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II. The Stronghold of the Arawas

O son!
We came of ancient Night,
Of crowd of ancient gods, when nothing was.
We came of that before the night revolved,
Or space, or night, or day was known.
For we, O son, do from the gods descend.

White's Maori History.
(Chant of Te-wi.)

Perched upon the upper slopes and top of a steep hill and strongly defended by palisades and ditches, the Hikurangi Pa was a safe home for one of the main branches of the Arawa people, and in it was concentrated the great bulk of the population of the extensive Kawérau district lying between Mounts Putauaki and Tarawera and bordering upon the upper reaches of the Tarawera River. Indeed, it was the largest and most important village as well as the strongest fighting-pa possessed by the tribe.

The cultivated flats in the valley below were the main source of food-supply and gave evidence of having produced abundant crops at the harvest time. Along the near-by ridges were those other sources of supply, the forests, in which the expert woodsmen of the pa spent many days, snaring birds and gathering in the varied foods so liberally provided by the Forest Father.

Within easy distance of Hikurangi were a number of lakes-Rotoma, Rotoéhu, and Rotoiti towards the north, with Okataina, Tarawera, Rotokakahi, and Rotorua to the west, providing ample opportunity for page 19 the canoeing and other aquatic pleasures and exercises in which the young people of the pa indulged.

Within easy distance also, and close to Tarawera Mountain, were the wondrously beautiful pink and white terraces, with the gorgeously tinted bathing-pools and cascades that were so famed throughout the land.

Altogether it was a most favoured district in which to live, but one subject to occasional raids from the hostile Ngatiawa and Tuhoe tribes of the east and from the Tauranga people of the north-west, raids that. were now held in check by the strength of the great pa on Hikurangi Hill.

On the very top of this hill was a levelled-off area of large dimensions, completely encircled by a stout palisade flanked by several high fighting-platforms or towers. Most of the main buildings of the pa were located here, together with quite a number of the neatly-thatched and well-constructed wharés of the people.

Here also, sloping gently upwards towards the south, was a large open space called the marae. With its sunny northern aspect, and with its buildings giving shelter from cold and southerly winds, it was an ideal spot for a meeting-ground, serving as a centre for the social life of the whole pa.

On the terraces below the brow of the hill, and on all sides except the south, were large numbers of other thatched dwellings, all placed closely together with the strictest economy of room, and all looking down over the lower palisades on to the cultivations in the valley below.

On this particular morning the whole village had been early astir, and now the women-folk were busy page 20 preparing the usual meal of kumara or sweet potato, taro, fernroot, and such relishes as were to hand.

Here and there were groups of families whose young men the day before had brought in wood-pigeons and grey duck, and the cooked birds were just being taken from some of the steaming earth-ovens or haangis scattered about. Other groups were well provided with “hua-hua,” pigeons and other birds preserved in their own fat. Others again were about to feast upon eels and freshwater crayfish caught in the streams and lakelets close to the pa.

Some hundreds of warriors could be seen about the marae or along the terraces, and almost without exception they were of fine physique, tall and fleshy, with the well-developed limbs and strong chests characteristic of the Maori man. Their swelling muscles rippled under sleek brown skin as they tumbled about wrestling with each other or practised with their taiahas or spears.

In pleasing contrast were the young women and maidens moving about the pa, many of them pretty and of shapely figure, but all of them graceful as they glided along with the swaying side motion taught them by their mothers from childhood days.

The daughters of chiefs could be singled out by their finely-woven garments and by the smallness of their hands and feet. One of these maidens in particular was most noticeable for her superior bearing and unusual beauty, while the presence near her of some girl attendants disclosed her rank. She was the Puhi or Sacred Maiden of Hikurangi.

As for the children, they were the embodiment of symmetry and sturdy grace as they dashed about in a state of complete nudity, and were a source of delight and worry to the aged ones who sat in sheltered spots, page 21 talking to each other over the vividly-remembered days of their youth, or again, chuckling over the latest bits of gossip and lamenting their inability to keep pace with all the doings in the pa.

In short, life and spirit everywhere; everywhere except in the low-bodied, bushy-tailed, barkless dogs that roamed about, and in some hapless captives who carried water from the springs on the southern side.

In a prominent position on the meeting-ground and overlooking the northern terraces was a huge boulder about twice the height of a grown man, thrown up no doubt by some volcanic outburst in past days.

