Polynesian Mythology · The Voyage to New Zealand (1/3)

The Voyage to New Zealand

When the canoes were built and ready for sea they were dragged afloat, the separate lading of each canoe was collected and put on board, with all the crews. Tamatekapua then remembered that he had no skilful priest on board his canoe, and he thought the best thing he could do was to outwit Ngātoroirangi, the chief who had command of the Tainui. So just as his canoe shoved off, he called out to Ngātoro, “I say, Ngātoro, just come on board my canoe and perform the necessary religious rites for me.” Then the priest Ngātoro came on board, and Tamatekapua said to him, “You had better also call your wife, Kearoa, on board, that she may make the canoe clean or common, with an offering of seaweed to be laid in the canoe instead of an offering of fish, for you know the second fish caught in a canoe, or seaweed, or some substitute, ought to be offered for the females, the first for the males; then my canoe will be quite common, for all the ceremonies will have been observed, which should be followed with canoes made by priests.” Ngātoro assented to all this, and called his wife, and they both got into Tama’s canoe. The very moment they were on board, Tama’ called out to the men on board his canoe, “Heave up the anchors and make sail;” and he carried off with him Ngātoro and his wife, that he might have a priest and wise man on board his canoe. Then they up with the foresail, the mainsail, and the mizzen, and away shot the canoe.

Up then came Ngātoro from below, and said, “Shorten sail, that we may go more slowly, lest I miss my own canoe.”

And Tama’ replied, “Oh, no, no; wait a little, and your canoe will follow after us.” For a short time it kept near them, but soon dropped more and more astern; and when darkness overtook them, on they sailed, each canoe proceeding on its own course.

Two thefts were upon this occasion perpetrated by Tamatekapua. He carried off the wife of Ruaeo, and Ngātoro and his wife, on board the Arawa. He made a fool of Ruaeo too; for he said to him, “O Rua’, you, like a good fellow, just run back to the village and fetch me my axe Tutauru; I pushed it in under the sill of the window of my house.” And Rua’ was foolish enough to run back to the house. Then off went Tama’ with the canoe, and when Rua’ came back again, the canoe was so far off that its sails did not look much bigger than little flies. So he fell to weeping for all his goods on board the canoe, and for his wife Whakaotirangi, whom Tamatekapua had carried off as a wife for himself. Tamatekapua committed these two great thefts when he sailed for these islands. Hence this proverb, “A descendant of Tamatekapua will steal anything he can.”

When evening came on, Rua’ threw himself into the water, as a preparation for his incantations to recover his wife, and he then changed the stars of evening into the stars of morning, and those of the morning into the stars of the evening, and this was accomplished. In the meantime the Arawa scudded away far out on the ocean, and Ngātoro thought to himself, “What a rate this canoe goes at! what a vast space we have already traversed! I know what I’ll do, I’ll climb up upon the roof of the house which is built on the platform joining the two canoes, and try to get a glimpse of the land in the horizon, and ascertain whether we are near it, or very far off.” But in the first place he felt some suspicions about his wife, lest Tamatekapua should steal her too; for he had found out what a treacherous person he was. So he took a string and tied one end of it to his wife’s hair, and kept the other end of the string in his hand, and then he climbed up on the roof. He had hardly got on the top of the roof when Tama’ laid hold of his wife, and he cunningly untied the end of the string which Ngātoro had fastened to her hair, and made it fast to one of the beams of the canoe, and Ngātoro feeling it tight thought his wife had not moved, and that it was still fast to her. At last Ngātoro came down again, and Tamatekapua heard the noise of his steps as he was coming, but he had not time to get the string tied fast to the hair of Kearoa’s head again, but he jumped as fast as he could into his own berth, which was next to that of Ngātoro, and Ngātoro, to his surprise, found one end of the string tied fast to the beam of the canoe.

Then he knew that his wife had been disturbed by Tama’, and he asked her, saying, “Oh, wife, has not someone disturbed you?”

Then his wife replied, “Cannot you tell that from the string being fastened to the beam of the canoe?”

And then he asked her, “Who was it?”

And she said, “Who was it, indeed? Could it be anyone else but Tamatekapua?”

Then her husband said to her, “You are a noble woman indeed thus to confess this; you have gladdened my heart by this confession. I thought after Tama’ had carried us both off in this way that he would have acted generously, and not loosely in this manner; but, since he has acted in this way, I will now have my revenge on him.”

