{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_73766/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_73766","id":"gutenberg_73766","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/73766","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","M\u0101ori (New Zealand people) -- Folklore","Tales -- New Zealand -- Port Hills"],"text":"Transcriber\u2019s Note\n\nA few paragraphs are so long the position of the illustrations\nare left as is.\n\nA few words have been left as printed e.g. Rangi-whakaputa\nRangiwhakaputa.\n\n\n[Illustration: Map of Lyttelton Harbour and Port Hills-Akaroa, Summit Road]\n\nMAORI FOLK-TALES\n\nOF THE\n\nPORT HILLS\n\nCANTERBURY, NEW ZEALAND\n\n_By_\n\nJAMES COWAN\n\nWHITCOMBE & TOMBS LIMITED\n\nAuckland, Christchurch, Dunedin, & Wellington, N.Z.\nMelbourne and London\n\n1923\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  _E. Cowan, photo_\n\nHONE TAARE TIKAO, the narrator of the legends.]\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nIn this little book I have endeavoured to interweave with descriptions\nof the most picturesque parts of the Canterbury Port Hills some of\nthe Maori poetic legends and historical traditions which belong\nto the Range, and which have not previously been recorded. These\nstories, I hope, will invest with a new interest for many Canterbury\n_pakehas_ the scenic beauties of the Port Hills now opened up\nfrom end to end by the Summit Road. Here I desire to record also,\nwith feelings of gratitude, the name of the principal narrator of the\nlegends, Mr. Hone Taare Tikao, of Rapaki, a Ngai-Tahu gentleman whose\nuncommonly retentive memory is a storehouse of information on local\nhistory and who blends in himself the gifts of the folk-lorist and the\ngenealogist. Some of the place-names were supplied by the late Mr.\nT. E. Green (Tame Kirini), of Tuahiwi, Kaiapoi, one of the last good\nnative authorities on the ancient history of the plains.\n\nFor the priceless gift of free access to these grand tops of the Port\nRange the people are indebted to the efforts and the gifts of a few\npublic spirited residents, but most of all to the exertions of Mr.\nH. G. Ell, whose enthusiasm, prescience of vision, and singleness of\npurpose in developing the Summit Road along this mountain park have\nproperly earned him the admiration and the thanks of thousands of his\nfellow-citizens who daily lift up their eyes to the Hills and who find\non those hills their pleasure and their solace for town-tired body\nand brain. And maybe if Mr. Ell\u2019s name were bestowed, like Tamatea\u2019s\nof old, upon one of these monumental crags still unchristened, it\nwould but fittingly preserve the memory of a man whose title to such\nlocal honour and fame is certainly greater than that of some of his\nforerunners whose names the landscape bears.\n\n  J.C.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nThe Story of the Rocks.\n\n The Port Hills and their geological history--The Dead Fire-Cones--\u201cThe\n Fire of Tamatea\u201d--Bold Cliff and\n Mountain Scenery--Beauties of the Port Range           1\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nThe Port Hills and Their Names.\n\n Maori Nomenclature of the Port Range--Hills of the\n Rainbow God--\u201cThe Pinnacle of Kahukura\u201d--Crags of\n the Sounding Footsteps--Ancient Lyttelton: \u201cThe\n Basket of Heads\u201d--Ambuscades in the Bush               7\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nRound the Sugarloaf.\n\n The Flanks of Te Heru-o-Kahukura--Tracks on the Mountain\n Side--At Dyer\u2019s Pass--Maori Name of Marley\u2019s Hill--Exploring\n the Kahukura Bush--Needles of the _Ongaonga_--The\n Valleys and the Small Timber--\u201cCrest of the\n Rainbow\u201d                                              24\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nRapaki: A Village by the Sea.\n\n The Bell on the Ribbonwood Tree--Tikao and his Traditions--The\n Days of the Ngati-Mamoe--Te Rangiwhakaputa\u2019s\n Conquests--The Crags of Tamatea--A Sturdy Pagan--Evening\n Picture at Rapaki                                     39\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nThe \u201cAhi-a-Tamatea\u201d: How the Sacred Fire Came to\nWitch Hill.\n\n The Giant\u2019s Causeway--A Volcanic Dyke--Tamatea the\n Polynesian Explorer--A Great March--The Camp at\n Witch Hill--Tamatea\u2019s Call for Fire--The _Tipua_ Flames\n from Ngauruhoe--\u201cThe Ashes of Tamatea\u2019s Camp\n Fire\u201d                                                 52\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nHills of Faery: The Little People of the Mist.\n\n Legends of the _Patu-paiarehe_--The Fairies of the Port and\n Peninsula Hills--Mountains of Enchantment--\u201cThe\n Red Cloud\u2019s Rest\u201d--The Fairies and the Mutton-birds--The\n Maero of the Woods--Mount Pleasant and its\n _Tapu_                                                61\n\n\n\n\nLIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.\n\n\n  Map of Lyttelton Harbour and Port Hills-Akaroa,\n  Summit Road\n\n  Hone Taare Tikao, the Narrator of the Legends _Frontispiece_\n\n  The Seven Sleepers                                    5\n\n  Te Tihi o Kahukura, Castle Rock                       9\n\n  Te Moenga o Wheke, Giant Tor                         10\n\n  Witch Hill and the Giant\u2019s Causeway                  13\n\n  Orongomai, the Place of the Voices                   15\n\n  View from Cass Peak                                  17\n\n  Whaka-raupo, Lyttelton Harbour and Quail Island      21\n\n  Te Heru o Kahukura, Sugarloaf                        25\n\n  \u201cThe Sign of the Kiwi\u201d Rest House and Marley\u2019s Hill  27\n\n  The Port Hills south-west of Dyer\u2019s Pass             31\n\n  The Old Maori Church at Rapaki                       33\n\n  Whaka-raupo, Lyttelton Harbour from Kennedy\u2019s Bush   35\n\n  Old Church Bell at Rapaki                            40\n\n  Rapaki Village and Tamatea\u2019s Breast                  43\n\n  In a Rapaki Garden                                   47\n\n  Witch Hill                                           53\n\n  The Summit Road, overlooking Governor\u2019s Bay          55\n\n  Te Poho-o-Tamatea, or Tamatea\u2019s Breast               59\n\n  Rhodes\u2019s Monument, Home of the Fairies               63\n\n  Kennedy\u2019s Bush, Cockayne\u2019s Cairn, and Cass Peak      67\n\n  Through the Devil\u2019s Staircase                        70\n\n  Hinekura                                             73\n\n\n\n\nMAORI FOLK-TALES OF THE PORT HILLS\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nTHE STORY OF THE ROCKS.\n\n\nWith the opening of tracks along the bold range of heights between the\nCanterbury Plains and Lyttelton Harbour, and the acquisition of new\nreserves for the public, mainly through the efforts of one tireless\nworker, Mr. H. G. Ell, Christchurch residents are perhaps coming to\na more lively sense of the value of the Port Hills as a place of\ngenuine recreation. The Summit Road has made city people free of the\ngrandest hilltop pleasure place that any New Zealand city possesses\nwithin easy distance of its streets, and the worth of this mountain\ntrack, so easily accessible and commanding so noble a look-out over\nsea and plains and Alps, will increase in proportion to the growth of\nthe Christchurch population. The fragments of the native bush which\nsurvive in the valleys will be of surpassing botanical interest in\nanother generation or two, but the vegetation of the hills inevitably\nwill suffer many changes, and an exotic growth will for the most part\nreplace the ancient trees. With all the alterations which man\u2019s hand\nmay make in the reserves and along the public tracks, however, the\nmonumental rock-beauty will remain the great and peculiar feature\nof the hills, their most wonderful and unalterable glory. The Port\nRange and the Banks Peninsula system of mountains are indeed the most\nremarkable heights in the whole of the South Island, not excepting the\nsnowy Alps; there is nothing like them outside the northern volcanic\nregions, and in some aspects they carry a greater scientific and scenic\nvalue than even the crater-cones around the city of Auckland. What\nthe Canterbury coast would have been like but for the vast volcanic\nconvulsions which formed these ranges and huge craters is not difficult\nto imagine. It would have been a uniform billiard-table on an enormous\nscale, very gently sloping to the sea, with scarcely a break but for\nthe snow rivers and with never a usable natural harbour. Volcanic\nenergy gave us Lyttelton and Akaroa harbours, and shaped for us also\nthe ever-marvellous hills that are at once a grateful relief to the\neye from the eternal evenness of the plains and a healthful place of\npleasure for our city dwellers.\n\nThe passage of untold ages has so little altered these fire-made\nranges that build a picture-like ring about Lyttelton Harbour that\ntheir origin and history are plainly revealed to the climber and the\nSummit Road stroller; the story of the rocks can scarcely be mistaken.\nGeologists from the days of von Haast have written much of the\nLyttelton and Akaroa volcanic systems, and in truth it is an ever-new\nand ever-fascinating subject. There is hardly a more interesting\nspecimen of vulcanism in New Zealand, for example, than the strange\nwall of grey-white lava rock which Europeans call the Giant\u2019s Causeway\nand the Maoris \u201cThe Fire of Tamatea,\u201d which protrudes from the hilltop\njust above Rapaki, and which may be seen again on the far side of the\nharbour, a volcanic dyke that the ancient people--with surely some\nperception of geological truth--connected in their legends with the\ninternal fires of the North Island. Along the craggy hill faces again,\nand particularly well in such places as Redcliffs and the Sumner end\nof the range, it is easy to read the history of the rocks in the\nalternate strata of solid volcanic rock and the soft rubble that seems\nalmost to glow again with the olden fires. The most wonderful example\nof this stratified formation is the face of the south head of Akaroa\nHarbour; but it is possible to study similar pages in the volcanic\nchapter of Canterbury\u2019s history without going many yards from the\nSummit Road anywhere from the sea to the hills above the harbour head.\n\nThe most perfect local example of an ancient crater perhaps is one that\ndoes not seem to have attracted much attention from scientific writers\nand lecturers, and this may be mentioned as a type of the remarkable\nplaces which build up the romantic ruggedness and savageness of our\nharbour-palisading hills. It is to be studied especially well from the\nLyttelton-Governor\u2019s Bay road. Above Corsair Bay and Cass Bay there\nis a group of bold rocky peaks which, as the traveller passes onward\nfrom Lyttelton, is seen to curve inward in a huge half-cup, open to the\nsouth, and down this open side are strewn the disorderly remains of the\nold lava stream which flowed from the core of the volcano and which\nran out into the harbour at Cass Bay in a tumbled black reef. It does\nnot require a great effort of imagination to reconstruct that fire-cup\nas it must have appeared in the era when the fantastic hills were\nstill in the making and shaping. The Maoris, with a quick eye for such\nsignificant topographical features, gave the place a name which blends\nhistory with legend, \u201cWheke\u2019s Sleeping Place.\u201d Indeed, that strange\nhollow in the hills might have made fit cradle for a Finn MacCoul. Like\nthe crater-topped cones of the Tamaki Isthmus, it is softly grassed; a\nstray _ngaio_ is the one remnant of the bush that once covered the\nvolcanic detritus; but the hugely ramparted and square-hewn rim of the\nbasin stands indomitable and unchangeable, unmistakable memorial of the\nactive volcanic age. Such bold crags are \u201cthe eyebrows of the hills\u201d;\nthey give what would otherwise be tame landscapes dignity and force and\nwildness, and an exploration of these fastnesses of Nature so near our\ndoors, and opened up by the Summit Road, is not merely pleasurable, but\nis fruitful in an intelligent appreciation of the amazing forces which\nhelped to mould the land in which we live.