Polynesian Mythology · The Story of Marutūāhu, the Son of Hotunui, and of Kahureremoa, the Daughter of Paka (2/3)

Marutūāhu sent a man to see whether they had finished stretching the net, and when the man came back he said, “Have they done stretching the net?” and the man answered, “Yes, they have finished.”

Then Marutūāhu said, “Let us go and lift the upper end of the net from the ground;⁠—they have finished the lower end of it.” Then the one hundred and forty men went with him, each one carrying a weapon carefully concealed under his garments lest their guests should see them; and when they reached the place where the net was, they found the guests, nearly a thousand in number, had finished stretching the lower end of the net.

Then the priest of Marutūāhu who was to consecrate the net said, “Let the upper end of the net be raised, so that the net may be stretched straight out;” and Marutūāhu said,

“Yes, let it be done at once, it is getting late in the day.” Then the one hundred and forty men began to lift up the net, with the left hand they seized the ropes to raise it, but with the right hand each firmly grasped his weapon, and Marutūāhu shouted out, “Lift away, lift away, lift it well up;” when they had raised it high in the air, they walked on with it; holding it up as if they were spreading it out, until they got it well over the strangers, who were either pegging the lower end down, or were seated on the ground looking on; then Marutūāhu shouted out, “Let it fall;” and they let it fall, and caught in it their guests, nearly a thousand in number; they caught every one of them in the net, so that they could not move to make any effectual resistance, and whilst some of the one hundred and forty men of Marutūāhu held the net down, the rest slew with their weapons the whole thousand, not one escaped, whilst they lost not a single man themselves. Hence “The feast of rotten wood” is a proverb amongst the descendants of Marutūāhu to this day. This feast of rotten wood was given at a place then named Pukeahau, but which was afterwards called Karihitangata (or, men were the weights which were attached to the net to sink it), upon account of the thousand people who were slain by treachery in the net of Marutūāhu; for men were the weights that were attached to that net to sink it. After the death of all these people, the country they inhabited became the property of Marutūāhu, and his heirs dwell there to the present day.

About the time that Te Kahureremoa, Paka’s daughter, became marriageable, a large party of visitors arrived at Wharekawa, the village of Te Paka; they came from Aotea, or the Great Barrier Island; at their head was the principal chief of Aotea, and he brought in his canoes a present of two hundred and sixty baskets of mackerel for Te Paka, and they became such good friends, that they thought they would like to be connected; so it was arranged that Te Paka’s daughter, Te Kahureremoa, should be given as a wife to the son of that chief. Part of Te Paka’s plan was to get possession of Aotea for his family, for he thought when his daughter had children, and they were grown up, that it was possible they would secure the island for their grandfather, or for their mother’s family.

When the party of visitors was about to return to Aotea, having formed this connection with Te Paka’s tribe through the girl, her father gave her up to them to take to Aotea to her husband, and he told his daughter to go on board the canoe, and to accompany them to Aotea; but he told her to no purpose, for she did not obey him; in short, Te Kahureremoa refused to go. So the old chief to whom the canoes belonged said, “Never mind, never mind, leave her alone, we shall not be very long away, we shall soon return, we shall not be long before we are back;” and they left Te Kahureremoa with her father, and paddled off in their canoes.

In one month’s time they came back again, and brought with them a present of thirty baskets of mackerel, and as soon as they arrived they distributed these amongst their friends; and down ran Te Kahureremoa from the village to the landing place to take a basket of mackerel for herself. As soon as Paka saw this, he gave his daughter a sound scolding for going and taking the fish; this is what Paka said to his daughter: “Put that down, you shall not have it: I wanted you to go and become the wife of the young chief of the place where these good fish abound, and you refused to go, therefore you shall not now have any.”

This was quite enough; poor little Te Kahureremoa felt entirely overcome with shame, she left the basket of fish, dropping it just where she was, and ran back into the house, and began to sob and cry; then her thoughts suggested to her, that after this, it would be better that she should be no more seen by the eyes of her father, and that her father’s face should be no more seen by her, and her heart kept on urging her to run away to Takakōpiri, and to take him for her lord; she had seen him, and liked him well; he was a great chief, and had abundance of food of the best kind on his estates; plenty of potted birds of all kinds; and kiwi, and kiore and weka, and eels, and mackerel, and crayfish; in short, he had abundance of all kinds of food, and was rich in every sort of property.

