insult when she met Tihi: ‘O, Tihi, look at Te-marama, who was truly your slave, look upon her, look; look upon her bones in the mouths of your people of dogs; go and look for the eyes of your girl in the stomach of the dog Rongo-mai; go, that the dogs of your people may devour you, you rangatira of a tribe of dogs!’
Up flamed the blood of Tihi, his eyes burned, his hands trembled; with one blow of his mere he killed the slave that he might not hear more. He cut his hair, and offered it to the gods who have the rage of man in their keeping, and then he went to revenge Te-marama! He killed Rongo-mai and all his family and his relatives and friends and all who took part in the feasting and all who were related to them; and he invited all his tribes to feast upon the slain, to shout insult and spite over the dead and their bones far into the world, and to curse their bones, to break them, and scatter them all over the world!—
Ah, ah, my friend—but Tihi! Ah, from that time he sat alone at the fire in his whare-puni, brooding and sorrowing and crying; and happiness never again entered his heart—Tihi-o-te-Rangi! But then, my friend, he collected his warriors against the enemy Tu-poho, and from that time the frightful war was waged between the two insulted chiefs of which the people of both tribes know numberless doleful songs.”
Calmness reigned over the world, and Ngawai’s murmurings died away in the silent night.
Incantations.
Yes, Ngawai, your story was beautiful, your story of Te-marama and Tihi, the warrior; but many hours has the night, and my mind wandered out to the Little Ones, the Patu-paiarehe, and they told me the spirit of Te-marama was not dead, but still wandered along the path that leads to gladden the heart of man; and her name was Ngawai.
But, Ngawai, look, the fire has burnt lower and lower, and no fresh wood has been put on the embers——but look, there, yonder! Look how the snow of the mountain is hailing joyfully the Morning Sun.
“Ah, too young is still the morning, my good friend, for the wanderings of man, rest and listen——”
Beautiful crimson and golden, and blue and silver-white, with hushing shades and flashing lights rises the mountain-world into the new-born day. Like God’s own messenger of peace towers the snow-clad giant over the world, breathing his grandness into the universe.
How small is man, wandering over the endless base of the giant, over the dead and burnt stone-wilderness! No green, no grass—the friend of man—enlivens the vastness out of which the eternal silence is growing into the lonely magnificence.
This is Ngawai’s story:
Once the volcanoes Taranaki, Ruapehu, and Tongariro dwelled together. That was the time when Tongariro in her wonderful beauty had captured the fiery hearts of the two giants, so that their joy filled the heavens with majestic outbursts and covered the earth with their dark-glowing heart-blood of fiery lava and molten stones.
Softly then answered the gently ascending Steam-column of Tongariro, smiling and swaying, gold-bordered by the setting sun; smiling at both her suitors.
Ah, Tongariro was a woman!
Both, the straight and simple Taranaki and the rugged and strong Ruapehu, their cloud-piercing heads covered with spotless snow, or adorned in their passion-glowing lava-streams, were beloved by Tongariro; but the snows of the winter and the suns of the summer came and went from the first time, to the hundredth time, to the thousandth time, and still Tongariro was undecided whom she would prefer for a husband.
She became the sacred mountain of the Maori people; her beauty captured the hearts of all, so that she became the possessor of the highest tapu, and no foot dared walk upon her, and only the eyes of the new-born were directed towards her; and the eyes of the departing rested full love upon her beauty, whilst they wandered to the Reinga.
The eyes of generations upon generations of man.
Beautiful to behold from all the lands was the great love of the giants; now all covered with glittering snow, now hiding in the clouds and bursting forth, covered with strange and wonderful beauty; now girdling their bodies with clouds and lifting their endless heads into the golden heavens; and now again breaking forth into terrible passions, covering the earth with blackness.
Ah, Tongariro roused the passions of the giants: she made the volcanoes tremble! Their blood of fire and boiling stones shook them, the thundering of their voices, roaring insults at each other, made the earth tremble. Streams of lightning pierced the nights, and black smoke of deadly hate darkened the days, and the ears of man were filled with the roaring hate of the giants, and their wondering eyes beheld the beauty of Tongariro, smiling at both!
At last the two rivals decided to fight for Tongariro!
Now followed days of silence. The giants stood there grim and silent to the world, but they were gathering strength, and were melting stones in their insides, and lit terrible fires, their powerful weapons. So they stood silent and grim; the sun gilding their beautiful garments of snow, and Tongariro smiled at them with her graceful swaying column of steam; and the Maori people looked wonderingly upon the peaceful landscape.
Then a rolling grew into the nights, and rolling filled the days; louder and louder, night after night, day after day—a terrible groaning, damp and deep. Suddenly a crashing thunder shook the earth, and bursting forth from the mouth of Ruapehu a fiery mass of molten stones and black hate and fury fell upon Taranaki, covering him with a terrible coat of fire, whilst the flying winds howled and the melted snow-waters fled thundering down into the valleys.