\n\nAll along the fire-fused line of these Summit Peaks from the Lighthouse\nto the Seven Sleepers and beyond there are amazingly bold bits of\nrock and cliff scenery--abrupt escarpments like huge redoubt walls,\nbearded with mountain flax, and flakey from the attack of ages of\nwinter frosts; straight smooth cleavages that seem almost artificial,\nso sharply and finely are they worked by Nature, the great sculptor;\nrounded buttresses like enormous pillars shoring up the mountain side;\ncaves here and there, old bubbles in the molten lava, caves that\nmight have sheltered some cannibal highwayman in the days of stone\nclub and face-tattoo; strangely shapen projections of the cliff-edge,\nsome remindful of animal forms; tomahawk faces of grey storm-beaten\nrhyolite dipping down into the green arms of the little woods where the\n_tui\u2019s_ rich echoing \u201cbing-bong\u201d and gurgling chuckle are still\nheard in the shady depths when the bush fruits are ripe. Here and there\na little watercourse, its fountain-head waters dripping silently from\nsome cool crevice in the rocks, all arboured over by the matted roofing\nof _kotukutuku_, twisty and witchy of branch, and _mahoe_ and\nglossy-green _karaka_ of the plenteous foliage. Watercourses that\nfit the bold mountain\n\n[Illustration: The Seven Sleepers\n\n  _C. Beken, photo_]\n\npictures about them; dry in summer, they come down in tumultuous\nlittle cataracts in time of heavy rain, plunging over the piled\nfragments of lava rocks, and filling for a day or two the age-worn\npockets and pools and \u201cpot-holes\u201d in the winding valleys all arched\nover with the close-growing light timber. Deep down in these twisting\ngullies below the straight cut harbour-facing cliffs, there lingers\nstill a certain quality of primitiveness and a suggestion of the\nancient adventure; an atmosphere still in keeping with the legendry of\nthese Hills. Here in the leaf-thatched hollows of Taungahara or the\nwoven thickets that blanket the precipice fronts of the Seven Sleepers\nstill shall you have intimate glimpses of wild nature. Up on the\ntussock-swarded mountains of the hawk and deep in the sudden valleys\nstill may you, though so near to the City, breathe the mind-refreshing\nfragrance of the grand out-of-doors, hold healthy commune with\n\n    \u201cAll the still-eyed Soul that broods\n    In wide wind-whispering solitudes--\n    Each cloud chase chequering hill and plain--\n    Moon-shadows--sunny silences--\n    Lone mists on fire in glens profound--\n    Old half-lit trunks of twisted trees\n    And stealthy gleams in gloomy woods.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE PORT HILLS AND THEIR NAMES.\n\n\nIt is the Port Hills\u2019 nomenclature, perhaps, that carries the most\npoetic suggestions of any of the Canterbury place-names, and here,\nperhaps, the dwellers on the heights in the days to come when all\nthese Plain-ward-looking slopes are dotted with pretty homes, will\nseek inspiration in such legendry and history of the soil as we of\nthe present generation have preserved. There are names of dignity and\nbeauty clustered about those old lava-built crags and ruined towers and\ntors past which the Summit Road goes a thousand feet above the city.\n\nFinest of all is the Maori name of Castle Rock, that from one point in\nthe Heathcote Valley looks like a colossal howitzer threatening the\nPlains. To the old Maoris it was Te Tihi o Kahukura, \u201cThe Citadel of\nKahukura,\u201d otherwise \u201cThe Pinnacle of the Rainbow.\u201d The explanation\nbrings in a reference to the religion of the tattooed pagan pioneers\nwho explored those hills and plains, and planted their palisaded\nhamlets by creek-side and in the sheltered folds of the ranges.\nKahukura--Uenuku in the North Island--was the principal deity for what\nmay be termed everyday use among the ancient Ngai-Tahu. He was the\nspirit guardian most frequently invoked by the _tohungas_, and he\nwas appealed to for auguries and omens in time of war. Each _hapu_\nhad its image of Kahukura, a small carved wooden figure, which was kept\nin some _tapu_ place remote from the dwellings, often a secluded\nflax clump, or on a high, stilt-legged platform or _whata_. The\ncelestial form of Kahukura was the rainbow; literally the name means\n\u201cRed Garment.\u201d Omens were drawn in days of war from the situation of\nthe arch of the \u201cRed Garment\u201d when it spanned the heavens. The name is\nsometimes applied to that phenomenon of days of mist in the mountains,\nthe \u201csun-dog,\u201d from which auguries were drawn. So when the Natives gave\nthe term to the Castle Rock they were conferring upon it a name of high\n_tapu_ befitting its bold and commanding appearance.\n\nAnd this is not the only Hills name that holds a memory of the cult\nof the Rainbow-God. On the tussocky slope where the track goes over\nfrom the St. Martins tram terminus to the Summit Road above Rapaki,\njoining the hill track near Witch Hill, the _tohungas_ kept in\na sacred place one of the wooden figures representing Kahukura, for\n_karakia_, consultation in time of need, and the spot became known\nas \u201cTe Irika o Kahukura,\u201d or \u201cThe Uplifting of the Rainbow God.\u201d In\ntime the name was applied to the Cashmere Hills generally. And the\nlofty Sugarloaf peak immediately to the north of Dyer\u2019s Pass, was Te\nHeru o Kahukura, which being interpreted, is \u201cKahukura\u2019s Head-Comb.\u201d\nSo the olden folk occasionally displayed a fine taste in names; and\nalthough some of those names may be a trifle long for _pakeha_ use\nit would be well to save them from oblivion.\n\n[Illustration: Te Tihi o Kahukura. Castle Rock.\n\n  _C. Beken, photo_\n]\n\n[Illustration: Te Moenga o Wheke, or Wheke\u2019s Sleeping Place.\n\n  _W. A. Taylor, photo_\n]\n\nOtokitoki--\u201cThe Place of Axes\u201d--is the name of Godley Head, the lofty\ncliff upon which the lighthouse stands; its early-days _pakeha_ name\nwas Cachalot Head. Working south from the lighthouse we presently come\nto the deep bay of Te Awa-parahi, where a little farmstead stands in\nits well-hidden nest, between the lowering peaks. Nearer Lyttelton,\njust where the Zigzag Road goes over Evans Pass to Sumner, are the\nprecipitous summit rocks of Tapuwaeharuru, \u201cThe Resounding Footsteps,\u201d a\nplace-name met with in more than one locality in the volcanic country\nof the North. Far below is the little indent of Te Awa-toetoe, or\n\u201cPampas-grass stream\u201d near the artillery barracks. Mount Pleasant,\nwhere a Ngati-Mamoe _pa_ once stood, was known to the Maoris as\nTauhinu-Korokio, a combination of two names of shrubs common to the\nranges. Passing Castle Rock--Te Tihi o Kahukura--just on the right\nhand or west as we travel towards Dyer\u2019s Pass, we have on the other\nhand Te Moenga o Wheke, or \u201cWheke\u2019s Sleeping Place\u201d and Ota-ranui, or\n\u201cBig Peak,\u201d the towering rough-hewn crests of the Range looking down\non Cass Bay and lying east of the Summit Track. Then comes Witch Hill,\nwith \u201cThe Ashes of Tamatea\u2019s Camp Fire,\u201d of which a legend later, and\nTe Poho o Tamatea, or \u201cTamatea\u2019s Breast,\u201d overlooking the Rapaki native\nsettlement.\n\nOketeupoko, or, to divide it into its component words, O-kete-upoko,\nis the Maori name of the rocky heights immediately above the town of\nLyttelton. It means \u201cThe Place of the Basket of Heads.\u201d A sufficiently\ngrim name this, remindful of the Whanga-raupo\u2019s red and cannibal\npast, for the heads were human ones. When the olden warrior Te\nRangi-whakaputa set out to make the shore of the Raupo Harbour his\nown, he encountered numerous parties of Ngati-Mamoe, who put up a\nfight for their homes and hunting-grounds. One of these parties of\nthe _tangata-whenua_, the people of the land, he met in battle\non the rocky beach of Ohinehou where the white man\u2019s breakwaters and\nwharves now stand. He worsted them, and the heads of the slain he and\nhis followers hacked off with their stone _patus_ and axes. Some,\nthose of the chief men, Te Rangi-whakaputa placed in a flax basket,\nand, bearing them up to the craggy hill-crest that towered above the\nbeach, he set them down on a lofty pinnacle, an offering to his god of\nbattles. There they were left, say the Maoris, _he kai mo te ra, mo\nte manu_--\u201cfood for the sun and for the birds.\u201d \u201c_O_\u201d signifies\n\u201cthe place of,\u201d \u201c_kete_\u201d basket and \u201c_upoko_\u201d head, and\nthus was the place named, to memorise the tattooed brown conqueror of\nold and the ancient people whom he dispossessed on the shores of the\nWhangaraupo.\n\n[Illustration: Witch Hill and The Giant\u2019s Causeway.\n\n  _W.A. Taylor, photo_\n]\n\nOrongomai, a melodious name when properly pronounced, is the old\nNgai-Tahu name of Cass Peak, the rhyolite height which lifts 1780 ft.\nabove the waters of Governor\u2019s Bay, overlooking the remnant of the\nancient forest at Kennedy\u2019s Bush. It means \u201cThe Place Where Voices\nare Heard,\u201d or, literally, \u201cPlace of Sounding-hitherward.\u201d The name\nhas fittingly enough been given by Mr. Ell to the stone house for\nvisitors which stands under the ribbonwood trees at the head of the\nKennedy\u2019s Bush Valley. The story is that when Te Rangi-whakaputa and\nhis followers landed, in their search for the Ngati-Mamoe, after taking\nthe _pa_ at Ohinetahi, in Governor\u2019s Bay, the scouts entered the bush,\nand at the foot of Cass Peak heard the voices of a party of men in the\nbush; these men were Ngati-Mamoe, who had come across from their _pa_\nat Manuka, on the plains side of the range. Led by the scouts--the\n_torotoro_--the invaders rushed upon the Ngati-Mamoe some of whom they\nkilled. The survivors fled over the hills to Manuka, a large _pa_\nwhich it is believed stood on a knoll at the foot of the range not far\nfrom Tai Tapu. (Mr. Ell, on being told of this tradition, said that\nhe believed the site of Manuka would be found to be the spur running\ninto an old swamp upon which Mr. Holmes\u2019s homestead is built, on the\nold coach road south of Lansdowne, and about two miles from Tai Tapu.)\nThe Manuka village, although a strong defensive position, was stormed\nand taken by Te Rangi-whakaputa. In the vicinity, it is said by the\nMaoris, there was a shallow cave under the rocky hillside which was\nused by some of the Ngati-Mamoe as a dwelling-place; it is known in\ntradition as Te Pohatu-whakairo, or \u201cThe Carved Rock.\u201d No doubt it\nwas so called from the natural markings sometimes seen on the faces\nof these overhanging rock shelters, such as were used as dwelling and\ncamping-places in many parts of the South Island by the ancient people.\n\nOhinetahi[1] _pa_, defended with a palisade of split tree-trunks\nand with ditch and parapet, stood near the shore at the head of\nGovernor\u2019s Bay two hundred years ago. After the place had been captured\nfrom the Ngati-Mamoe by Te Rangi-whakaputa, his son Manuwhiri occupied\nit with a party of Ngai-Tahu. This chief Manuwhiri had many sons, but\nonly one daughter, and he named his _pa_ after his solitary girl,\n\u201cThe Place of the One Daughter.\u201d The Governor\u2019s Bay school now occupies\nthe spot where this long-vanished stockaded hamlet stood.\n\n[Footnote 1: This name was adopted by the late T. H. Potts for his\nstone house at Governor\u2019s Bay, directly below Kennedy\u2019s Bush.]\n\n[Illustration: Orongomai, the Place of the Voices, Kennedy\u2019s Bush.\n\n  _W. A. Taylor, photo_]\n\nThe name of Cooper\u2019s Knobs, the highest of the three tooth-like crags\nlifting abruptly above the head of Lyttelton Harbour to an altitude\nof 1880 feet, memorises, like so many others, an incident of the\nhead-hunting cannibal days. After the Rangi-whakaputa and his merry\nmen had conquered the various Ngati-Mamoe _pas_ around the harbour,\nthey found frequent diversion in hunting out stray members of the\nfugitive _hapus_ and converting them to a useful purpose through the\nmedium of the oven. Often there were bush skirmishes, and although the\nNgati-Mamoe frequently put up a good fight, they usually got the worst\nof the encounter. Mawete, the chief of Ngati-Mamoe, and a party of\nmen from Manuka _pa_ were on their way across the range to Lyttelton\nHarbour to fish for sharks when they were ambuscaded in the bush just\nbelow Cooper\u2019s Knobs by a band of Ngai-Tahu warriors. The Ngati-Mamoe\nchief and most of his followers were killed in the skirmish that\nfollowed, with the Maori weapons of wood and stone, the spear, the\n_taiaha_, and the sharp-edged _patu_, and their bodies went into the\noven, for the Maori\u2019s commissariat in that age was the flesh of his\nfoeman. And the Mamoe leader\u2019s name still clings to that wild craggy\nspot where he met his death blow, for the peak which the _pakeha_ has\nnamed Cooper\u2019s Knobs was called by the Ngai-Tahu conquerors Omawete,\nmeaning the place where Mawete fell.\n\nBeyond again are the peaks of Otuhokai and Te Tara o Te Raki-tiaia;\nbelow the harbour head curves into the bay of Te Rapu. Next as we\ngo up to meet the hills of Banks Peninsula is the bold precipice of\nTe Pari-mataa, or \u201cObsidian Cliff,\u201d with the great volcanic dyke of\nOtarahaka, and then our present pilgrimage ends, for we are right under\nthe hugely parapeted castle hill of Te Ahu-patiki--Mt. Herbert--with\nits level top, where a lofty _pa_ of Ngati-Mamoe stood three\ncenturies ago.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  Cooper\u2019s Knobs      Dog\u2019s Head      Pinnacle Hill\n\nView from Cass Peak, showing Cooper\u2019s Knobs, Dog\u2019s Head, and Pinnacle\nHill.