Sidestep: Traditions and Legends

COLLECTED FROM THE NATIVES OF MURIHIKU. (SOUTHLAND, NEW ZEALAND.) by H. BEATTIE. 1918.

AN EARLIER CANOE.

After having given the Waitaha history, as outlined in the foregoing information, my informant (Tare te Maiharoa) said that though Rakaihautu was the first man to come to the South Island, yet long before his time a canoe came here bringing a number of “giants.” The traditions regarding this canoe have been lost in the mists of antiquity, the name of the canoe not having been authoritatively preserved, although some say it was called “Waka-huruhuru-manu” after the first canoe ever made. Following is what my informant had heard concerning the crew of that canoe, and it should at least provide students of South Island lore with some interesting sidelights on well-known legends. The crew of that canoe were giants and they settled in the South Island. Their names were Kopuwai, Pukutuaro, Komakohua, Te Karara-huarau and Pouakai, and others.

Kopuwai was the giant who, in an oft-told legend, swallows the Mataau (Molyneux River) in an endeavour to catch a Rapuwai woman named Kaiamio. He was afterwards turned into the Old Man Range in Central Otago, and the Maoris call those mountains “Kopuwai” to this day, and a small lake near them is called “Hapua-o-Kaiamio.” When Kopuwai was turned into stone his pack of ten two-headed dogs were dispersed and six of them took refuge in a carved cave on the riverbank in the township of Duntroon, named Ka-waikoukou. (My informant said “carved cave” but he means one covered with ancient rock-paintings, the same as Otakiroa cliff two miles away from Duntroon.) These dogs were turned into stone, and if you go to that cave you can still see their two-headed bodies sticking out of the water.

​ 'Kopuwai' in Central Otago

There is a striking co-incidence the names of the first canoes made by the Maori race and the names of the first canoes retained in their traditions as coming to New Zealand are identical, or almost so, and hence has arisen confusion in the minds of succeeding generations with a result that the same canoes are now said to have left the original home of the people and to have come right on to New Zealand. The Waitaha appear to be the only tribe in New Zealand that has preserved a tradition of what their very remote ancestors did when they first encountered the ocean. The name of the first canoe was “Waka-huruhuru-manu” (also known as “Uruao”) and the next was “Te Waka-a-raki” (which is now a constellation in the sky). The traditions regarding this latter extremely ancient canoe have (to the collector's mind) got tacked on to those of a canoe of this name which came to New Zealand under Taiehu and before Rakaihautu's time, hence we find its likeness is stated to have been projected into the sky from New Zealand, instead of away back in pre-historic times (probably long before the birth of Christ). The “Te-waka-a-raki” canoe which came to New Zealand is sometimes known as “Te Waka-huru-huru-manu” but this latter name appears more probably to belong to the misty canoe which brought the “giants” and Maeroero to the South Island long before Rakaihautu's time. Rakaihautu's canoe was traditionally named after the storm which so battered the “feather canoe” (and incidentally proved to that race which had hitherto been landsmen, that the sky did not rest on the sea) and to this day in Murihiku a squall at sea is called uruao. That any of the canoes first made came onto New Zealand is very unlikely unless we accept the theory that the habitation of New Zealand is extremely ancient, so between the first canoe known as “Uruao” and the second there is probably much more than 1000 years.

CONCERNING THE GIANTS.

Kopuwai is the best known of these gigantic beings. Of the others Pouakai is now remembered as a huge bird and the narrator said that “pouakai” was the ancient and correct name of the moa. According to the description given, Komakohua could not be regarded as gigantic, for it was a white bird the size of a domestic fowl, which lived in cliffs and peered down at passers-by. It could fly and had a sharp beak, and it has not been seen for many years. (An old woman present said she had seen them at Matau (Cape Farewell) when she was a girl, but had not heard of anyone seeing them since). Pukutuaro was a harmless monster, as far as the narrator had ever heard, and lived in a pond at the headwaters of the Rakaia River, but he had never heard any story connected with it or the locality. Te Karara-huarau had his abode at Taupo and Waitata in the Collingwood district and ran away with a woman known as Ruru. She got away from him but was recaptured. Her people built a house the size of Te Karara and sent for him to visit them. Ruru came overland but Karara swam round by sea. He was tired and slept sound that night and the people set fire to the house and burnt him. His cave can still be seen up near Collingwood.

Before leaving the question of that ancient canoe Te-Waka-huruhuru-manu coming to New Zealand, the collector may state that two old men in the South said to him:—“The crew of that canoe were ‘Maeroero’ and a big stone near the Owaka River is called after one of them, but the name is now lost. The crew of that canoe are said to have played on the flat top of the hill known as Tua-te-pere. 'Tua-te-pere' which basically means arrow/dart of a time past. (Melanesians used arrows... just saying.)

Near Roger's farm at Owaka, some stones stand up and the Maeroero used to come at night and sit on top of those stones and play the putara and the putorino. On Friend's farm at Owaka there is a big flat stone which is tapu because one of the Maeroero who came on ‘Te-Waka-huruhuru-manu’ used it. The ghosts would worship there and then go on to Table Hill. Owaka mean place of the tribe.... 'the' tribe. Table hill is Puketiro which means lookout hill. This is where they gathered.

We all know that when the Europeans came to Otago, the Tautuku Forest was said by the Maoris to be haunted by fearsome “wild men of the woods” and they would not venture into its depths. Perhaps it originally acquired this reputation because it was the last refuge of a pre-Maori people.