624: Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



no knowledge whatever of there having been an eruption on 

 Euapehu ; but this may arise from the dread among them as 

 to the dangers to be met with in the vicinity of the mountain, 

 and to the absolute sterility of the country thereabouts. 



I have already made brief reference to the supposed loca- 

 tion of Mount Egmont (Taranaki) on the spot where Eoto- 

 aira Lake now stands ; and of Tongariro and Ngauruhoe it is 

 said that eruptions always occur at the death, or coming 

 death, of their great chiefs. 



The origin of the volcanoes and of all the volcanic pheno- 

 mena is accounted for by reason of the fact that Ngatoroai- 

 rangi, the chief priest, or tohunga, who piloted the Arawa 

 canoe from Hawaiki, having, in company with Tia, another 

 great chief, taken possession of the country extending from 

 the Bay of Plenty to Euapehu for his people, ascended Nga- 

 uruhoe (which at that time was not a volcano) to perform the 

 needful incantations, and, in accordance with Maori religion, 

 to set up a Uiahu, or altar, so as to insure to his people safe 

 possession of the country and a happy and fruitful future. 

 When in the midst of his karakias, or incantations, the cold 

 became intense, and it seemed as if he must die. It then 

 occurred to him to send for the sacred fire, which was kept 

 during his absence in the custody of his sisters Hoata and 

 Pupu. Seeing them at that moment on Whakaari, or "White 

 Island (120 miles distant), he urged them to bring the fire 

 if they would save him from perishing. In response, one of 

 his sisters, leaving a portion of the sacred fire on Whakaari, 

 at once dived into the sea in the direction of Tongariro, and 

 reached her starving brother in time to save him from a cruel 

 death. In her passage underground she set fire to the world 

 below, but here and there she came to the surface to breathe ; 

 hence all the hot springs and imias between Whakaari and 

 Ngauruhoe. In commemoration of the event Ngatoroairangi 

 left the sacred fire burning in the mountain, and also ordered 

 that it was not to be extinguished in Whakaari ; hence these 

 tw^o active craters and all the volcanic phenomena in the 

 North Island. 



But, however meagre and unsatisfactory Maori tradition 

 may be with respect to volcanic agencies, the evidence of a 

 long-continued period is to be found not merely within the 

 great plateau immediately surrounding the mountains, the out- 

 come of volcanic eruptions, but the evidence of long con- 

 tinuity is to be met with over all that portion of the North 

 Island where it has been my privilege to travel. In our own 

 town (Napier) the very soil of our gardens is made up in 

 great measure of volcanic products, and the Kidnappers was 

 separated from Napier and Eedcliffe, near Taradale, by reason 

 of the immense beds of pumice and other ejectamenta that 