\n\n  _W. A. Taylor, photo_]\n\nTe Whaka-raupo is the ancient name of Port Cooper or Lyttelton Harbour.\nThe name sometimes has been given as Te Waka-raupo, which means \u201cThe\nCanoe of Raupo reeds,\u201d otherwise a raft or _mokihi_ of the\ntype so often used on the South Island rivers. This, however, is not\ncorrect. \u201cWhaka\u201d here is the Ngai-Tahu dialectical form of \u201cWhanga,\u201d\nwhich is a harbour or bay, as in Whangaroa and Whanganui. Whaka-raupo,\ntherefore, means \u201cHarbour of the raupo reed.\u201d The _tino_ or exact\nplace from which the harbour takes this name is Governor\u2019s Bay, at the\nhead of which there was a swamp filled with a thick and high growth\nof these reeds. It was here, at the head of Governor\u2019s Bay, that the\nstockaded pa Ohinetahi stood; it was occupied by Te Rangi-whakaputa\u2019s\nson after the dispersal of the Ngati-Mamoe tribe in these parts more\nthan two hundred years ago.\n\nCorsair Bay and Cass Bay, as the _Kaumatua_ of Rapaki tells us,\nhave Maori names which contain a reference not only to the ancient\nforests which clothed the slopes of the Port Hills and descended to\nthe sandy beachside, but to one of the vanished practices of the\nnative people, fire-making by wood-friction. Corsair Bay was named\nby Te Rangi-whakaputa, Motu-kauati-iti, meaning \u201cLittle Fire-making\nTree-grove,\u201d and Cass Bay was Motu-kauati-rahi, or \u201cGreat Fire-making\nTree-grove.\u201d The bays were so designated because on the shores and the\nslopes above there were plentiful thickets of the _kaikomako_\n(pennantia corymbosa), the small tree into which Mahuika, a Polynesian\nPrometheus, threw fire from his finger-tips, so that it should not\nbe extinguished by Maui\u2019s deluge. A myth which to the Maori quite\nsatisfactorily accounts for the readiness with which fire can be\nobtained from the _kaikomako_ by the simple process of taking\na dry block of the wood and rubbing a groove in it with a stick\nof hardwood--with, of course an incantation to give more power to\nthe elbow--until the dust and the shavings become ignited. The\n_kaikomako_ wood is used as the _kauati_, the piece which is\nrubbed; the pointed rubbing stick which the operator works to and fro\nis the _kaurima_. _Motu_ in these two names is a tree-clump\nor grove. There are none of the ancient fire trees on the bay shores\nnowadays; the _pakeha\u2019s_ pinus insignis and cocksfoot grass have\nlong supplanted them.\n\nRi-papa is the full and correct name of Ripa Island, in Lyttelton\nHarbour. It is an historic and appropriate name, carrying one back\nto the ancient days when the brown sailors hauled their long canoes\nup on its little shelving beach. _Ri_ means a rope, the painter\nof flax by which canoes were dragged up on shore, and _papa_ is\na flat rock. Ripapa is a white man\u2019s fort these days, but centuries\nbefore a British gun was planted there it was a fortified place, though\nthe weapons of its garrison would hardly carry as far as those of the\npresent coast defence force. The Ngati-Mamoe three hundred years ago\nhad a small village on this rocky islet, commanding the harbour-gate;\nit was defended with a palisade. But when the Rangi-whakaputa conquered\nthe inhabitants of Te Whaka-raupo, he took the island and named it\nRipapa--its first name is forgotten--and he built a _pa_ on the\nspot where the fort of the _pakeha_ artillery-men now stands.\n\nQuail Island, the dark-cliffed isle of the lepers, is known by the\nMaoris as Otamahua. Herein is a reference to an era when the island was\na birding ground of the olden race. Many sea-birds, gulls and puffins\nand divers, bred in the crannies of its fire-made rocky shores, and\nthe mainland Maoris canoed across on fowling expeditions. The eggs\n(_hua_) of the sea-fowl were esteemed delicacies, especially by\nthe children (_tamariki_), who were fond of roasting them on their\nisland expeditions. _Manu-huahua_, or birds cooked and preserved\nin their own fat, and done up in sea-kelp receptacles, as is the way\nin the Stewart Island mutton-bird industry to-day, also formed a large\nportion of the native supply of winter food in these parts.\n\nLooking out from the Port Hills the olden Maori wayfarer surveyed\nthe far-spreading Plains and the name handed down from the days of\nthe Waitaha tribe, the forerunners of the Ngati-Mamoe, came to his\nlips: \u201cNga Pakihi Whakatekateka a Waitaha.\u201d It is a barbed-wire\nfence, perhaps, to the average _pakeha_, yet abbreviated it\nis not inappropriate as a Plains homestead name. In the long ago,\nbefore water-races and artesian wells, the trails across the Plains\nfrom the Waimakariri to the Selwyn and the Selwyn to the Rakaia and\nthe Ashburton were weary and thirsty tracks, for there were very few\nsprings of drinking water and the Maori disliked the water of the cold\nglacial torrents. So the tired and thirsting trail-parties, swagging\nit across the wastes of tussock and cabbage trees, came to call the\ndistrict \u201cThe Deceptive Plains of Waitaha,\u201d for they discovered that\nit was unwise to rely upon springs and streams on the long tramp. They\nmade water-bags of seaweed, the great bull kelp, which they split and\nmade watertight, and these _poha_ henceforth became as necessary\nto the kit of a trans-\u201cPakihi\u201d traveller as a water-bottle is to the\nsoldier in the field to-day.\n\n[Illustration: Whaka-raupo, Lyttelton Harbour, looking south-west,\nshowing Quail Island.\n\n  _W. A. Taylor photo_\n]\n\nThe Heathcote River, whose native name has been abbreviated to Opawa,\nwas originally the Opaawaho, which means \u201cThe outer, or seaward, _pa_,\u201d\notherwise \u201cAn outpost.\u201d A tribe-section or _hapu_ of the Ngai-Tahu,\nabout two hundred years ago, built a village on the left bank of\nthe river, on a spot slightly elevated above the surrounding swampy\ncountry; the exact spot must have been close to the present Opawa\nRailway Station. The name of the village was Poho-areare, or \u201cpigeon\nbreasted,\u201d after some chief of those days, and it was because of its\nsituation, the outermost _Kainga_ of the Plains and swamp dwellers,\ncommanding the passage down the Heathcote to the sea, that the river\nbecame known as the stream of \u201cThe Outpost.\u201d Here it may be recalled\nthat the _hapus_ who lived where Christchurch City now stands were\ngiven a nickname by the outer tribes at Kaiapoi and elsewhere. They\nwere called \u201cO-Roto-Repo,\u201d or more briefly, \u201cO-Roto-re\u2019,\u201d which means\n\u201cIn the Swamp,\u201d or the \u201cSwamp-Dwellers.\u201d They lived in a marshy region\nwhich had its compensations in the way of abundant food, for the\nswamps and creeks swarmed with eels and wild duck. The upper part of\nthe Heathcote was the O-mokihi or \u201cThe Place of Flax-Stalk Rafts.\u201d\nThe _tino_ of the name, the place where it had its origin, was an\nancient lagoon-swamp at the foot of the Cashmere Hills, which the\nriver drained. Another version of the Heathcote name is Wai-Mokihi,\nor \u201cFlax-stalk Raft Creek.\u201d Lower down the Heathcote, where the broad\ntidal shallows are, the Maoris gave the place an equally appropriate\nname; they called it O-hikaparuparu, which may be translated as \u201cThe\nspot where So-and-so fell in the mud,\u201d or \u201cStick-in-the-mud,\u201d which\nserves equally well to-day. About Redcliffs, where the tramline passes\nround from the broads and under the great cave-riddled lava precipice,\nthere belongs a rather beautiful name, Rae-Kura, which is more modern\nthan most of the other Native designations. It means \u201cRed-glowing\nHeadland,\u201d or, let us say, \u201cRosy Point.\u201d\n\nImmeasurably more ancient is Rapanui, which is the name of Shag Rock,\nin the Estuary; a place-name that could very well be appropriated by\nsome of the near-by residents. It is a far-travelled name, for it was\nbrought by the first Maori immigrants from Hawaiki, just as our white\nsettlers brought their Canterburys and Heathcotes and Avons with them.\nWe find it on the map of the Pacific some thousands of miles away; it\nis one of the Native names of Easter Island, that strange relic of a\ndrowned Polynesian land in Eastern Oceania. And further out still,\nthere is Tuawera, the Cave Rock at Sumner, to which belongs a legend of\nlove and wizardry and revenge, to be narrated at another time, in which\nthe chief figures were a girl from Akaroa named Hine-ao or \u201cDaughter of\nthe Dawn,\u201d the chief Turaki-po, of \u201cThe Outpost\u201d village, and Te Ake,\nthe _tohunga_ of Akaroa.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nROUND THE SUGARLOAF.\n\n\u201cTHE CREST OF THE RAINBOW.\u201d\n\n\nThe saying that the best place to see the mountains is from below,\nnot from their summits, may properly be qualified in its application\nto our Port Hills by the opinion that the finest view of the craggy\nrange of old volcanic upjuts is that to be had from a few hundred\nfeet below the range crest, on the Lyttelton Harbour side. Really to\nappreciate the special and peculiar beauty of the hills, with their\nnippled peaks and crags and their age-weathered cliffs, one must travel\nalong the Lyttelton-Governor\u2019s Bay road rather than view the range from\nthe Plains, where the smoothed and settled ridges, like a series of\nlong whalebacks, give little hint of the sudden rocky wildness of the\nprecipitous dip to the harbour slopes. There, on the white road that\ncurves along the hillsides well above the waters of the Whanga-Raupo,\nit is easy to understand something of the fiery history of these hills,\nwhen the hollow that now is Lyttelton Harbour was one terrific nest of\nvolcanoes and when the tremendous forces of confined steam and gases\nhurled whole mountain-tops skyward and helped to give savage shape\nto the walls of rhyolite rock that stand to-day little altered by\nthe passage of the untold centuries of years. Better still, truly to\nunderstand this most wonderful part of Canterbury, one should make a\ntraverse of the upper parts of the eastern dip by the new tracks, two\nor three hundred feet below the pinnacles of the ridge. Off\n\n[Illustration: Te Heru o Kahukura, Sugarloaf.\n\n  _C. Beken, photo_]\n\nthe tracks if you care for the exercise there is rock-climbing in\nplenty and there are scrambles under the low-growing trees and along\nsteep faces hanging on to the flax clumps and the tough-branched\n_koromiko_. And at about this level on the Hills side there are\naspects of crag scenery, and crag and woodland combined, that are\naltogether missed by the stroller who keeps to the beaten track. Our\nChristchurch artists need not go further away than the inner dip of the\nrange, the battered rim of the ancient fire cauldron, for impressions\nof bold rock faces straightly grand and honeycombed with curious caves,\nand witchy-looking weathered old trees; pictures that approach grandeur\nwhen the storm clouds swirl about the tussock-topped tors of Kahukura,\nthe Rainbow God, giving the dark cores of the olden volcanoes an added\nheight and mystery, or when they drift softly and mistily from the deep\ngullies between the ridges like steam masses from some hidden geyser.\n\nThe Mitchell Track that winds along northward between the tumbled rocks\nand among the hill flax gives the explorer a start on his traverse\nfrom Dyer\u2019s Pass. It begins just opposite the picturesque stone-built\ntea-house with its swinging signboard and its quaint inscriptions in\nthe saddle of the Pass, and it splendidly opens up the seaward face\nof the Sugarloaf whose rounded summit lifts directly over us yonder\nmore than 1,600 feet above the harbour level. Immediately below us, in\nthe gully that long ago was a channel for lava flow, the rocky depths\nare softened by the foliage of a fragment of the olden bush, a green\ncovering for the valley floor. The valley is more attractive outside,\nfor almost every vestige of the moss and ferns and underbrush has\ndisappeared before grazing stock and the\n\n[Illustration: The Sign of the \u201cKiwi,\u201d with Marley\u2019s Hill in the\nbackground.\n\n  _C. Beken, photo_]\n\nsudden torrents that have poured down from the ridge to make the\nlittle storm-creek flowing into the harbour beside the grassy mound\nof Pa-rakiraki. The lava-builded, notched and caverned walls of the\nSugarloaf shoot up above us just here like a parapet, in regularly\nmarked layers; tufts of flax and tussock and wiry veronica beard the\nface of the old fire-cliffs. Looking back at the Pass, just before\nwe round the first bend in the rocky traverse, the cliff makes a\nterraced halt in its descent, and here on this tussock-grown tiny\nlevel, broidered with flax bushes and their honey-sweet _korari_\nblossoms, there is an eye-taking prospect of the Dyer\u2019s Pass dip to the\nsoft-blue sunlit harbour and of the black rock-faces and strong folds\nof the Port Hills southward.