A beautiful straight form gave the mass of fire and ashes to Taranaki—but he shook in terrible rage! He tore himself out of the ground, shaking the earth and breaking the lands asunder; he tried to fly at Ruapehu, to kill him with his weight. But Ruapehu made the water of his lake, high up in the snows, boil, and, hurling it down, it filled all the rends Taranaki had made in the earth, and burned all the inside of the earth and of Taranaki himself. He now, tearing the air with his roaring cries of pain and thundering howling of rage, threw a tremendous mass of stones at his enemy, and broke the highest cone, the loftiest peak of Ruapehu, so that his looks were not so majestic, and his reach not so far into the skies.
Ruapehu now, in deadly hate, swallowed his broken cone and melted it; he lit terrible fires in his inside, which spread to the lake Roto-aira, so that it rose and boiled, the steam covering all the world and blinding Taranaki. Then Ruapehu filled himself with the boiling water, and, throwing it out of his mouth down upon Taranaki, it filled all the crevices, and it lifted him, for he himself had loosened his bonds with the earth; and now, darkening day into night, he sent the molten mass of his swallowed cone against his enemy, so that he was compelled to retreat: blinded by steam, burned in his inside by the boiling water, and covered with the molten mass of the cone of Ruapehu he himself had broken.
He groaned, and rose, and tumbled, and shook himself; and he felt for a way to the sea to cool his burning pain; howling in unbearable pain he had to run, in order to get out of reach of Ruapehu, deeply hollowing his path through the lands. But his conqueror, Ruapehu, melting all his ice and snow, sent it as boiling water into this deep path, that his enemy might not come back again, for his strength also was exhausted.
On to the sea went Taranaki, and, when his pain had left him a little, he looked back at his conqueror, and saw how his three peaks were again covered with fresh snow, and how he was now the supreme lord over all the lands and the husband of Tongariro. They two were now the arikis over all the land; but it was waste now, and dead, for the terrible fight had killed all the people and the living beings all around. Once more a burst of black anger broke forth from Taranaki, and again it was answered by a wonderful swaying and smiling steam-column from Tongariro; and then he went and wandered along the coast till he had found a place for his sorrow. There he stands now, brooding on revenge.
“And my people know that one day he will come back in a straight line, to fight Ruapehu again; and none of my people will ever live or be buried in that lime; for one day he will come back to fight for Tongariro—who knows?”
But the path of Taranaki to the sea is now the Wanganui River.
A long double sailing-canoe, with a connecting platform and a thatched deck-house amidships, put off one day long ago into the Great Ocean of Kiwa from the palm-clad shores of Tahiti the Golden, in the far South Seas. A multitude of brown people stood on the shining beach, with loud cries bidding farewell to the brave band of kinsmen who were adventuring into the vast unknown places in search of a new and wider land. In their midst, leaning on his staff, was the patriarchal chief Hou-mai-tawhiti. Bent by the weight of years was the ancient man, and his long white beard swept his breast. And as the canoe-paddles took the water and she gathered way, a voice of Hou’ was heard crying his poroporoaki, his farewell to the crew. “Go! Go! Depart to your new land. Leave war and strife behind you. Follow not after the God of War; hold to the deeds of Rongo the Peaceful. Haere! Haere! Haere atu ra!”
And then the sails of the great canoe were hoisted, the foresail, the main and the mizzen, for she had three masts—lofty triangular mat-sails with the apex downwards. Like a huge sea-bird she swept across the blue lagoon to the reef-opening; then she bravely mounted up on the great ocean-rollers, te-whare-hukahuka-a-Tangaroa (“the sea-god’s foamy dwelling”). The brisk trade-wind filled her sails, and away she bounded into the south-west, growing smaller and smaller—a mere speck upon the great waters, until she faded from the vision of the keenest watcher on the shore.
This was the Arawa, most famous of all the historic fleet of canoes that voyaged thousands of miles across the Pacific to this new land Ao-tea-roa, the Great White World. Her commander was Tama-te-Kapua (Son of the Clouds), the son of the venerable Hou-mai-Tawhiti. And of Tama’s doings and the perils that befell the Maori Mayflower I shall briefly tell.
Tama-te-Kapua was a bold and cunning man. He invited the high-priest Ngatoro-i-Rangi on board the Arawa to perform the sacred rites appropriate on the occasion of putting to sea, and then refused to allow him on shore again. He carried him off across the ocean to be the Arawa’s priest, knowing that Ngatoro’ was under the protection of the atuas and ancestral spirits of the race, and that he was indeed almost a god in himself.