As she thought of all this, the chief’s young daughter continued weeping and sobbing in the house, quite overcome with shame, and when evening came she was still crying, but at night, she said to herself. “Now I’ll be off, whilst all the men are fast asleep;” so she get up and ran away, accompanied by her female slave. The next morning when the sun rose they found she was gone, and she had fled so far, that when those who were sent to seek her came to the footprints of herself and her slave, their edges had so sunk down, that the pursuers could not tell how long it was since she had passed.

Waipuna was the village from which Te Kahureremoa started, and they had left Pūkorokoro behind them, and by the time it was full daybreak they had reached Waitakaruru, and as the full rays of the sun shone on the earth, they were passing above Pouarua; then for a little time they travelled very fast and reached Riwaki, at the mouth of the river Piako; and this they crossed and pushed on for Opani, and thence those in pursuit of them returned, they could follow them no further; the tide also was flowing, which stopped the pursuit.

Just then some of the canoes of the upriver country were returning from Ruawehea, and when the people in the canoes saw her, they raised loud cries of⁠—“Ho, ho! here’s Te Kahureremoa, here’s the daughter of Paka;” she stepped into one of the canoes with them, and the people kept crying out the whole way from the mouth of the river up its course as they ascended it, “Here’s Te Kahureremoa;” and they rowed very fast, feeling alarmed at having so great a chieftainess on board, and so confused were they at her presence, that throughout the whole day they kept on bending their heads down to their very paddles, as they pulled. They stopped at Raupa, where the Awaiti branches off to Tauranga, and there they spent one night; and the next day they went over the range towards Katikati: the people of Raupa urged her to stop there for a little; she, however, would not, but driven by the fond thoughts of her heart, she pressed onwards, and reached the summit of the ridge of Hikurangi, and looked down upon Katikati, and saw also Tauranga; then the young girl turned, and looked round at the mountain at Otawa, and although she knew what it was, she liking to hear his name, and of his greatness, spoke to the people of the country, who, out of respect were accompanying her, and asking said, “What is the name of yonder mountain?” and they answered her,

“That is Otawa.”

And the young girl asked again, “Is the country of that mountain rich in food?” and they replied,

“Oh, there are found kiore, and kiwi and weka, and pigeons, and tui; why that mountain is famed for the variety and number of birds that inhabit it.”

Then the young girl took courage, and asked once more, “Whom does all that fruitful country belong to?” and they told her,

“The Waitaka is the name of the tribe that inhabit that country, and Takakōpiri is the chief of it. He is the owner of that mountain, and he is the great chief of the Waitaka; and when the people of that tribe collect food from the mountains, they bear everything to him; the food of all those districts, whatever it may be, belongs to that great lord alone.”

When the young girl heard all this, she said to the people, “I and my female slave are going there, to Otawa.”

And the people said to her, “No; is that really the case?” and she said,

“Yes, we are going there. Paka sent us there, that we should ask Takakōpiri to pay him a visit at Wharekawa.” She said this to deceive the people, and prevent them from stopping her; and immediately started again upon her journey, and came down upon the seashore at Katikati.

The Waitaha, the tribe of Takakōpiri, inhabited that village; and as soon as they saw the young girl coming, there arose joyful cries of⁠—“Here is Kahureremoa! oh, here is the daughter of Paka!” and the people collected in crowds to gaze at the young chieftainess. She rested at the village, and they immediately began to prepare food, and when it was cooked, they brought it to her, and she partook of it, and when she had done it was nighttime; then they brought plenty of firewood into the house, and made up a clear fire, so that the house might be quite light, and they all stood up to dance, that she might pass a cheerful evening.