\n\nImmediately southward of the Pass road the land goes easily swelling\nup into Marley\u2019s Hill, a little higher than our Sugarloaf, and now a\nstory of old-time explaining the meaning of the Maori name of that airy\nsaddle comes to mind.\n\nThe original name of the ridge leading southward from Dyer\u2019s Pass,\nand including Marley\u2019s Hill, says Hone Taare Tikao of Rapaki, is\nOtu-Tohu-Kai, which being translated is \u201cThe Place Where the Food Was\nPointed Out.\u201d The tradition is that nearly two centuries ago, when the\nNgai-Tahu from the North conquered this part of the country from the\nNgati-Mamoe, a chief named Waitai ascended this height from Ohinetahi\n(now Governor\u2019s Bay), taking with him Manuwhiri and other of the\nchildren of the chief Te Rangi-whakaputa who had taken possession of\nthe harbour shores, in order to point out to them the good things of\nthe great Plains. Waitai had already explored the country, and was able\nto tell of its worth as a home for Ngai-Tahu.\n\nWhen Waitai and his companions emerged from the bush and topped the\nlofty round of the range, he halted, and bade them look out over the\nwide, silent country. He pointed to the reedy lagoons and streams\nthat silvered the flax and tussock desert, where Christchurch City\nand its suburbs now spread out leisurely and shade off into the rural\nlands, and said: \u201cYonder the waters are thick with eels and lampreys,\nand their margins with ducks and other birds; in the plains beyond\nthere are wekas for the catching.\u201d The Plains, as he showed them,\nwere plentifully studded with the ti-palm, from which the sugary\n_kauru_ could be obtained. Then, turning in the other direction,\nhe spoke of the fish-teeming waters of the harbour, where flounders,\nshark, and other _kai-matai-tai_, \u201cfood of the salt sea,\u201d were to\nbe had in abundance. Such were the foods of this Wai-pounamu; and so\ngood seemed the land to those conquistadors as they stood there on the\nwindy height surveying the great new country fallen into their hands,\nthat they decided to remain in so promising a place; and it is their\ndescendants who people Rapaki and other _kaingas_ to-day.\n\nNow we turn and, passing a rugged cornice in the lava wall, descend\ninto the gully to examine for ourselves the tree-covering of old\nKahukura\u2019s shoulders. There is a thick growth of flax on the little\nterraces and steep slopes above the bush, and in one place we force\nour way through a regular jungle of it, growing so thickly as almost\nto encourage the idea that a flax-mill would find profitable business\nhere. Some of the tall _korari_ stalks are well in flower\nand bees are busy; on others the long dark-sheathed buds are just\nunfolding. Flax-flower honey-water makes a pleasant enough drink, and\nthe Boy Scout tastes and pronounces it good. There is a pretty Maori\nlove-lament in which a girl compares her sorrowing self to this blossom\nof the flax:\n\n\u201cMy eyes are like the wind-waved _korari_ blossoms; when the\nbreeze shakes the flowers down fall the honey showers; so flow my\ntears.\u201d\n\nA little lower and we are in the bush, taking care as we enter it to\ngive a wide berth to the insinuating Maori nettle, the _ongaonga_,\nwith its unhealthy-looking light-coloured leaves covered with a thick\ngrowth of fine spines or hairs. The Boy Scout sidles warily past\nthose bushes of _ongaonga_ when he is told of its poisonous\nqualities, and of an experience the narrator had with it years ago in\nthe King Country bush. Away up yonder, in the Ohura Valley, between\nthe open lands of the King Country and Taranaki, the _ongaonga_\ngrew into tall shrubs, ten or twelve feet high, and its virulence\napparently was in proportion to its growth. All of our exploring party\nwere more or less badly stung and suffered the effects for a day or\ntwo, but the unfortunate horses suffered most. Two of them went mad\nwith the poisonous stings, which swelled their sides and legs, and a\npack-horse actually drowned itself by bolting into a creek and lying\ndown in the water in its desperate need of ease from the pain. Really\nbad _ongaonga_ stings provoke feverish sickness; and so it is\nprudent to make a detour on these hill slopes rather than encounter\nover-closely even these insignificant little specimens. If you are on a\nsteep, slippery slope and reach out for a hand-grip, as likely as not\ninstead of a friendly flax or tussock bunch the _ongaonga_ will\nbe there waiting for you with his devilish little stinging hairs. And\ndon\u2019t attempt to apply to our Maori Land nettle the amiable counsel of\nold Aaron Hill that was given out to us in our school days:--\n\n    Tender handed stroke a nettle\n    And it stings you for your pains;\n    Grasp it like a man of mettle,\n    And it soft as silk remains.\n\nDon\u2019t, if you value your skin, try that on the _ongaonga_.\n\n[Illustration: The Seven Sleepers\n\nThe Port Hills, south-west of Dyer\u2019s Pass, viewed from the lower slopes\nof Sugar Loaf, above the Governor\u2019s Bay road\n\n  _W. A. Taylor, photo_]\n\nLower down, however, the way is clear of this bush plague, and we\nfind ourselves under a shady roof of thick foliage, woven of the cool\ngreen leaves of the broadleaf, a small _puka_, the _mahoe_\nand _kowhai_ and other minor trees of the Maori bush with much of\nthe _kotukutuku_, the native fuchsia, now come into flower, with\nits masses of slender pendulous blossom giving promise of abundant\n_konini_ berries for the birds. (Like several other New Zealand\ntrees the fruit of the _kotukutuku_ is given a different name from\nthe plant itself.) The graceful lacebark or ribbonwood, too, is here in\nplenty; there are some beautiful specimens on these hills and slopes,\nand finest of all perhaps is the grand old _houi_ that overshades\nthe little Maori Church at Rapaki. _Aka_ vines interlace the\nclose-growing trees and here and there present tangling obstacles\nto a passage along the gully sides. The place lacks the softness of\nmoss and fern underfoot to which we are accustomed in the real bush;\nnevertheless it has something of the atmosphere of the olden forest\nwild; grateful bush scents are in our nostrils, the leaf-covering is\nclose, though the trees are not tall, and the twisting character of\ngrowth and the matting of creepers help to make compact the tentage of\ngreen.\n\nMaking north-east with the general curve of the Sugarloaf slopes we\nleave the first bush patch and, breasting another wild garden of flax,\nwith here and there a cabbage-tree sweetening the air with its creamy\nflowers, discover a deep trend to the north-west into the main valley.\nHere, under a steep-to uplift of the ancient igneous rock, curving out\nabove our heads in savage cornices and rude attempts at gargoyles,\nwe look down upon a picture of surprising beauty, one of the many\nsurprises folded in among these Port Hills.\n\n[Illustration: The old Maori Church at Rapaki.]\n\nOn this side of the Heru-o-Kahukura the range is deeply bitten into\nby a cup-shaped valley, with one side of the cup, that facing the\nharbour, cut away for the passage of the old lava streams and now the\nrainy season watercourses. The inside of the valley, too, is given\nthe semblance of a fan by the numerous converging tributary gullies,\nseparated by grassy and flax-grown ridges. There are perhaps half a\ndozen of these subsidiary valleys, and each one is filled with a sweet\ngreen mass of light bush similar to that behind us. The higher the\nlittle valleys, too, the more bush there is; the gully bottoms are\nhidden everywhere with many tinted foliage, a taller tree here and\nthere protruding its head above its fellows, and these remnants of the\nancient forest climb to the very parapets of dark and grey rock that\nseem to form the main defences of Kahukura\u2019s citadel. The curving lines\nconverge, the shouldering ridges fall away as the now dry watercourses\nblend into one hundreds of feet below the rocky elbow of ours.\n\nIt is perhaps half a mile across the main gully and we fix a course for\nthe Summit track on the ridge northwards and strike down through the\nbush. Here in the shadowy depths there is some bird life; the trill of\nthe _riroriro_, the little grey warbler, is almost constant, and\nan occasional fantail flits about us; but the thrush is more numerous\nthan any native bird. When the bush bird-foods are ripe the _tui_\nsometimes pays this valley a visit from larger woodland tracks. There\nis a curious wildness in the valley bottom under the thicknesses of the\nbroadleaf and the _mahoe_ and _kotukutuku_; it is half-dark\nin the deepest part, and great rocks lie hurled about, fire-born and\nwater-worn. The floods that sometimes tear down have worn pot-holes\nhere and there, and there are shallow caves obscured by tangles of\nroots and\n\n[Illustration: Whaka-raupo, Lyttelton Harbour from Kennedy\u2019s Bush]\n\ncoiling stems. There is a venerable _kotukutuku_, a wizard of a\ntree, its whitened bark hanging in strips like shaggy bits of beard,\nits trunk all knotted and twisted, standing sentry at the entrance\nto a little dusky cavern; its misshapen branches, storm-battered, go\nsearching around the broken top of the black and grey rock. Other of\nthe trees take goblin-like shapes, and stretch out their bare roots and\nfeelers, unsoftened by carpet of moss or ferns, to trip the intruder\ninto their dim solitudes. It is but a little bit of a wood, this bush\nin the gully, but its aloofness and solitariness are made complete by\nthe close-growing habit of the small timber and the great tossed-about\nrocks that help to seclude it. _Totara_ of some size, we observe,\nonce grew here; there is the tall, smooth barrel of a tree now dead.\nIn the next main gully to the northward, the Taungahara bush, on the\nNative reserve, there is at least one fine _totara_, and some big\nfellows were cut down there not so very long ago by the Rapaki people\nfor fencing posts.\n\nAs we make upwards, with care evading the diabolical _ongaonga_\nthat haunts the bush outskirts, we strike a steep face, with here and\nthere a dripping of water glistening on the moss-crusted rock and on\nthe little flax and _koromiko_ plants that root themselves in\ntiny crevices. To gain the graded and formed track again, we swarm up\nthe fifty-foot cliff, with _koromiko_ and _aka_ and flax for\nhand-grips. Above there is a jungle of _koromiko_, a veronica\nwhich here assumes sub-alpine habit, and weaves a wire entanglement,\nfortunately minus the barbs--the _tataramoa_ or bush-lawyer in\nthe thicket below supplies those in plenty. The butte here is topped\nby a rock formation so regular and resembling a ruined fortification\nthat the Boy Scout opines it would be a splendid place for a fight,\nand certainly the old shattered tor of the fire-kings, with its copses\nof wire-branched _koromiko_ and its thick flax-clumps, suggests\nitself as a first-rate natural redoubt, where a few riflemen might hold\nout among their rocks and shrubby cover against a score of times their\nnumber.\n\nThe little bush on either hand here runs almost to the ridge top,\nand we come suddenly out of the _koromiko_ thicket on to the\ngreat cave-worn ramparts and have a clear track to the Summit Road\nagain. The picture from the breezy ridge is worth the warm scramble\nup through the matted bit of woodland. The long smooth rolls of hills\ngo down to the Plains on the one hand; on the other the harbour and\nbeyond the cloud-belted heights of the Peninsula. A misty shower is\nsweeping over the far indigo hills, and a rainbow shines out, grandly\nspanning a sector of the Peninsula, from the back of Purau to the\nocean. And as we turn southward the thought comes, observing the evenly\nsymmetrical round-sweep of the Sugarloaf summit from here, that the\nMaoris of old-time, who, like the ancient Incas saw in the rainbow the\npersonification of a deity, may very well have caught from the peak\u2019s\nlikeness to the iris arch the poetic fancy that induced them to name it\nTe Heru-o-Kahukura, \u201cThe Comb (or crest) of the Rainbow God.\u201d\n\nBy way of the easy return trail, we work back southward under the upper\ncliffs. Out near the Pass the crannied walls of old Kahukura echo to\nthe voices of a party of girls, a botany class from the city. The\ninstructor is improving the half-holiday with a practical talk on the\nnative flora, and twenty notebooks are out and pencils busy.\n\n\u201cThis,\u201d announces the mentor as the class clusters round, \u201cis a very\npeculiar plant, Urtica ferox, so called because----\u201d\n\n\u201cWow!\u201d interrupts one of the earnest learners, as she stoops to rub a\nplump ankle. \u201cIt stings like billy-oh!\u201d She has made the acquaintance\nof the truculent _ongaonga_.