While crossing the ocean in search of the new land Ao-tea-roa, Tama-te-Kapua clandestinely gained the affections of the lady Kearoa, the wife of Ngatoro-i-Rangi, who had accompanied her husband. When Ngatoro’ discovered this, he resolved to destroy the canoe and all that were on board. So to this end he directed the bow of the Arawa straight towards the Waha-o-te-Parata, the Mouth of the Sea-monster, a terrible whirlpool, or maelstrom, in mid-ocean, which had sucked down many a vessel to destruction. The sea-battered craft entered the outer circle of the maelstrom, swiftly approached the fatal spot where the Ocean God drew down the waters with an awful, roaring noise. The people in their terror cried to Ngatoro-i-Rangi to save them, but he heeded not. Then stood up Ika, one of the chiefs on board, and recited a karakia to Rangi, the Sky God, praying him to save the canoe, te-kaokao-o-Tane, the ribs of Tane the Tree God, and beat down the angry waves of Tangaroa.
But the ears of the gods were closed, and downwards surged the Arawa. The roaring of the Waha-o-Parata grew more terrifying, and the men and women and children on board cried again to Ngatoro-i-Rangi to save them. And the high-priest rose, and in a wild chant he invoked Tangaroa the Ocean God, and called upon many a deified ancestral spirit. Loud pealed his awa-moana, his rhythmic storm-assuaging incantation (beginning “Unuhia, unuhia te pou tapu, ko te pou mua, ko te pou roto”). He besought the gods to draw out the canoe from the dread tumult of water, the sacred canoe that once grew as a tree (pou-tapu) in the enchanted Forests of Tane—to save from the throat of the Ogre of the Depths the ship of Ngatoro’. He called upon the spirits of Ruarangi, of Maui-tiki-tiki-o-Taranga, to descend by the path of Tawhaki the God-man from the heavens, and “clear from perils all the ocean track of Ngatoro’.”
And the mana tapu, the supernatural influence of that awa-moana, and of the Tohunga, was such that the terrific lashing of the sea was calmed, the gaping whirlpool closed again; the great billows ceased to tumble, the heavens grew light, and the canoe sailed on once more in safety over the long heaving swell of the Ocean of Kiwa. Magical indeed was that ringing sea-chant of Ngatoro’, as potent in its peace-compelling numbers as that mermaid’s song of which Oberon discoursed to Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream:—
It was midsummer when the sea-worn pilgrims at last made landfall on the far-extending coast of the Long White World. As they drew close in to the shores, near the East Cape of the North Island, they saw that the cliffs, shining like chalk in the sun, were fringed with beautiful trees, the pohutukawa. Groves of these trees, too, grew right down to the tide-edge, and the rich crimson flowers which covered them were reflected in glowing red (ura) in the calm and glassy waters. Several of the people in the canoe wore red ornaments, relics of Hawaiki, in their hair. On seeing the beautiful red flowers they impulsively threw their own head-ornaments into the sea, and, when they leaped ashore they ran to gather the blossoms of the pohutukawa to deck their hair, only to find to their disappointment that they fell to pieces at a touch.
The first place where they landed was Whanga-paraoa (Whale Harbour), so called because they found a great sperm-whale stranded there. Here were performed the ceremonies of thanksgiving for safe arrival, the offering of seaweed—the spoils of Tangaroa—and of the earth of the new country to the gods. The sacred fire was kindled and the sacred kumara roasted, in burnt sacrifice to the spirits of this vast strange land. They coasted along, and finally hauled the canoe ashore at Maketu, whence they travelled inland, exploring and making homes for themselves. It is their descendants who now people the Geyserland district of Ao-tea-roa, extending from the Bay of Plenty southwards to the great central lake of Taupo. Ngatoro-i-Rangi the high-priest and his wife took up their abode on the island of Motiti. From Ngatoro’ sprang a line of powerful priests of Ariki rank, and one of his direct descendants is Te Heuheu Tukino, the present head chief of Taupo.
Tama-te-Kapua wandered wide and far over the face of the Long White World, and at last made his home on the bold mountainous headland which the pakeha calls Cape Colville, guarding the Hauraki Gulf and its cloud of islands. Here Tama’ died, and here his sons buried him, on the forested ridge of Moehau. On the lofty mountain-top was the chieftain laid to rest, and his sons as they performed the last rites said:
“Let him slumber here, where his spirit can gaze far over the ocean and over the land of Ao-tea-roa. And the winds that sweep across the Great Ocean of Kiwa, they shall ever sing his oriori, his wild lullaby.”
And to this day the mountain-cape where the Captain of the Arawa was buried is called by the Maoris Te-Moe-hau-o-Tama-te-Kapua (Tama’s Windy Sleeping-Place).