76 Trajisactions. 



" Look yonder," said one old man, "' beliold those distant hills " (point- 

 ing to the Ruahine Range). " On those mountains are growing the totara 

 and rimu, the maire and miro trees ; but who can tell from this distance 

 what they are ? Our forefathers could have told you of these things ; we 

 cannot : the haze and mist of time and distance obscure all detail, and our 

 vision cannot pierce the fog. Say, friend, can you tell me of your great 

 navigator Cook, all who were with him, and what they did ? " Collapse 

 of questioner, and subject changed. 



They were at one time a very strong and numerous people, but thev 

 suffered severely at the hands of Te Rau-paraha of the Ngati Toa ; and 

 the Ngati Rau-kawa incursions in the early days of the nineteenth centurv 

 also greatly lessened their power and influence, so that to-day they are but 

 a shadow of their former gxeatness : but of this later on. 



The district mentioned, as well as other parts of New Zealand, seems 

 to have been peopled with a numerous population long before the advent 

 of the fleet in 1350 ; for when Tamatea visited the district — and to him 

 is credited the honour of being the first to travel inland — he found a nume- 

 rous people (the descendants of a former and forgotten migration) wherever 

 he went, and if the story of the taniwha Tutae-poroporo is to be believed 

 (and who would doubt it !) the Whanga-nui Valley and lower Rangi-tikei 

 districts were thickly populated even in those early times ; while the addi- 

 tional evidence of the Ngati Hotu, an aboriginal tribe living round Lake 

 Taupo, helps to prove the presence of people here long before the great 

 migTation of 1350 from HaAvaiki. 



As a full account of the doings of the taniwha Tutae - poroporo has 

 already appeared in the Jour. Polynesian Soc, a very brief outline of the- 

 legend will be sufficient for the present purpose : Tutae - poroporo was 

 originally a young shark that was caught by a man of the Ngati Apa Tribe 

 named Tu-ariki, who lived at Rangi-tikei. 



Ruatea. 



Apa-hapai-taketake 



I 

 Titpoho-ronuku 



Tamata 



Tu-aviki. 



(Although Tu-ariki is here shown as a Ngati Apa man, the Ngati Apa 

 did not arrive in the Rangi-tikei district till several generations later.) He 

 caught the fish when on a visit to Nelson (Whakatu), and, seeing some- 

 thing special in it, he kept it alive, made a pet of it, and brought it back 

 with him to Rangi-tikei. where he prepared a place for it in the Rangi- 

 tikei River just where the Tutae-nui Stream joins the river, and here he 

 recited Jcarakias over it, and turned it into a taniwha. After a time a war- 

 party from Whanga-nui came along, and Tu-ariki was killed, and the 

 taniwha, missing his master, started out to look for him. He eventually 

 took up his abode under Taumaha-aute (Shakespeare's cliff), on the Wha- 

 nga-nui River, and here he devoured the canoes and their crews as they 

 travelled up and down the river. Soon the Whanga-nui people became 

 afraid of the creature, and sought help to be rid of him. They sent to 

 Ao-kehu, of Wai-totara, a celebrated taniivha-sl-Ayex of eighteen generations 

 back, who devised means of killiiig the monster by hollowing out a sort 

 of box canoe with a close-fitting lid. He got inside this affair, and floated 