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n    Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,[2]\n    And merrily hent the stile-a;\n    A merry heart goes all the day,\n    Your sad heart tires in a mile-a.\n\n  --Shakespeare.\n\n[Footnote 2: Carved above the porch of the Summit Road Rest House on\nDyer\u2019s Pass.]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nRAPAKI: A VILLAGE BY THE SEA.\n\n\nIn the little Maori _kainga_ of Rapaki, folded away in a\nvalley-fan of Lyttelton harbour-side, there is a tiny, steep-roofed\nchurch, of old-fashioned build, and by the side of this church stands a\ntwisty-branched old ribbonwood tree, that in summer showers over porch\nand steeple its sweet, snowy blossoms, scented like the orange tree.\nOn the lowermost bough of this knotty ribbonwood, the _houhi_,\nor _houi_, of the Natives, that stood here before the church was\nbuilt, over fifty years ago, hangs the bell that calls the remnant of\nNgati-Irakehu to worship; and it is this sylvan belfry that symbolises\nfor me the intermingling of modernism and ancientry in the Rapaki\nof to-day. Like the other _hapus_ of the Ngai-Tahu tribe, the\nNgati-Irakehu and their kin are now half-_pakeha_ in blood; they\nhave intermarried with their European neighbours, and their little\ntownship, with its sixty odd souls, is scarcely to be taken at first\nsight for a Maori settlement. The communal house, of characteristic\nNative build, with its carved frontal barge-boards and its\ngargoyle-like _tekoteko_ perched above the entrance, familiar to\ntravellers in the Native districts of the North, is wanting here; but\na survey of the village scheme, with its tree-shaded cottages grouped\nsociably about the central green space, and the hall and school-house\nand church, soon makes it plain that here stood an old-time Maori\n_kainga_, of totara slabs and raupo thatch, with maybe a tall\nstockade guarding its landward side and stretching from cliff to cliff\nof the little boulder-beached bay. The plan is the same; the buildings\nhave changed, for Rapaki to-day believes in\n\n[Illustration: The church bell at Rapaki, suspended from historic\nribbonwood tree.\n\n  _E. Cowan, photo_\n]\n\nsanitation and modern comforts. Here and there a Maori tree, like our\nribbonwood yonder, and a tattered clump of light bush in the gullies or\non a rocky cliff-top, to remind us of the different setting when Rapaki\nwas tumultuous with wild Maori life; when tattooed Ngai-Tahu were in\nfighting flower, and when dense and beautiful forest covered the feet\nand shoulders of all those dark volcanic crags and tors lifting above\nus there like so many ruined castles battered by the artillery fire\nof the gods. A remnant, a _morehu_, now are tribe and forest;\nalike they have dwindled to a shadow; \u201cas the woods are swept away,\u201d\nsays the Maori, \u201cso shall the people vanish.\u201d The young people are so\nAnglicised that they use the _pakeha_ tongue chiefly; the older\nones only cling to Maori among themselves. Yet a brave little remnant,\nwith a fighting heart worthy of their warrior ancestry; for of these\ndescendants of fierce old Rangiwhakaputa and Wheke every eligible young\nman went to the Great War, and some salted with their bones the world\u2019s\ngreatest battlefields. (No Kipling monopoly in the phrase: \u201cBury me\nhere,\u201d said old Major Pokiha, of the Arawa, a fighting chief of the\nlast generation--\u201cbury me here as salt for the lands of my heroes\u201d).\nOne-eighth of the population of little Rapaki voluntarily enlisted.\nThe well-plucked Ngati-Irakehu and their kinsmen have title to say, as\nNelson said of old of his fighting sailors, \u201cWe are few, but the right\nsort.\u201d\n\nThe _Kaumatua_ of Rapaki, the pleasant-mannered kindly greybeard,\nHone Taare Tikao, a gentleman of true _rangatira_ breeding\nand demeanour, is the best informed man of his tribe-remnant on\nthe Peninsula and Port Hills history and legends and genealogical\nrecitals--_whakapapa_ in the Maori tongue. Tikao was born at\nAkaroa over seventy years ago. He is of the Ngati-Irakehu _hapu_\nof the Ngai-Tahu tribe, and he is descended by several lines from\nTe Rangiwhakaputa and other of the warrior chiefs who wrested\nthe Whanga-raupo and the Whanga-roa--Aka-roa is the modernised\ncontraction--from the dusky men of Ngati-Mamoe. From his parents and\nfrom Paora Taki, a picturesque old _rangatira_ who once was Native\nassessor at Rapaki, and kindred people of the generation that has\ngone, he learned the history and legends of these parts.\n\nThe old man tells us first how this village came to be named\nRapaki--not Raupaki, as it is erroneously spelled on the maps. The full\nname of the place is Te Rapaki-a-Te Rangi-whakaputa which means \u201cthe\nwaist-mat of Te Rangi-whakaputa,\u201d and to it, obviously, there hangs a\nstory, which when told leads on to the tradition of the conquest of\nthis district from the Ngati-Mamoe a little over two centuries ago.\nThe Rangi-whakaputa\u2019s name in these parts is associated with Homeric\nexploits with the weapons of old. This long-gone tattooed hero was\nthe Hector of the Whaka-raupo, and this well-hidden valley curving\ndown from the crags was the spot where he settled awhile when the\nharbour-side fighting was done. He was one of the northern invaders,\na kinsman and contemporary of Moki, Tu-rakau-tahi, and other baresark\nwarriors of the end of the seventeenth century. On the beach below the\npresent village he left his waist-garment, a kilt of flax or _toi_\nleaves, probably in connection with the act of _tapa_-ing the\nplace as his possession, and from the fact of this _rapaki_,\nwhich would be a _tapu_ one, being cast there the place received\nits name. Te Rangi-Whakaputa\u2019s name has been translated as \u201cDay of\nDaring,\u201d or \u201cDay of Energy.\u201d It suited this enterprising warrior, who\nis described by his descendant Taare Tikao as a great _toa_ or\nbrave. He was indeed a fine figure of a man, nearer seven feet than six\nfeet high, it is said, very powerful, and a most skilful man in the use\nof the _taiaha_, the Maori broadsword of hard tough _akeake_,\nand the spear and the stone _mere_. All these harbour-front\nvillages and camping-grounds he captured from the Ngati-Mamoe who, as\nTikao says, were the fourth _iwi_--race or tribe--to occupy the\n\n[Illustration: Rapaki Village, with Tamatea\u2019s Breast in the background.\n\n  _W. A. Taylor, photo_\n]\n\nSouth Island; the first people were the Hawea, the second the Rapuwai, the\nthird the Waitaha and the fourth the Ngati-Mamoe, whom the Ngai-Tahu\ndispossessed, in their turn to be supplanted by the white-skins with\ntheir bags of gold sovereigns and their land-sale deeds.\n\nAnd this Homeric figure of two centuries ago, great of stature and\nterrible in fight, had a son whose name is scarcely less famous in the\nlittle-written traditions of the conquest of the Whanga-Raupo. His\nname was Wheke, which means \u201cOctopus,\u201d and like his father he spread\nterror among the Ngati-Mamoe. With his war parties he scoured all these\nranges and tracked the frightened fugitives into their most secret\nvalleys and caves. One of his camping-grounds on a war expedition\nwas yon fort-like nest of basalt towers and upjuts above Cass Bay,\noverlooking our Lyttelton road; he slept one night near the summit of\none of these crags, a wild hard camping place, and it is still known as\n\u201cTe-Moenga-o-Wheke\u201d or \u201cWheke\u2019s Bed.\u201d And over the doorway of the large\nmeeting hall in the village of Rapaki you will see the name of Wheke\npainted, in memory of a brown hero whose bones have been dust these two\nhundred years.[3]\n\n[Footnote 3: The following note describing the occupation of these\nlocalities after the first conflict between the two great tribes of the\nSouth Island was written by Mr. T. E. Green (Tame Kirini) of Tuahiwi,\nKaiapoi, who died in 1917, and who was an authority on the history of\nhis mother\u2019s clan:--\n\n\u201cThe Ngati-Mamoe were subdued by the Ngai-Tuhaitara section of the\nNgai-Tahu tribe under Moki, an account of whose expedition is given\nin Canon J. W. Stack\u2019s contribution to \u201cTales of Banks Peninsula.\u201d\nTe Raki (or Rangi) -whakaputa was of the Ngati-Kurii section of the\ntribe; Ngati-Kurii carried their conquest no further south than\nKaikoura. From there southward is the conquest of Ngai-Tuhai-tara. The\nsecond daughter of Te Rakiwhakaputa was the wife of Tu-Rakautahi, the\nfounder of Kaiapoi Pa, so Te Rakiwhakaputa came to Kaiapoi after the\nsettlement of the Ngai-Tuhaitara, here accompanied by other Ngati-Kurii\nchieftains, namely, Mako, Te Ruahikihiki and others, and dwelt in the\nvicinity of Kaiapoi for some time. There is a spot on the eastern\nbank of the Whakahume (the Cam), about half a mile from the Kaiapoi\nWoollen Mills, named Te Pa o Te Rakiwhakaputa. Some occurrence there\nenraged Parakiore, youngest son of Tu-Rakautahi and grandson of Te\nRakiwhakaputa, and he declared that he would have no interloper in\nhis midst, referring to his grandfather Te Rakiwhakaputa, (to whom,\nfor brevity, I shall now refer by his short name Te Raki) and Mako\n(Mango) who was married to his aunt (Te Raki\u2019s eldest daughter). As a\nresult of this attitude of his son, Tu-Rakautahi said to Te Raki, \u2018You\nmust go out to the Whaka-raupo (Lyttelton Harbour); there are sharks\nthere for us two.\u2019 Mako he sent to Little River, to Wairewa, saying:\n\u2018Yonder are eels for us two.\u2019 To Te Ruahikihiki he said, \u2018Go to Taumutu\n(at Lake Ellesmere); there are patiki (flounders) for us two there.\u2019\nKiri-Mahinahina he sent out to Paanau: \u2018Go yonder and catch hapuku for\nus.\u2019\n\n\u201cNow this is what the present generation living at these places object\nto, the idea that their ancestors were sent there to procure food\nsupplies for Kaiapoi. As Moki, the younger brother of Tu Rakautahi,\nheaded the Ngai-Tuhaitara clan who conquered the Peninsula, you will\nreadily perceive that no chief would deliberately go and settle on the\nterritory of another, and particularly one so powerful as Tu-Rakautahi,\nwithout his permission--which in this case was given--and without\ntribute being paid annually for the privilege. This was strictly\ncarried out by them until the advent of the _pakehas_. Of course\nKaiapoi gave them _kauru_ generally in return, merely in Maori\netiquette; some are now trying to make out that the _kauru_ (the\nsugar extract of the _tii_, or cabbage tree) was the payment for\ntheir fish.\u201d]\n\nWhen first I went round the high bend in the harbour-side road from\nLyttelton and saw Rapaki village a-slumber in the afternoon sun below,\nall in its green and gold of groves and flowers, grassy fields lapped\nabout it in soft folds, the sea coming up in gentle breathings at the\nfoot of the little cliffs, and the grand old crags above, with one huge\n_taiaha_-head of a peak lording it sentry-wise over all, I thought\nthat for beauty of setting very few Maori _kaingas_ even in the\nromantic bushlands and highlands of the North Island were peers of this\nhamlet of the Ngai-Tahu, almost jostled off the map by the crowding\nhordes of the _pakeha_. Down the bend into the hollow, where the\nghost of a mountain stream goes tinkling through the little gully, and\nthe towns that are so near seem a hundred miles away. The mat-kilted\nconquistador of old who gave his name to the place had an eye for a\nsecure, well-hidden site for his _pa_. He could scarcely have\nchosen a spot more snug about these savage Port Hills. The dominating\ntors and marline-spikes of fire-born rock and the great up-swell of\nland on all sides but the sea ward off the cold winds. Loftiest of all\nand nearest is that towering spear-head Te Poho-o-Tamatea, a dark\ngrey triangle of rhyolite, thrusting its naked apex into the warm sky\na thousand feet and more above the groves and dwellings of Tikao\u2019s\npeople. It looks what it is, the mountain guardian of Rapaki; its\npresence, grimly grand on dark lowering days when the mists trail about\nit and give it added height and dourness, is no less overpowering in\nthe night, when it leans over the deep-cut valley of dreams, a huge\nrugged blade of blackness etched against the sky. And even in this day\nof sunshine, when every cave and cranny in the Poho-o-Tamatea were\nsearched by the golden light and when the mystery of its fiery birth\nstood revealed, the great spear-rock still seemed a place of eeriness\nand _tapu_.\n\nThat old ribbonwood tree that quite overshadows the little Rapaki\nchurch holds memories of the vanished forests that once clothed all\nthese Port Hills and of the \u201cflitting generations of mankind\u201d it has\nso long outlived. It is a dignified survivor of the woodlands of the\nRapaki-a-Te Rangi-whakaputa. Once upon a time the indigenous timbers\nthickly covered all these now-grassy slopes slanting quickly from\nthe rhyolite hilltop crags to the quiet waters of the Whaka-Raupo.