It served now as a fitting support for the ponderous weight of Te Puku the Fat, who from this vantage-point was about to make his morning announcements as the mouthpiece of the ariki Mawake-Taupo. He was just recovering his breath after the exertion of climbing on to the rock; no small feat for a man of his stupendous girth, even with the aid of steps cut up the side of the boulder.

When he felt that he could do his voice full justice, he spread his huge legs wide apart; gave his flax rapaki or waist-garment a preliminary swish, beat his mighty chest with his fists, and then, in a voice that could be heard away in the forest along the ridges, he roared forth the commands of his chief:

“Hear ye the words of Mawaké-Taupo, High Chief and Ariki of all the Arawas, given in this his pa on Hikurangi, the Edge of Heaven! Now hearken!

“With the dawn came tidings that many hawks have left their nesting-places in the distant Uréwera, but whither they fly we do not know, as yet. Therefore, let the war-leaders send parties at once to watch the page 22 country between here and the Kaingaroa Plains! Also, let the guard on the hill at the entrance to this valley be strengthened! Give heed! Enough!”

With the ceasing of the great voice came the exclamations and comments of the people. The Tuhoe tribe of the Uréwera, the tribe which boasted descent from the Paepae-ki-Rarotonga canoe of Toi-kai-rakau and from the Mataatua canoe of the Great Migration! Ha! Were Tuhoe seeking to match their full strength against Te Arawa, or was this merely one of the periodical raids which either tribe was in the habit of making against the other?

The older people shook their heads. War was a reality to them. As for the younger folk, another clash with Tuhoe was just what they most desired. The slaying of man was the great game; yet for almost twelve moons had the Arawas been at peace. Too long, far too long!

But even with thoughts of imminent war in their minds, they still must eat. Surely by this time the morning meal should be ready, thought they. Yet they must await the word to begin, for the ordered life of the pa was ruled by the strong mind of the ariki, and for years past, to avoid undue dissipation ofeffort, he had decreed that all must eat and all must work at the times appointed.

Te Puku was clearing his throat in readiness for a fresh onslaught. He was in his element. Too fat to fight, too fat to bend down to work, nevertheless he was a man to be reckoned with in the pa. He was a composer and quoter of witty sayings, and his efforts added zest to the daily life of the people. Not even the sub-chiefs were free from his stinging attacks, while the young men and maidens were in mortal page 23 dread lest his sharp eye and sharper tongue should single them out for special attention.

With a blast of sound that made the younger children cling closer to their mothers, the mighty voice proceeded:

“ Hear ye now the words of the great chief Te Puku, Shaker of Earth, Descendant of the Gods! Give heed! Give heed!

“He kai ! He kai! To your food! To your food!”

A pause, as he looked down upon the scene. Then, pointing an accusing finger, he cried:

“He moa hoki koe, ina ka koré koe e kai? Art thou indeed a moa, that thou dost not eat?”

The reference to a fabled moa, sole survivor of the giant race of birds, that continued to exist in its cave on a distant mountain by merely feeding upon air, tickled the fancy of the people. At once, all eyes were turned upon a dejected-looking youth who was wandering aimlessly about as if the very thought of food appalled him. Te Puku ruthlessly advised him to look elsewhere, as there were plenty of other maidens on Hikurangi.

The attention of the Fat One was now drawn to a young warrior who was going from basket to basket selecting from each the choice tit-bits he fancied. Promptly he called out:

“Welcome! Welcome! Great Caterpillar eating around the edge of the leaf! He kai! He kai! To thy food! To thy food!”

The shouts of laughter which followed brought a flush of shame, or anger, to the man's brow. He drew himself up haughtily, and savagely said:

“Thy strength, O Puku, is in thy throat. Hohonu kakii, papaku uaua! Deep throat, little sinews!”

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Whereat the people became merry again, and even Te Puku had to laugh as he replied:

“ Ai-i! Thou hast hit me in my softest spot. I must retire and tend my wound.”

And he moved down from his place upon the rock, and round to where he had seen a large group of people with food-baskets before them still well filled. Intent upon the unexpected variety of the food, they did not notice the Fat One's approach until he had heaved his huge bulk into the midst of them, and had calmly appropriated to himself the biggest basket of all.