Then that priest again went forth upon the roof of the house and stood there, and he called aloud to the heavens, in the same way that Rua’ did, and he changed the stars of the evening into those of the morning, and he raised the winds that they should blow upon the prow of the canoe and drive it astern, and the crew of the canoe were at their wits’ end, and quite forgot their skill as seamen, and the canoe drew straight into the whirlpool, called “The throat of Te Parata,”17 and dashed right into that whirlpool.

The canoe became engulfed in the whirlpool, and its prow disappeared in it. In a moment the waters reached the first bailing place in the bows, in another second they reached the second bailing place in the centre, and the canoe now appeared to be going down into the whirlpool head foremost. Then up started Hei, but before he could rise they had already sunk far into the whirlpool. Next the rush of waters was heard by Īhenga, who slept forward, and he shouted out, “Oh, Ngātoro, oh, we are settling down head first. The pillow of your wife Kearoa has already fallen from under her head!” Ngātoro sat astern listening; the same cries of distress reached him a second time. Then up sprang Tamatekapua, and he in despair shouted out, “Oh, Ngātoro, Ngātoro, aloft there! Do you hear? The canoe is gone down so much by the bow that Kearoa’s pillow has rolled from under her head.” The priest heard them, but neither moved nor answered until he heard the goods rolling from the decks and splashing into the water. The crew meanwhile held on to the canoe with their hands with great difficulty, some of them having already fallen into the sea.

When these things all took place, the heart of Ngāroto was moved with pity, for he heard, too, the shrieks and cries of the men, and the weeping of the women and children. Then up stood that mighty man again, and by his incantations changed the aspect of the heavens, so that the storm ceased, and he repeated another incantation to draw the canoe back out of the whirlpool, that is, to lift it up again.

Lo, the canoe rose up from the whirlpool, floating rightly; but, although the canoe itself thus floated out of the whirlpool, a great part of its lading had been thrown out into the water, a few things only were saved and remained in the canoe. A great part of their provisions were lost as the canoe was sinking into the whirlpool. Thence comes the native proverb, if they can give a stranger but little food, or only make a present of a small basket of food, “Oh, it is the half-filled basket of Whakaotirangi, for she only managed to save a very small part of her provisions.” Then they sailed on, and landed at Whangaparāoa, in Aotea here. As they drew near to land, they saw with surprise some pōhutukawa trees of the sea coast, covered with beautiful red flowers, and the still water reflected back the redness of the trees.

Then one of the chiefs of the canoe cried out to his messmates, “See there, red ornaments for the head are much more plentiful in this country than in Hawaiki, so I’ll throw my red head ornaments into the water;” and, so saying, he threw them into the sea. The name of that man was Tauninihi; the name of the red head ornament he threw into the sea was Taiwhakaea. The moment they got on shore they ran to gather the pōhutukawa flowers, but no sooner did they touch them than the flowers fell to pieces; then they found out that these red head ornaments were nothing but flowers. All the chiefs on board the Arawa were then troubled that they should have been so foolish as to throw away their red head ornaments into the sea. Very shortly afterwards the ornaments of Tauninihi were found by Māhina on the beach of Mahiti. As soon as Tauninihi heard they had been picked up, he ran to Māhina to get them again, but Māhina would not give them up to him; hence this proverb for anything which has been lost and is found by another person, “I will not give it up, ’tis the red head ornament which Māhina found.”

As soon as the party landed at Whangaparāoa, they planted sweet potatoes, that they might grow there; and they are still to be found growing on the cliffs at that place.

Then the crew, wearied from the voyage, wandered idly along the shore, and there they found the fresh carcass of a sperm whale stranded upon the beach. The Tainui had already arrived in the same neighbourhood, although they did not at first see that canoe nor the people who had come in it; when, however, they met, they began to dispute as to who had landed first and first found the dead whale, and as to which canoe it consequently belonged; so, to settle the question, they agreed to examine the sacred place which each party had set up to return thanks in to the gods for their safe arrival, that they might see which had been longest built; and, doing so, they found that the posts of the sacred place put up by the Arawa were quite green, whilst the posts of the sacred place put up by the Tainui had evidently been carefully dried over the fire before they had been fixed in the ground. The people who had come in the Tainui also showed part of a rope which they had made fast to the jawbone of the whale. When these things were seen, it was admitted that the whale belonged to the people who came in the Tainui, and it was surrendered to them. And the people in the Arawa, determining to separate from those in the Tainui, selected some of their crew to explore the country in a northwest direction, following the coast line. The canoe then coasted along, the land party following it along the shore; this was made up of 140 men, whose chief was Taikehu, and these gave to a place the name of Te Ranga of Taikehu.