\nThere were big trees--_totara_, _rimu_, _kahikatea_ and _mataii_--but\nall have gone long ago. Remains there but a remnant from the general\nslaughter with fire and axe and crosscut saw--a copse on yonder rocky\npoint on the Lyttelton side of the hamlet, where the poetically\nnamed _ake-rautangi_, the _ake_ of the \u201ccrying leaves\u201d and a few\nother shrubs hold their little stony fort; and in Taare Tikao\u2019s\ngarden the _kaumatua_ has some treasured plants, such as the handsome\n_rau-tawhiri_ shrub, and the flowering _hakeke_, a variety of _ake_,\nthe leaves of which when crushed in the hand have a lemon-like perfume;\nthe Natives used to boil them for the _hinu kakara_, the fragrant oil\nexpressed. But the old ribbonwood, or lacebark, or thousand-jacket, as\nthe bushman variously calls it, is the tree that takes the eye. The\nMaoris of the north call it _whauwhi_ and _houhere_, here it is _houhi_\nor _houi_. It takes its _pakeha_ name from the peculiar characteristics\nof the inner bark, which is tough and strong of fibre and beautifully\nnetted and perforated. The early colonists have been known to use it\nfor the trimming of ladies\u2019 hats and bonnets. I have seen a war-dance\nparty of Taupo Natives, more than a hundred strong, kilted with short\n_rapakis_ made of this lacebark, deftly twisted and woven by their\nwomenfolk for the ceremonial leaping parade.\n\n[Illustration: In a Rapaki garden.\n\n  _E. Cowan, photo_\n]\n\nThat is the tree that extends its Maori _mana tapu_ and its\ntwisting flowery branches over the village church, with a little spire\nlike an old-time candle extinguisher, and it was under its shade that\nTikao told something of the past of these parts. The church itself,\nas he remembered, was built in 1869 by the Wesleyan Natives, but the\nAnglicans used it also, for in those days there was no _puhaehae_,\nno violent jealousy of sects. And in its very shadow, when the sun\nwesters, is a tangled grassy spot sacred to the memory of a heathen\nchief who would have none of the white man\u2019s church or the white man\u2019s\nbeliefs. Mahuraki was his name, a shaggy tattooed pagan of the first\nhalf of the last century. He was exceedingly _tapu_, steeped in\nwizardry and mysticism. Often the missionaries besought him to become\na Christian, but the grim old warlock scoffed at the Rongo Pai. \u201cHu!\u201d\nhe grunted, \u201cwhat is your Karaiti? Who was he? My god is Kahukura, the\ngod whose sign is the rainbow. As for yours, your Karaiti--he is a\n_poriro_, a misbegotten!\u201d And at last the sorely pained missionary\nabandoned in despair the hopeless task of plucking the ancient man from\nthe burning. Mahuraki died sixty years ago and was buried in a hole dug\nin the floor of his thatched hut, which was left to decay. As he lived,\nhe died, a sturdy unregenerate pagan, and the faith of Ihu Karaiti\nprevailed; the bell of the Rongo Pai calls the _kainga_ to prayers\nwithin a few paces of Mahuraki\u2019s grave, and the _tohunga\u2019s_\nmumblings are a forgotten creed. The _tohunga_ himself is by\nno means forgotten, for one of the names of yonder lofty arrowhead\nof a crag that overlords Rapaki is \u201cMahuraki\u2019s Head.\u201d The original\nname, as we have seen, is Te Poho-o-Tamatea, which means \u201cTamatea\u2019s\nBreast,\u201d so named by this barefooted pioneer of Maori land surveyors\nby way of claiming the land for his tribespeople. In about 1849-50,\nwhen the commander of a British surveying ship made the first survey\nof Lyttelton Harbour and named the landscape saliencies, his Maori\ninterpreter asked the name of this sharp peak, whereupon our old savage\nclaimed that it was named after himself, \u201cTe Upoko-o-Mahuraki.\u201d It was\nhis way of perpetuating his name and fame. But long-distance pedestrian\nTamatea fairly has prior claim.\n\nSo by the foot of the greenwood tree was begun the talk of olden days\nthat ended, as the sun declined behind the historic crags of Tamatea,\non Taare Tikao\u2019s hospitable verandah, overlooking the little village\nand the soft blue placid waters of the Whaka-Raupo. It was a rambling\n_korero_, wandering deviously from _pakeha_ times into romantic\nancientry, when the wild men lived in the woods and when war canoes\nfilled with fierce tattooed eaters of men swept up and down this\nshining harbour of ours. The _Kaumatua_, describing the old industrious\nage of his people, told by way of example of the tribal communistic\nenergies how great flax nets fully a quarter of a mile long used to be\nmade for the catching of the shark in this sea arm. These immensely\nlong seines were six or eight feet deep, and were worked by canoes,\nwhich would take one end out into mid harbour, the other being made\nfast, and sweep the great _kupenga_ round the shoals of fish making\ntheir way up the harbour with the flood tide. Huge quantities of sharks\nand other fish were caught in this manner, a fishing fashion which was\nonly possible under the old tribal system, when the whole strength of\nthe _hapu_ was available for such tasks.\n\nLest readers should question the dimensions of that quarter of a mile\nseine, let me say that in quite recent times, up to within the last\nthirty-five years or so, an old Ngati-Pikiao chief, the late Pokiha\nTaranui (better known as Major Fox), had a net nearly a mile in length,\nwhich was used on special occasions, such as the gathering of food for\nnative meetings; the locality was Maketu village, on the shores of the\nBay of Plenty. But those enormous _kupengas_ will never again be\nhauled through the fish-teeming waters.\n\nFrom Tikao, too, we hear something of the poetic legend and nature-myth\nthat steep those swart hills above Rapaki. Yon savage Poho of rhyolite,\nand the peaked and pinnacled cores of old volcanoes that break\nthrough the grassy hills for mile after mile, all have their tales\nof pre-_pakeha_ years, of which we shall chronicle something\nagain. Just now we may content ourselves with the gentler scenes in\nRapaki valley, where the kowhai has shed its showers of gold and the\n_pakeha_ fruit trees in blossom sweeten the soft air deliciously.\nThat patch of ploughed land behind the settlement before long will\nshow the first shoots of _kaanga_, or maize; there is not much\ngrown in this island except by the Natives. The water-front, in spite\nof its smart new jetty for the launches, is lonelier than in the old\ndays; for there was a time, long after the war-canoe era, when three\nlong whaleboats were hauled up on the sand where the boulders are piled\naside yonder and often these could be seen pulling down to Lyttelton\nladen with potatoes, corn and fruit. That bit of beach is over-rough;\nbut a little way to the north, under the lee of a wild bit of a rocky\nheadland thick with beautiful light bush, is a gem of a white beach,\nclean and hard and shining, a sandy alcove that must have been made\nfor picnicking. And from this hillside turn in the road where we get\nour first glimpse of Rapaki, we may also most fitly take our sunset\nfarewell of the _kainga_ of an artist\u2019s dream.\n\nThe sun is over the range, and Tamatea\u2019s gloomy peak is outlined in\nsharp symmetry against the burning west. In the deep gullies between\nthe spear-head and the ridge of the Sacred Fire the smoky-blue mists\nare already forming, and wreathing and creeping around the tangled\nshrubberies of bush that have escaped the general massacre. The harbour\nlies a sheet of scarcely moving tender turquoise, just a shade lighter\nthan the face of the famous Tikitapu, inaccurately called the Blue\nLake by the _pakeha_; high beyond the shark\u2019s-teeth of the peaks\nthat someone has named the Seven Sleepers are drawn in soft blue upon\nthe rose of the heaven above, their feet are bathed in violet, and the\npurple mists swim wraith-like from their hidden hollows. The sun goes,\nand the delicacy, the tenderness of colour, the fading of landscape\ndetails into a haze like the camp-fire smokes of the legendary\n_Patu-paiarehe_, weave a veil of faery over the valley and the\ndarkening sea. The little boys and girls of the settlement are still\nat play around the meeting-hall, and every call and every laugh come\nclearly through the velvet soft air. Down in a nearer dwelling, a girl\nis rehearsing a _poi_-dance song, and the lilt is familiar, the\nhalf-sad chant that begins,\n\n    \u201cHoki-hoki tonu mai,\n    Te wairua o te tau.\u201d\n    (\u201cReturn, return again to me,\n    The spirit of my love.\u201d)\n\nIt is the song crooned by the women and the children in every\n_kainga_ that, like slumbrous little Rapaki down yonder, sent\nits young men to use rifle and bayonet beside their _pakeha_\nbrothers-in-arms on the thundering battlefields half a world away.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE \u201cAHI-A-TAMATEA.\u201d\n\nHOW THE SACRED FIRE CAME TO WITCH HILL.\n\n\nAs we travel northward along the Summit Track from the Poho-o-Tamatea,\nobserving from this commanding height--a thousand feet above little\nRapaki village, lying in its grassy nest below--how that great\nspearhead of rock has in reality an almost level top, we come to a\nremarkable broken wall of grey lava moss-crusted and shrub-tufted,\nprotruding from the grassy flanks of the craggy knoll called Witch\nHill. It is in fact a huge dyke of once-molten lava, cutting wall-like\nthrough the old lava flows and trending southward across the shoulder\nof its parent hill. From the very crest of the range it shoots in a\npalisade of frost-shattered rock, towering thirty feet and more in\nplaces above the stone-strewn tussocks, and it stretches some distance\nin irregular cyclopean steps down the steep slope towards Rapaki. There\nis an old stone quarry on the face of Witch Hill, where this dyke juts\nout like a broken castle wall of the _Patu-paiarehe_, the Dim\nPeople of long ago, and just there the old waggon track goes down over\nthe smoothed-out hills to the Canterbury Plains and the green banks of\nthe Opaawaho.\n\n[Illustration: Witch Hill.]\n\nThe Giants\u2019 Causeway some fanciful _pakeha_ has named this wall of\nlava. To the Maori it is the \u201cAhi-a-Tamatea\u201d or \u201cthe Fire of Tamatea\u201d,\nand a strange nature legend there is thereto; a folk tale in which\nfable and geologic myth are curiously blended. It is a volcano myth\nwhich closely resembles, and is no doubt a copy of, the North Island\nlegend of Ngatoro-i-Rangi and the origin of the Ngauruhoe volcano. The\nmarch downhill of this curious upstanding dyke of lava, grey against\nthe more sombre tints of the range, may be traced in the masses of\nlava boulders through which the Rapaki water-course has cut its way\nin its lustier days. And if you turn your face southward and look\nfar across the upper part of the harbour, near the western slopes\nof Mount Herbert, you will plainly see what seems a continuation of\nthe remarkable wall of lava which welled ages ago white-hot from the\ncauldrons of Ruaimoko. Those grey-white parapets of fire-made rock are\nthe Ashes of the Fires of Tamatea, and this is the wonderful tale of\nTamatea and his magic fire, a tale of old which brings in, too, our\ngreat arrowhead peak, towering yonder on Rapaki\u2019s western side, yon\nhuge upjut lording it sentry-wise over the Maori _kainga_. The peak\nof \u201cTamatea\u2019s Breast,\u201d is one of the very few landscape saliencies\nin these parts which still remain in the hands of the people of\nTakitimu descent. A venerable name this, for it is quite six hundred\nyears old and is a connecting link with the greatest land-explorer in\nMaori-Polynesian story, a prototype of the adventurous \u201cKai-ruri,\u201d the\nwhite surveyor of _pakeha_ pioneering days.\n\nTamatea seems to have been possessed of the true \u201cwander-hunger,\u201d for\nwhen he arrived on the shores of the North Island in his ocean-going\ncanoe the Takitimu (or Takitumu) from his Eastern Pacific home--Tahiti\nor one of the neighbouring islands--via Rarotonga--his restless heart\nimpelled him to more adventure. First making the land in the far\nnorth, he voyaged on down the East Coast, sailing and paddling from\nbay to bay, leaving here and there some of his sea-weary crew, who\nintermarried with the inhabitants, and he did not cease his sailorly\nenterprise until he had reached the foggy shore of Murihiku, the \u201cTail\nof the Land\u201d which the white man calls Southland. Here the Takitimu\nwas hauled ashore and if one is to accept literally the legend of the\nMaori, there she is to be seen now, metamorphosed in marvellous fashion\ninto mountain form, the lofty blue range of the Takitimu--mis-spelled\n\u201cTakitimos\u201d on the maps and locally spoken of as \u201cthe Takitimos.