“Hear now my complaint!” he roared in a voice that resounded throughout the pa. “At a call to a feast, Te Puku is not called. At a call to a fight, Te Puku is called. Small wonder that I now grow thin in body and weak in voice!”

But the very hearty “Haeré-mai! Nau-mai! Welcome! Come hither!” cries from old and young in the group around him, and from many another group near by, showed the esteem and respect in which he was held by all.

True, he was no warrior. Neither did he toil in the fields, nor snare birds in the forest. Yet his intellect was that of a chief, and he was treated as a chief by Mawaké-Taupo the ariki. Even his stoutness of body, a thing so very rare among the men of his athletic race, was not held against him. The very rarity of it seemed to give him extra mana or prestige.

The morning meal proceeded merrily on, the people laughing heartily at the many trifling jests that flew about from group to group. For the time being, the pending trouble with Tuhoe seemed to have been quite forgotten.

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At last, the meal being over, Te Puku raised himself with difficulty from the ground, and slowly betook himself back to the giant boulder.

“ O warrior-like man!” cried one merry-faced maiden after him. “Often do we maidens of the pa thrill to the deep tones of thy voice, and as often do we draw back. Yet we are sad at seeing thee without even one wife.”

“Grieve not, O Niwareka, thou soft-eyed one!” replied Te Puku with mock seriousness. “I seek not that form of happiness. What says the proverb? The warrior or the cultivator will find a loving wife, while a husband who has to sit idly in his home will be beaten and knocked about.” Ha! How the women-folk around enjoyed that jest! They knew!

Confident that he was being watched by admiring eyes, the Fat One with much puffing and blowing climbed to the top of the boulder again and gathered himself together for a final announcement.

“Listen, ye people of Hikurangi! Listen! The favoured youths of the Wharé-wananga practise their games and exercises on the flat below the pa. Give them space! Intrude not upon them! They are tapu. Warn the little children to keep away! This is the command of the chief tohunga. Therefore, give heed! Enough!”

As Te Puku carefully lowered himself down the steps cut in the boulder, a group of chiefs and elders emerged from the big council-house on the southern side of the marae and moved slowly across to where a gateway led through the top palisade and down on to the first terrace below.

At their head was Mawaké-Taupo himself, a remarkably tall man still in the very prime of life.

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His well-bred air and splendid carriage as he stalked along appealed to the imagination of his people. And added to their respect for his sacred rank as the ariki was their respect for the strong arm and the dominant mind with which he had ever upheld his own and the tribal mana.

The party moved down over the terraces and through the second palisade, where Mawaké-Taupo stopped for a while and watched a group of youths at the gate. With long and pliable ropes of plaited flax they were practising the upward throw that would hitch a loop to any projecting points on the high fighting-tower above. With a brief word of approval, the ariki moved on.

Reaching the lowest terrace looking down over the bottom palisade, Mawaké-Taupo found it already crowded with excited maidens keenly interested in the contests raging on the flat outside. Their chattering ceased as soon as his presence became known.

“Greetings, O my children!” he said, in the gentle voice he used to the young and to the very old. “Fortunate indeed are these youths in that so many bright eyes gaze down upon them at their games.”

A little hand in his, and a pressure from the softest of fingers, made him aware that one was beside him who, since her mother's untimely death, had held the foremost place in his heart. He turned, and smiled down upon Marama, Light-of-the-Moon, his only daughter the Puhi maiden Marama, and she smiled back her love for him. Then, a willing captive, he allowed her to lead him to the edge of the terrace. They stood there for a while without speaking, each quite absorbed in the doings of the youths below. At last, and very gently:

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“O little one, tell me now! Which noble youth hath met with favour in thy sight, that thou dost cling to me more tightly as the bouts proceed?”

She laid her soft cheek against his strong arm, and replied:

“ Thou knowest, for there is no other there the equal of thy son, my brother Manaia. Victor for the third time at Te Arawa's recent festival of games! Wert thou proud of him, O my father? See now how he stands out above all the other youths in strength and matchless grace! Not even Rata or Kahu can compare with him. See now how they wrestle with him! They try to throw him. He hurls them off. Again they come. Ha! One—two—he has thrown them both. See how easily he now lifts Rata up above his head! Was ever youth so strong as he in days gone by? Already is he almost as strong as thou, O my father, and thou art famed for thy strength.”

“His strength is that of a totara tree, and it satisfies me,” said the ariki simply.

