Polynesian Mythology · The Legend of Rātā (1/2)

The Legend of Rātā

His Adventures with the Enchanted Tree and Revenge of His Father’s Murder

Before Tāwhaki ascended up into the heavens a son named Wahieroa had been born to him by his first wife. As soon as Wahieroa grew to man’s estate he took Kura for a wife, and she bore him a son whom they called Rātā. Wahieroa was slain treacherously by a chief named Matuku-takotako, but his son Rātā was born some time before his death. It therefore became his duty to revenge the death of his father Wahieroa, and Rātā having grown up, at last devised a plan for doing this. He therefore gave the necessary orders to his dependants, at the same time saying to them, “I am about to go in search of the man who slew my father.”

He then started upon a journey for this purpose, and at length arrived at the entrance to the place of Matuku-takotako. He found there a man who was left in charge of it sitting at the entrance to the courtyard, and he asked him, saying, “Where is the man who killed my father?”

The man who was left in charge of the place answered him, “He lives beneath in the earth there, and I am left here by him, to call to him and warn him when the new moon appears. At that season he rises and comes forth upon the earth, and devours men as his food.”

Rātā then said to him, “All that you say is true, but how can he know when the proper time comes for him to rise up from the earth?”

The man replied, “I call aloud to him.”

Then said Rātā, “When will there be a new moon?”

And the man who was left to take care of the place answered him, “In two nights hence. Do you now return to your own village, but on the morning of the second day from this time come here again to me.”

Rātā, in compliance with these directions, returned to his own dwelling, and waited there until the time that had been appointed him, and on the morning of that day he again journeyed along the road he had previously travelled, and found the man sitting in the same place, and he asked him, saying, “Do you know any spot where I can conceal myself, and lie hid from the enemy with whom I am about to fight, from Matuku-takotako?”

The man replied, “Come with me until I show you the two fountains of clear water.”

They then went together until they came to the two fountains. The man then said to Rātā, “The spot that we stand on is the place where Matuku rises up from the earth, and yonder fountain is the one in which he combs and washes his dishevelled hair, but this fountain is the one he uses to reflect his face in whilst he dresses it. You cannot kill him whilst he is at the fountain he uses to reflect his face in, because your shadow would be also reflected in it, and he would see it; but at the fountain in which he washes his hair you may smite and slay him.”

Rātā then asked the man, “Will he make his appearance from the earth this evening?”

And the man answered, “Yes.”

They had not waited long there when evening arrived and the moon became visible, and the man said to Rātā, “Do you now go and hide yourself near the brink of the fountain in which he washes his hair;” and Rātā went and hid himself near the edge of the fountain, and the man who had been left to watch for the purpose shouted aloud, “Ho, ho! the new moon is visible⁠—a moon two days old.” And Matuku-takotako heard him, and seizing his two-handed wooden sword, he rose up from the earth, and went straight to his two fountains. Then he laid down his two-handed wooden sword on the ground, at the edge of the fountain where he dressed his hair, and, kneeling down on both knees beside it, he loosened the strings which bound up his long locks, and shook out his dishevelled hair, and plunged down his head into the cool clear waters of the fountain. So Rātā, creeping out from where he lay hid, rapidly moved up and stood behind him, and as Matuku-takotako raised his head from the water, Rātā with one hand seized him by the hair, while with the other he smote and slew him. Thus he avenged the death of his father Wahieroa.

Rātā then asked the man whom he had found in charge of the place, “Where shall I find the bones of Wahieroa my father?”

And the keeper of the place answered him, “They are not here; a strange people who live at a distance came and carried them off.”

Upon hearing this, Rātā returned to his own village, and there reflected over many designs by which he might recover the bones of his father.

At length he thought of an excellent plan for this purpose, so he went into the forest and having found a very tall tree, quite straight throughout its entire length, he felled it, and cut off its noble branching top, intending to fashion the trunk into a canoe; and all the insects which inhabit trees, and the spirits of the forests, were very angry at this, and as soon as Rātā had returned to the village at evening, when his day’s work was ended, they all came and took the tree, and raised it up again, and the innumerable multitude of insects, birds, and spirits, who are called “The offspring of Hākuturi,” worked away at replacing each little chip and shaving in its proper place, and sang aloud their incantations as they worked; this was what they sang with a confused noise of various voices:⁠—

Fly together, chips and shavings,

Stick ye fast together,

Hold ye fast together;

Stand upright again, O tree!