\u201d\nIt is curious that this isolated range--fairy-haunted in native\nlegend--lifting abruptly on all sides from the tussocky plains that\nslope to Lake Manapouri, from more than one point bears a resemblance\nto the form of a colossal canoe upturned. Legend, too, says that\nTamatea settled awhile at the foot of the Canoe Mountains, and that he\nhad a camp village at the lower end of Lake Te Anau, where eels and\nbirds were abundant.\n\n[Illustration: The Summit Road, overlooking Governor\u2019s Bay.\n\n  _C. Beken, photo_\n]\n\nThen, wearying for the trail and the _pikau_, he set out on a march\nwhich was nothing less than heroic, from Southland to the newly-settled\nhomes of his people in the North. With a number of companions and\nfood bearers the barefooted explorer trudged across country, through\nthe unpeopled tussock prairies of Otago and the plains now known as\nCanterbury, fording or swimming the rivers or crossing them on rude\nrafts (_mokihi_) made of bundles of flax-stalks or of dried _raupo_,\nuntil he reached the hills that wall in Lyttelton Harbour. He travelled\nalong the range-top, as was the way of the Maori explorer, until he\nneared the dip in the sharp ridge at the back of Rapaki, over which the\nMaoris and the pioneer white men made a track.\n\nNow, Tamatea had carried with him, in a section of a hollow _rata_\nlog, as was the fashion of the Maori, a smouldering fire for his\nnightly camps. No common fire this; it was an _ahi-tipua_,\na \u201cmagic blaze,\u201d a sacred fire directly kindled from that\ntrebly-_tapu_ fire which Uenuku, the great high priest of far\nHawaiki, had sent with his canoe voyagers. The Takitimu, being a\n_tapu_ canoe, carried no cooked food, and the only plants the\npeople brought in her were ornamental ones, for scent and beauty and\nsweet flowers. She was a great double canoe, and could carry two\nhundred people. Her consort was the canoe Arai-te-uru, which carried\n\u201cTe Ahi-a-Uenuku--Uenuku\u2019s Fire\u201d--and all kinds of food plants, even,\nsays Tikao, a grain which is said to have resembled the _pakeha\u2019s_\nwheat. Coming round Te Matau-a-Maui, Hawke\u2019s Bay, the Arai-te-Uru\nnearly capsized; she went over on her side, and continued in that\nattitude until she finally overturned at Matakaea Point, near Oamaru,\nwhere she still lies--turned to stone! The sacred fire was saved and\nit was taken by the chiefs up the Waitaki River and placed there in\nthe ground; and there until about forty-five years ago it was still\nactually burning, issuing from the earth in a little undying flame, and\nit was called \u201cTe Ahi a Uenuku.\u201d (A seam of lignite is said to have\nbeen found burning in the locality by the early settlers and explorers,\nand this the Maoris identified with the Hawaikian sorcerer\u2019s magic\nblaze.)\n\nBut it seems that Tamatea\u2019s fire so carefully tended by the gods went\nout as he travelled slowly up the hills from Otago, and none had\nbeen kindled again when he reached the Port Hills. And as he and his\ncompanions came out of the bush and passed out on to the summit of the\nmountain above Rapaki, a great storm of wind and rain, followed by\nhail and snow, burst upon them from the south and they were like to\nperish from the cold. It was freezing cold, and Tamatea was without\nfire or the means of making one, for no fire-making timbers grew in\nthat spot. In his extremity he stood upon the tall crag-top yonder--the\none that now is called \u201cThe Breast of Tamatea\u201d--and called aloud and\n_karakia\u2019d_ and made incantations for sacred fire to be sent\nfrom the North Island, the land of active volcanoes, to save the\nlives of himself and his companions. He called to his elder relative,\nNgatoro-i-Rangi, and to the guardians of the Ahi-Tipua, the volcanic\nfires.\n\nAnd the chief\u2019s fervent prayer was answered in a moment. The fire,\nsent by the gods in the heart of the North Island, burst forth from\nTongariro and speeding down the rift of the Wanganui River valley it\ntouched a spot near Nelson, and again it touched Motu-nau--the small\nisland close to the Canterbury Coast--and then it appeared again in a\nmagic blaze on the side of Witch Hill, and the Maori explorers warmed\ntheir frozen limbs and were saved. The fire did not stop here in its\nwonderful flight, for it went on across the harbour, and the white\nchute of rock, like a huge sheep-dip trough, shining yonder above the\nbay of Waiaki is the last of the sacred flames of Tamatea.\n\nAnd when the chief left the spot next day to continue his\njourney he said, \u201cLet this place be called The Place where\nTamatea\u2019s Fire-Ashes Lie\u201d; and so to-day the rocky wall which\nthe white man has named the Giant\u2019s Causeway is to the Maori \u201cTe\nWhaka-takanga-o-te-Karehu-a-Tamatea.\u201d And the volcanic fire itself is\n\u201cTe Ahi-a-Tamatea.\u201d\n\nSuch is the story of Tamatea\u2019s Fire as told by Hone Taare Tikao, in\nreciting the legends learned from the long-dead elders of his tribe.\nA legend embalming a distinct perception of the geological history of\nthese hills. The _Kaumatua_ truly says that the magical walls of\nTamatea\u2019s Fire Ashes are of later origin than the volcanic crags and\nhills which lie about them, and across which they cut. The Wanganui\nRiver, down which the sacred fire came from the crater of Ngauruhoe,\nwas then dry; it was a rift opened for it by the Volcano Gods. Tikao\nspeaks of a time when the lower part of Lyttelton Harbour was not in\neruption, but when the upper part was; from the southern side of Quail\nIsland to the head of the bay was a furnace; there was no water in it\nat that immeasurably distant day. There are lava rocks, he says, like\nthose of the Ahi-a-Tamatea on the shore of Quail Island; and then there\nare the always wonderful cliff of Pari-mataa and the wall of Otarahaka\non the Mount Herbert side of the upper harbour.\n\nOf the lava dykes Professor R. Speight writes in his account of the\ngeology of the Port Hills that they radiate from the harbour as a\ncentre and form, as it were, the ribs of the mountain, holding it\nfirmly together and helping it to resist the enormous strains to\nwhich it was exposed before and during eruptions. \u201cJudging from the\npersistent nature of these dykes,\u201d he adds, \u201cit is clear that the\nmountain must have been split at times from top to bottom, and the\nliquid material which welled from the fissures must have looked at night\nlike a red-hot streak across the country.\u201d\n\n[Illustration: Te Poho-o-Tamatea, or Tamatea\u2019s Breast, in the middle\ndistance.\n\n  _W. A. Taylor, photo_\n]\n\nAnd so, by way of the long Maori story, the one solitary example of\nvolcano-legendry the writer has heard from the South Island, we come\nto the Rapaki peak\u2019s guardian name, Te Poho-o-Tamatea. The explorer\nbestowed his name upon the height, _tapa-ing_ it after himself\nand his sacred breast, much as a present-day traveller justly might\nclaim the right to map-name some peak after himself. Tamatea\u2019s travels\nled him far after he turned his back on the Port Hills. He marched\nup on the coast to Kaikoura, and there or further north he built a\ncanoe, or, what is more probable, borrowed or forcibly appropriated\none belonging to the _tangata whenua_ who must already have been\nliving in the Marlborough country, and crossed to the North Island.\nHe canoed up the Wanganui River--there is a curious rock, the end\nof which the natives used to paint red with _kokowai_ ochre,\nprojecting from the eastern bank many miles above Pipi-riki, still\nknown as Tamatea\u2019s Rock--and crossed the central plateau to Lake\nTaupo, and thence went on to the East Coast. There are innumerable\nstories illustrating his genius for exploration, and from end to end\nof New Zealand place nomenclature memorises his travels and justifies\nthe name by which he is known in history, Tamatea-pokai-whenua,\nor \u201cTamatea-who-travels-through-the-land.\u201d He was a true type of\nthe pioneer and the path-finder, the Fremont of Aotea-roa and the\nWai-pounamu, the man who heard the \u201cone everlasting Whisper\u201d--\n\n  Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges--\n  Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost and waiting for you. Go!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nHILLS OF FAERY.\n\nTHE LITTLE PEOPLE OF THE MIST.\n\n\nOur talk turned one day to the poetic legendary past of the Port Hills\nabove us and the Banks Peninsula peaks yonder, hemming in Lyttelton\nHarbour in an annular line of dead fire crags. They were the hills\nof an artist\u2019s dream this golden afternoon, all their asperities of\ncrag and bare bluff softened and gilded by the mellow light of a calm,\nbright, windless day. There was just the faintest of hazy films drawing\nover the nearer hills from the waters. The sea below us at Rapaki lay\nin unbreathing quiet, as soft, as bright and blue as Kipling\u2019s Indian\nOcean. The rich purple of distance painted the most remote of the\nPeninsula peaks, and here and there a wispy tail of mist floated about\nthe head of a gully that cleft the crumpled hills swelling up into the\nrocky summits of the Pohue and the Ahu-patiki. Just where the land went\nsteeply up from the head of the bay to the shoulders of Te Ahu-Patiki,\notherwise Mount Herbert, we could see the curious light grey rock wall\nof the Tarahaka, above the Pari-mataa, \u201cObsidian Cliff,\u201d like a great\nchute down the mountain side, gleaming in the sun, the _tipua_\nrock of the fire gods. Nearer, in the middle of the picture, were the\nblack volcanic cliffs, and the green slopes and pine-groves of the\nLepers\u2019 Isle, the island which the Maoris of old called Otamahua,\nmapped by the _pakeha_ as Quail Island; it was one tragic spot in\nthe picture, a place of living death.\n\nThe _Kaumatua_ spoke of the hilltop homes of the\n_Patu-paiarehe_, the fairies, whose craggy castles defended by\nthe thick dark woods and the fogs and mists, ringed all this harbour\nround and made the high places of the Peninsula an uncanny land, given\nup to all manner of enchantments. Not that he reposed implicit faith in\nthe fairy stories himself, he told them as he had heard them from his\nelders in the days of long ago. \u201cWe are half _pakeha_ ourselves\nnow, we Ngai-Tahu,\u201d he said, \u201cand our young people deride these notions\nabout the _Patu-paiarehe_. Yet--these hills were different in my\nyoung days, when the mists came down and the fog enveloped the little\nstreams tumbling down all the valleys from the gloomy places. We went\nbirding into the forest, and we made clearings for cultivations and cut\nfirewood in the bush for sale to the _pakeha_. Sometimes, when the\nmists came down and the fog enveloped the hills, on still, calm days\nour old men and women would say the fairies were out, the sun-shunning\n_Patu-paiarehe_, and it were well not to venture up the range. On\nbrooding quiet days our people could hear the thin voices of the little\nfolk--they were small, fair people, as all the elders said--crying\nout to each other and singing fairy songs and playing little songs on\ntheir wooden or bone flutes, their _koauau_ and _putorino_.\nThis Poho-o-Tamatea, the high peak behind the _kainga_ of Rapaki,\nwas one of their homes, their _pas_, but there were others, the\nhigh places of the fairies, all around these hills, from my peak above\nthere right away along the peak-tops touched by the Summit Road, right\nround to Cooper\u2019s Knobs and then on to the Peninsula, even to Otoki,\nthe haunted mountain which the _pakeha_ calls Brazenose, on the\nsouthern side of Akaroa town.\u201d\n\n[Illustration: Rhodes\u2019s Monument (Home of the Fairies), to the east of\nMt. Herbert, taken from Lyttelton.\n\n  _W. A. Taylor, photo_]\n\nThe _Kaumatua_ swept his finger across the southern sky-line, the wild\nand broken peaks of Banks Peninsula, rising up in powerful slants\nfrom the soft blue of the harbour, creased with the gullies of\nwater-courses. \u201cOver yonder,\u201d he said, \u201care the chief _pas_ of the\n_Patu-paiarehe_, which I shall list for you: There is the rock of\nTe Pohue, which _pakehas_ call the Monument between Purau and Port\nLevy; there is Hukuika Peak, on the hill road between Pigeon Bay and\nLittle River; there is the mountain-top of Te U-Kura, which commands\nall the hill-country of the Peninsula--it is just at the back of\nthe stopping-place called Hilltop on the road from Little River to\nAkaroa town. Also there are the high rocky peaks which overlook Akaroa\nHarbour--Pu-Waitaha, or French Hill, between Wainui settlement and\nBuchanan\u2019s; Otehore, a rocky flat-topped height above French Farm, on\nthe upper part of the harbour; the summit heights above Akaroa town,\nPurple Peak, Mount Berard and Brazenose--these we call O-te-Patatu,\nTara-te-rehu, and Otoki; and lastly Tuhiraki, the sky-pencilling peak,\nwhich the French named Mount Bossu, on the western side of the harbour.\nAll these were the mountain _pas_ of the fairies.