After they had all danced, they continued soliciting Te Kahureremoa to stand up and dance also, whilst they sat looking on to see how gracefully and beautifully she moved. Upon which she coyly said, “Ah, yes, that’s all very well; do you want me to dance indeed?” At last, however, the young girl sprang up, and she had hardly stretched forth her lovely arms in the attitude of the dance, before the people all cried out with surprise and pleasure at her beauty and grace; her arms moved with an easy and rapid action like that of swimming; her nimble lissom fingers were reverted till their tips seemed to touch the backs of the palms of her hands; and all her motions were so light, that she appeared to float in the air; then might be seen, indeed, the difference between the dancing of a nobly born girl and of a slave; the latter being too often a mere throwing about of the body and of the arms. Thus she danced before them; and when she had finished, all the young men in the place were quite charmed with her, and could think of nothing but Te Kahureremoa.

When night came on, and the people had dispersed to their houses, the chief of the village came to make love to her, and said, that upon account of her great beauty he wished her to become his wife; but she at once started up with her female slave, and notwithstanding the darkness, they plunged straight into the river, forded it, and proceeded upon their journey, leaving the chief overwhelmed with shame and confusion, at the manner in which Te Kahureremoa had departed. However, away she went, without any fearful thought, on her road to Tauranga, and by daybreak they had reached the Wairoa. When the people of the village saw her coming along in the dawn, they raised joyful cries of⁠—“Here is Te Kahureremoa;” and some of Takakōpiri’s people, who were there, would detain the young girl for a time: so she rested, and ate, and was refreshed; thence she proceeded along the base of the mountains of Otawa, and at night slept at its foot; and when morning broke, she and her slave continued their journey.

There, just at the same time, was Takakōpiri coming along the path, to sport in his forests at Otawa; his sport was spearing birds, and right in the pathway there stood a tall forest tree covered with berries, upon which large green pigeons had settled in flocks to feed. The two girls came toiling along, with their upper cloaks thrown around their shoulders like plaids, for the convenience of travelling, the slave girl carrying a basket of food on her back for her mistress. As the girls drew near the forest they heard the loud flapping of the wings of a pigeon, for the young chief had struck one with his spear; so they stopped at once, and Te Kahureremoa said to her slave, “Somebody is there, just listen how that bird flaps its wings;” and her slave answered,

“Yes, I hear it.”

And Te Kahureremoa said, “That was the flapping of the wings of a bird which somebody has speared;” and her slave replied,

“Yes, we had better go and see who it is.” And they had not gone far before they heard a louder flap, as the bird was thrown upon the ground; they at once approached the spot, and seeing a heap of pigeons which had been killed, lying at the root of a tree, they sat down by them. Takakōpiri had observed them coming along, and as he watched the girls from the tree, he said to himself, “These girls are travelling, and they come from a long distance, for their cloaks are rolled over their shoulders like plaids; they are not from near here; had they come from the neighbourhood they would have worn their cloaks hanging down in the usual way.”

Then the young chief came down from the tree, leaving his spear swinging to a bough: as he was descending, the girls saw him, and the slave knew him at once at a distance, and said, “Oh, my young mistress, that is Takakōpiri;” and Te Kahureremoa said,

“No, no, it is not indeed;” but the slave said,

“Yes, it is he, I saw him when he came to Hauraki;” and the young girl said,

“You are right, it is Takakōpiri;” and her slave said,

“Yes, yes, this is the young chief who has caused us to come all this distance.”

By this time he had reached the ground, and he and the girls cried out at the same time to each other, “Welcome, welcome;” and the young man came up to them, and stooped down, and pressed his nose to the nose of each of them. Te Kahureremoa felt and knew whose face touched hers, but Takakōpiri did not know whose nose he had pressed.

Then he said to them, “We had better go to my village, which is on the other side of the forest;” and he pressed them to go, and the girls consented to go to the village with him. As they went along the path, he kept urging them to make haste, and Te Kahureremoa thought that he might still not know who she was, or he would never speak so impatiently, and tell her to make haste, so she made an excuse to arrange her dress, and stopped they began to wave their garments, and to sing, in songs of welcome⁠—

“Welcome, welcome, thou who comest

From afar, from beyond the far horizon;

Our dearest child hath brought thee thence;

Welcome, oh, welcome here.”