Early the next morning back came Rātā, intending to work at hewing the trunk of his tree into a canoe. When he got to the place where he had left the trunk lying on the ground, at first he could not find it, and if that fine tall straight tree, which he saw standing whole and sound in the forest, was the same he thought he had cut down, there it was now erect again. However, he stepped up to it, and manfully hewing away at it again, he felled it to the ground once more, and off he cut its fine branching top again, and began to hollow out the hold of the canoe, and to slope off its prow and the stern into their proper gracefully curved forms; and in the evening, when it became too dark to work, he returned to his village.

As soon as he was gone, back came the innumerable multitudes of insects, birds, and spirits, who are called the offspring of Hākuturi, and they raised up the tree upon its stump once more, and with a confused noise of various voices, they sang incantations as they worked, and when they had ended these the tree again stood sound as ever in its former place in the forest.

The morning dawned, and Rātā returned once more to work at his canoe. When he reached the place, was not he amazed to see the tree standing up in the forest, untouched, just as he had at first found it? But he, nothing daunted, hews away at it again, and down it topples crashing to the earth. As soon as he saw the tree upon the ground, Rātā went off as if going home, and then turned back and hid himself in the underwood, in a spot whence he could peep out and see what took place. He had not been hidden long when he heard the innumerable multitude of the children of Tāne approaching the spot, singing their incantations as they came along; at last they arrived close to the place where the tree was lying upon the ground. Lo, a rush upon them is made by Rātā. Ha, he has seized some of them; he shouts out to them, saying, “Ha, ha, it is you, is it, then, who have been exercising your magical arts upon my tree?”

Then the children of Tāne all cried aloud in reply, “Who gave you authority to fell the forest god to the ground? You had no right to do so.”

When Rātā heard them say this, he was quite overcome with shame at what he had done.

The offspring of Tāne again all called our aloud to him, “Return, O Rātā, to thy village, we will make a canoe for you.”

Rātā, without delay, obeyed their orders, and as soon as he had gone they all fell to work. They were so numerous, and understood each what to do so well, that they no sooner began to adze out a canoe than it was completed. When they had done this, Rātā and his tribe lost no time in hauling it from the forest to the water, and the name they gave to that canoe was Riwaru.

When the canoe was afloat upon the sea, 140 warriors embarked on board it, and without delay they paddled off to seek their foes. One night, just at nightfall, they reached the fortress of their enemies, who were named Ponaturi. When they arrived there, Rātā alone landed, leaving the canoe afloat and all his warriors on board. As he stole along the shore, he saw that a fire was burning on the sacred place where the Ponaturi consulted their gods and offered sacrifices to them. Rātā, without stopping, crept directly towards the fire, and hid himself behind some thick bushes of the Harakeke.14 He then saw that there were some priests upon the other side of the same bushes, serving at the sacred place, and, to assist themselves in their magical arts, they were making use of the bones of Wahieroa, knocking them together to beat time while they were repeating a powerful incantation known only to themselves, the name of which was Titikura. Rātā listened attentively to this incantation until he learnt it by heart, and when he was quite sure that he knew it, he rushed suddenly upon the priests; they, surprised and ignorant of the numbers of their enemy, or whence they came, made little resistance, and were in a moment smitten and slain. The bones of his father Wahieroa were then eagerly snatched up by him; he hastened with them back to the canoe, embarked on board it, and his warriors at once paddled away, striving to reach his fortified village.

In the morning some of the Ponaturi repaired to their sacred place, and found their priests lying dead there, just as they were slain by Rātā. So, without delay, they pursued him. A thousand warriors of their tribe followed after Rātā. At length this army reached the fortress of Rātā, and an engagement at once took place, in which the tribe of Rātā was worsted, and sixty of its warriors slain. At this moment Rātā bethought him of the spell he had learnt from the priests, and, immediately repeating the potent incantation Titikura, his slain warriors were by its power once more restored to life; then they rushed again to the combat, and the Ponaturi were slaughtered by Rātā and his tribe, a thousand of them⁠—the whole thousand were slain.