\n\n\u201cNow, amongst the fairy _pas_,\u201d the word-of-mouth historian went\non, \u201cthere are two places of particular enchantment. One is that lofty\npalisade of a peak which you call Brazenose, and the level-topped\nhill above French Farm. Otoki--the Place of the Axe--is the name for\nBrazenose, but there is an ancient burying-ground there, upon the\nmisty mountain immediately above the little Maori village of Onuku,\non the beach side, which is called Otehore; the _Wahi-tapu_, or\ncemetery, makes it doubly sacred. This place and the height above\nFrench Farm were both called Otehore, and the people of the mists loved\nthem well. On the small piece of level ground on that Otehore which\nstands above French Farm the fairy _hapu_ of those parts had\ntheir _pa_, and there they would gather at night for their fairy\nmeetings, and gather by day also in the foggy weather when no Maori eye\ncould see them; and then would be heard their sweet fairy songs, their\n_waiatas_, and the tunes they played upon their flutes, sounding\nfaintly from the cloudy mountain.\u201d\n\nIndeed, on dim and foggy days, and when the wet vapours becloud\nthe long-dead volcano land, it is not difficult to enter into the\nspirit of the Maori fancy, and in imagination people all these craggy\npinnacles with the _Patu-paiarehe_, and the wooded gulches with\n_Maeroero_, the wild men of the bush. When the mists steal down\non the rhyolite knobs of the fire-fused Port Hills and the Peninsula,\ncraggy beyond description, peaked in a hundred fantastic shapes, with\ngreat black and grey nipples of lava protruding from the grassy slopes\nand the woody ridges, the land has an eerie look, fit playground\nfor the Forgetful People, as the old Irish would have called them.\nIn the early morning too, when the fogs are lifting from the bays,\nand here and there a black broken thumb of a peak juts out above the\ntrailing vapours, or the mist-wreaths drape in torn veilings the huge\nrampart-like scarps, and when the first rosy sunbeams glorify the\nhalf-revealed mountains, the poetic mind can well conceive of this\nregion as one of fairy wizardry and all manner of dusk-time magic. One\nday when it rained and blew, we were motoring over the hills from the\nPlains to Akaroa, scarcely able to see twenty yards in front of the car\nwhen we ran cautiously round to Hilltop. Suddenly the dense masses of\nfog were rent aside by the wind, and right above us, with a fore-ground\nof blackened tree-stumps, remnant of the ruined forest, we caught a\nglimpse of the black, jagged tor which the Maori called Te Puha, thrust\nup like a great spearhead by Ruaimoko, the Fire-God; in the light of\nthe _Kaumatua\u2019s_ stories it was easy to imagine it a sentry-tower\nof the fairies, or of such a place of witchery as the Ben Bulben of\nwhich we read in W. B. Yeats\u2019s \u201cCeltic Twilight.\u201d\n\nThere is another rugged, dark volcanic crag, wooded about its base,\ncrowning one of these Peninsula ridges, of which the Old Man of\nRapaki has a poetic story. This is the pinnacle above and to the\nnorth of the Hilltop Hotel, on the divide where the traveller gets\nhis first sight of Akaroa lying more than a thousand feet below. The\n_Kaumatua_ gave it as one of his fairy peaks, its Native name is\nTe U-Kura, and as far as I have been able to ascertain, it bears no\nofficial _pakeha_ name. Te U-Kura, he says, is an exceedingly\nancient designation; it was a name given by the fairies. It means \u201cThe\nResting Place of the Ruddy Light.\u201d In his younger days, when he lived\nat Tikao Bay, on the shores of Akaroa harbour, he frequently observed\nfor himself the peculiar fitness of the Hilltop name. Often at sunset\na cloud-cap would rest lightly on the dark skull of the fairy crag,\nand to this cloud the declining sun would impart a bright red glow,\nthe _kura_ of the Maori. This was a sign to the weather-wise that\na nor\u2019-wester was blowing on the Canterbury Plains--a _tohu_, or\ntoken, that was seldom astray. \u201cU\u201d means to rest, as a canoe upon the\nbeach. This surely is a name that the _pakeha_ should imprint upon\nhis Peninsula maps. It lends itself to more than one euphonious variant\nin the _pakeha_-tongue, as \u201cRed Cloud\u2019s Rest,\u201d or \u201cPlace of the\nSunset\u2019s Glow.\u201d\n\nBehind the town of Akaroa, the grassy hills, lightly wooded here and\nthere like a beautiful wild park, culminate in a craggy skyline,\nmore than a thousand feet above the fields and orchards on the town\noutskirts. Dark tors of rhyolite, grassed to the base of\n\n[Illustration:\n\n  Cockayne\u2019s Cairn      Cass Peak\n\nKennedy\u2019s Bush.\n\n  _W. A. Taylor, photo_\n]\n\ntheir nippled upswells, dreamy on sunny days in their delicate\nwash of hazy blue. Here near the Stony Bay road saddle, is the\nlegend-haunted O-te-Patatu, the old-time ridge of the fairies and the\n_titi_. The _titi_ or muttonbird has long since disappeared\nfrom the Port and Peninsula hills, but in the Maori days it was\nplentiful on many such high places. It loved to build on lofty hills,\nwhere the soil was soft enough to enable it to make its burrows.\nThere was a cliff at O-te-Patatu, says the _Kaumatua_, where\nthe _titi_ lived and bred in great numbers in the long ago.\nThe Maori tribes who lived on the beaches and on the trenched and\nparapeted promontories made expeditions to the hilltop in the season\nwhen the young birds were fat, and caught, cooked and preserved them\nin kelp baskets and pottles, just as the Foveaux Strait and Stewart\nIsland Maoris do at the present time. But the _Patu-paiarche_\nwho lived on the crags of O-te-Patatu and Tara-te-rehu also hunted\nthese _titi_, and slaughtered them in such numbers, in a most\nunfairylike manner, that presently these fishy petrels became extinct\nin that locality. A woman of the Ngai-Tahu, or Ngati-Mamoe, at Akaroa,\nwho was said to be in love with a fairy, but who no doubt also loved\nthe palatable muttonbird, chanted this little _waiata_, a song\nof fairy times which is still to be heard at Rapaki and other Native\nvillages:--\n\n    Titi whakatai aro rua\n    E hoki ra koe\n    Ki O-te-Patatu,\n    Ki te pa whakatangi\n    Ki te koauau,\n    Ki tauwene ai\n    E raro i au-e!\n\n\n(Translation)\n\n    O titi, bird of the sea,\n    Bird of the hilltop cave,\n    Come back to O-te-Patatu,\n    To the lofty dwelling\n    Where the sweet sounds are heard,\n    The sound of the faery flute,\n    The music of the mountains\n    That thrilled me through and through!\n\n\nThe soft and plaintive flute song of the fair-skinned folk who lived\non these misty mountains seems to have appealed to the Native heart,\nfor it is described as sweeter by far than the _whakatangitangi_,\nthe \u201cmaking sound upon sound,\u201d of the ordinary Maori flute-players.\nDistance, aided by imagination, no doubt lent it additional\nenchantment. And the _Patu-paiarehe_ men appear often to have\nmade themselves agreeable to the _wahine_ Maori, for stories are\ntold of women being taken as wives by the fairy chiefs, and of girls\nfrom the Maori villages wandering away into the woods to meet their\nfairy lovers. The offspring of such unions were always known by their\nextremely fair skins, unnaturally pale, and their light flaxen hair;\nthey were _korako_ or albinos.\n\nAnd there was another people of the wilds. Sometimes on dark nights\nthe Maori villagers would see the light of torches moving about in\nbays across Lyttelton Harbour, then the Bay of Raupo, where they knew\nthere was no settlement of their tribe, and they would say to each\nother, \u201cSee! The _Maeroero_ are out, spearing _patiki_.\u201d The\n_Maeroero_ were the wild men of the woods, fierce hairy giants who\nsometimes captured Maori women and carried them off to be their wives\nin the bush of the Port Hills. The _Maeroero_ are described as\nhaving very long and sharp finger-nails, so long that they were great\nclaws, and it was with these long talons that they speared the flatfish\nand caught the birds in the forests.\n\n[Illustration: The Summit Road\npathway, through the Devil\u2019s Staircase, or The Remarkable Dykes (on the\nway to Kaituna)]\n\nTo the matter-of-fact _pakeha_ and the modernised Maori there is a\nvery simple explanation of these fairy tales. The _Patu-paiarehe_ and\nthe _Maero_ were simply the remnants of aboriginal tribes, such as\nthe Ngati-Mamoe or the Waitaha or their predecessors, driven away into\nthe heart of the mountains and the forests, where they lived a wild,\nsecluded life, existing on the foods of the wilderness. The old English\nand Scottish belief in fairy people arose in much the same way, the\nvery word \u201cpixy\u201d comes from the name of the Picts, who were driven\ninto the hills and caves. Nevertheless, for those who like to preserve\ntheir Peter Pan fancies and illusions this theory may cheerfully be\ndisregarded, and we may still, on days of mist and cloudy calm, imagine\nthe little tribes of the rocks flitting out from their caves and hollow\ntrees and raising as of old their thin voices in their _waiatas_ and\npiping their fairy sweet _koauau_ music on the level hilltop of Otehore\nor the dark rock of Tamatea\u2019s Breast.\n\n\nMOUNT PLEASANT AND ITS \u201cTAPU.\u201d\n\nNow the Old Man\u2019s memories take him back seawards across the Port Hills\nto the familiar knolls of Tauhinu-Korokio. This is the Native name\nof Mount Pleasant, the great grassy upswell of land lifting sixteen\nhundred feet above sea-level and looking down serenely on the vast\ncurving sand-line of Pegasus Bay. The Maori name is a combination\nof the names of two Native shrubs which were very plentiful on that\nportion of the hills in former times and specimens of which may still\nbe seen there. _Tauhinu_ is a heath-like plant found all over New\nZealand; it is the Pomaderis phylicaefolia of the botanists. It grows\ntwo or three feet high, or sometimes higher, and it is so plentiful\nand so prone to spread that it has been placed on the Agricultural\nDepartment\u2019s index expurgatorious as a noxious weed, in spite of\nall the sweet heathery perfume of its blossoms which the bees love.\nThe _korokio_ is a small bushy black-branched growth which the\n_tauhinu_, as the Maoris say, often embraces and smothers,\nas the _rata_ eventually smothers the tree which it clasps.\nTauhinu-korokio was an ancient _pa_ of Ngati-Mamoe which stood on\nthe site of Major Hornbrook\u2019s old homestead and the present house of\n\n[Illustration: Hinekura.\n\n  _J. Cowan, photo_]\n\nstay for visitors, just below a remnant of the ancient bush on the\nnorthern and sunny slope of the green mountain. There was a good spring\nof water close by, and this important fact no doubt determined the\nsituation of the Ngati-Mamoe hillmen\u2019s village. In Ngai-Tahu times,\nafter Te Rangi-Whakaputa had conquered this _pa_ in the course of his\nsubjugation of the Whaka-Raupo aborigines, the vicinity was found by\nthe Ngai-Tahu to be a very suitable spot for such vegetable foods as\nthe _korau_ and the _pora_, or _pohata_, now extinct; the roots, which\nwere sweet, were dried in the sun and stored in _ruas_, or underground\npits and earthed-in storehouses, as potatoes and _kumara_ are now.\n_Kumara_ and _taro_, the tropic foods of the north, did not flourish in\nthe hill country of the south, though they did well enough, with care,\non favoured parts of the Canterbury Plains and the Coast.\n\nThere is in Maori belief an exceedingly _tapu_ spot on\nTauhinu-korokio, close to where the old Ngati-Mamoe _pa_ stood.\nIt was probably either a _tuahu_ or a burying-place; the\n_tuahu_ was the spot where the tribal gods, or, rather, their\nsymbols in wood and stone, were kept, and where the wise men, the\n_tohungas_, resorted for incantation and occult ceremonies and\nthe black art of the _makutu_, by which enemies might be slain\nthough they were at a great distance, by thought transmission and the\nmalignant projection of the will. It is not well to camp there even\nnow, should you have Maori blood in your veins. The flax-clumps and the\n_tauhinu_ bushes still murmur the name of Ngati-Mamoe, and though\n_pakeha_ sheep have long grazed over the site of Tauhinu-korokio\nand _pakeha_ voices make lively the mountain side, the soil holds\nthe mysterious spell of the _tapu_. Maoris who have camped on the\nside of the track which goes over the hills there have spent a night of\ninexplicable discomfort, inexplicable, that is, but for the presence of\nthe _tapu_ and the unseen spirits of Maoridom. Taare Tikao himself\nsays that many years ago, when he was shearing at Major Hornbrook\u2019s,\nhe was taken suddenly and mysteriously ill, and that the illness was\nprobably the effect of the local _tapu_. However, these fancies\nneed not trouble the _pakeha_, whose constitution is not affected\nby even the most virulent of Maori bedevilments.\n\n\n  PRINTED BY\n  WHITCOMBE & TOMBS LIMITED\n  CHRISTCHURCH","title":"Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":16776}