The Tainui left Whangaparāoa18 shortly after the Arawa, and, proceeding nearly in the same direction as the Arawa, made the Gulf of Hauraki, and then coasted along to Rākaumangamanga, or Cape Brett, and to the island with an arched passage through it, called Motukōkako, which lies off the cape; thence they ran along the coast to Whiwhia, and to Te Aukanapanapa, and to Muriwhenua, or the country near the North Cape. Finding that the land ended there, they returned again along the coast until they reached the Tamaki, and landed there, and afterwards proceeded up the creek to Tauoma, or the portage, where they were surprised to see flocks of seagulls and oystercatchers passing over from the westward; so they went off to explore the country in that direction, and to their great surprise found a large sheet of water lying immediately behind them, so they determined to drag their canoes over the portage at a place they named Ōtāhuhu, and to launch them again on the vast sheet of saltwater which they had found.

The first canoe which they hauled across was the Tokomaru⁠—that they got across without difficulty. They next began to drag the Tainui over the isthmus; they hauled away at it in vain, they could not stir it, for one of the wives of Hoturoa, named Marama-kiko-hura, who was unwilling that the tired crews should proceed further on this new expedition, had by her enchantments fixed it so firmly to the earth that no human strength could stir it. So they hauled, they hauled, they excited themselves with cries and cheers, but they hauled in vain, they cried aloud in vain⁠—they could not move it. When their strength was quite exhausted by these efforts, then another of the wives of Hoturoa, more learned in magic and incantations than Marama-kiko-hura, grieved at seeing the exhaustion and distress of her people, rose up and chanted forth an incantation far more powerful than that of Marama-kiko-hura; then at once the canoe glided easily over the carefully-laid skids, and it soon floated securely upon the harbour of manuka. The willing crews urged on the canoes with their paddles. They soon discovered the mouth of the harbour upon the west coast, and passed out through it into the open sea; they coasted along the western coast to the southwards, and discovering the small port of Kāwhia, they entered it and, hauling up their canoe, fixed themselves there for the time, whilst the Arawa was left at Maketu.

We now return to the Arawa. We left the people of it at Tauranga. That canoe next floated at Motiti;19 they named that island after a spot in Hawaiki, because there was no firewood there. Next Tia, to commemorate his name, called the place now known by the name of Rangiuru, Tākapu-o-tāpui-ika-nui-a-Tia. Then Hei stood up and called out, “I name that place Tākapu-o-wai-tahanui-a-Hei;” the name of that place is now Otawa. Then stood up Tamatekapua, and pointing to the place now called the Heads of Maketu, he called out, “I name that place Te Kuraetanga-o-te-ihu-o-Tamatekapua.” Next Kahu called a place after his name, Motiti-nui-a-Kahu.

Ruaeo, who had already arrived at Maketu, started up. He was the first to arrive there in his canoe⁠—the Pukeatea-wai-nui⁠—for he had been left behind by the Arawa, and his wife Whakaotirangi had been carried off by Tamatekapua, and after the Arawa had left he had sailed in his own canoe for these islands, and landed at Maketu, and his canoe reached land the first. Well, he started up, cast his line into the sea, with the books attached to it, and they got fast in one of the beams of the Arawa, and it was pulled ashore by him (whilst the crew were asleep), and the hundred and forty men who had accompanied him stood upon the beach of Maketu, with skids all ready laid, and the Arawa was by them dragged upon the shore in the night and left there; and Ruaeo seated himself under the side of the Arawa and played upon his flute, and the music woke his wife, and she said, “Dear me, that’s Rua’!” and when she looked, there he was sitting under the side of the canoe; and they passed the night together.

At last Rua’ said, “O mother of my children, go back now to your new husband, and presently I’ll play upon the flute and pūtōrino, so that both you and Tamatekapua may hear. Then do you say to Tamatekapua, ‘O la! I had a dream in the night that I heard Rua’ playing a tune upon his flute,’ and that will make him so jealous that he will give you a blow, and then you can run away from him again, as if you were in a rage and hurt, and you can come to me.”