Te Rātā’s task of avenging his father’s death being thus ended, his tribe hauled up his large canoe on the shore, and roofed it over with thatch to protect it from the sun and weather. Rātā now took Tongarautāwhiri as one of his wives, and she bore him a son whom he named Tūwhakararo. When this son came to man’s estate, he took Apakura as one of his wives, and from her sprang a son named Whakatau. He was not born in the manner that mortals are, but came into being in this way: One day Apakura went down upon the seacoast, and took off a little apron which she wore in front as a covering, and threw it into the ocean, and a god named Rongotakawiu took it and shaped it, and gave it form and being, and Whakatau sprang into life, and his ancestor Rongotakawiu taught him magic and the use of enchantments of every kind.

When Whakatau was a little lad, his favourite amusement was flying kites. Mortals then often observed kites flying in the air, and could see nothing else, for Whakatau was running about at the bottom of the waters, still holding the end of the string of the kite in his hands. One day he stole up out of the water by degrees, and at length came upon the shore, when the whole of his body was quite plainly seen by some people who were near, and they ran as fast as they could to catch him. When Whakatau observed them all running to seize him, he slipped back again into the water, and continued flying his kite as before; but the people who had seen him were surprised at this strange sight, and being determined to catch him the next time he came out, they sat down upon the bank to wait for him. At last Whakatau came up out of the water again, and stepped on shore once more; then the people who were watching for him all ran at full speed to catch him. When Whakatau saw them coming after him again, he cried out, “You had better go and bring Apakura here, she is the only person who can catch me and hold me fast.”

When they heard this, one of them ran to fetch Apakura, and she came with him at once, and as soon as she saw little Whakatau, she called out to him, “Here I am; I am Apakura.” Whakatau then stopped running, and Apakura caught hold of him with her hands, and she questioned him, saying, “Whom do you belong to?”

And Whakatau answered her, “I am your child; you one day threw the little apron which covered you on the sands of the sea, and the god Rongotakawiu, my ancestor, formed me from it, and I grew up a human being, and he named me Whakatau.”

From that time Whakatau left the water and continued to live on shore. His principal amusement, as long as he was a lad, was still flying kites; but he understood magic well, and nothing was concealed from him, and when he grew up to be a man he became a renowned hero.

This second legend of the destruction by Whakataupōtiki of the house called Te Tihi-o-Manono, or Te Uru-o-Manono, is added, because it differs considerably from the other, and is often alluded to in ancient poems.

Tinirau determined to attempt to avenge the death of his descendant Tūwhakararo, and he thought that the best person to do this was Whakatau, whom he knew to be very skilful in war, and in enchantments, so he directed his wife Hine-i-te-iwaiwa to find Whakatau, and she went in search. When she reached a village near where she expected to find him, she asked some people whom she saw, where Whakatau was, and they answered her, “He is on the top of yonder hill flying a kite.”

She at once proceeded on her way until she came to the hill, and seeing a man there, she asked him, “Can you tell me where I can find Whakatau?” and he replied,

“You must have passed him as you came here.”

Then she returned to the village where she had seen the people, and said to them, “Why, the man upon the hill says that Whakatau is here;” but they told her that the man who had spoken to her must have been Whakatau himself, and that she had better return to him, and told her marks by which she might know him. She therefore returned, and he, after some time, when she showed him that she knew certain marks about his person, admitted that he was Whakatau; and he then asked her what had made her come to him? and she replied, “Tinirau sent me to you to ask you to come and assist in avenging the death of our near relative; the warriors are all collecting at the village of Tinirau, but they fear to go to attack these enemies, for they are the bravest of all the enemies of Tinirau.”

Whakatau then asked her, “Have you yet given a feast to the warriors?” and she said,

“Not yet.”

He then spoke to her, saying, “Return at once and when you reach your village, give a great feast to the warriors; give them abundance of potted birds from the forests, but let all the oil in which the birds were preserved be kept for me; as for yourself, do not go to the feast, but, decking your head with a mourning dress of feathers, remain seated close in the house of mourning.” Then Hine-i-te-iwaiwa at once returned to Tinirau, to do as she had been directed.