For a little longer he remained by Marama's side, loath to leave her. That very morning, as he had made another notch upon the spear-shaft that showed her span of life, he had counted up the notches and had found them to number twice seven and four. Alas! Soon would he have to meet the oft-expressed wish of the elders that he choose for the Puhi maiden a fitting mate. What then? Reluctantly he led her back to her attendants, and moved on.

………..

That evening, in his big carved house up on the marae, the ariki sat in conference with his kinsman Te Moana the Wise, while close by sat the youth Manaia, freshly page 28 summoned from his studies, and released for the night from the tapu of the Wharé-wananga.

Serious matters were before them, for during the afternoon runners had brought in word that a party of Arawas from far-off Pukékura, the Pa of the Red Hill that was the tribal outpost on the borders of the Uréwera country, would arrive on the morrow. Further, that their chief Te Werohia was on an urgent mission, seeking immediate help from Hikurangi and all Te Arawa against invading Tuhoe. Further, that out on the Plains of Kaingaroa Te Werohia had seen two large tauas or war-parties of Tuhoe, moving northwards.

Realising to the full the import of such tidings, Te Moana yet felt that the time had come for him to speak plainly to the ariki on another matter which had long troubled his mind. So he said:

“I grieve at the thought of further war with Tuhoe. As a youth, I fought in the Arawa tauas against these people of the Uréwera. As a tohunga, I took part in the fierce raids upon their mountains. We seemed to conquer, yet where to-day are the fruits of our victories?

“Now these questions I ask of thee. Art thou sure, O Ariki, that the prow of the Arawa canoe is pointing in the right direction? Should it not be pointing to the south, to the Great Lake Taupo, to the Tauponui-a-Tia, to Taupo-Moana the Inland Sea? To what purpose was the word ‘Taupo’ added to thy name? If it be thy wish, speak!”

“Taupo! Taupo!” repeated the ariki slowly. “When I took that name on my marriage-day, it was a sign to all the tribes that I claimed the Lake for myself, and for Te Arawa. Ha! I longed for Taupo at that time. Indeed, the thought of Taupo was with me day and night. But after Manaia was born, the vision page 29 commenced to fade, and the reasons for that fading are known to thee. Yes! Attack after attack by Tuhoe upon our valley! Raid after raid of retaliation upon Tuhoe villages in the Uréwera! Then further attacks by Tuhoe and a continuous state of war, and the need for strengthening this great pa on Hikurangi Hill! So the years have passed, and still the prow of our canoe is pointing to the east instead of to the south. Alas! for the vision unfulfilled!”

Disturbed out of his usual calm, the ariki rose to his feet and paced to and fro. It distressed him to think that he had fallen short of heights to which he might have attained. From the gloom at the far end of the dwelling he spoke:

“Almost I think that Taupo itself eludes me. Perhaps I erred in taking to myself that name.”

He returned and sat down again and went on to speak about a casual raid by a war-party from Rotorua many years before. It had reached the southern shores of Taupo and, in a surprise attack, had slaughtered hundreds of the Lake people, including the sons of the High Chief Nukutea of Ngatihotu.

“A raid without a purpose beyond a fight and a slaying!” he commented. “Therefore, without results that could last! Not thus could one hope to hold Taupo! Not thus!”

There was silence for a space, broken at last by Manaia. Usually he would have said no word in the presence of his elders, but now he felt impelled to speak:

“O Aged One, I have thought of Taupo ever since I was a child, and the longing for it has grown with the years. Once, from a point far out on the plains, I saw the Lake, and at sight of it a deeper yearning to page 30 possess it stirred my heart. In the far distance I saw the smoking cone and snow-capped peaks of Tongariro Mountain, and it seemed to me they sent the spirit-call. Ah! Taupo and Tongariro!”

“Tell Manaia the tale of Ngatoro, and of his journey round the Lake in the days when the tribe was young!” said the ariki quietly.

The old tohunga pondered over the matter for some time before he answered. He was seeking to recall the exact wording of the tale recited to him by his father in the long-ago. Then, with a warning to Manaia to carefully preserve the record in his mind, he proceeded to describe the wandérings of a chief called Tia and of the haughty Ngatoro so vividly that, before he had finished, it seemed to the young Manaia as if the spirit of Ngatoro himself were calling to him out of the past, urging him to make all the Taupo country his own in the right of his ancestor.

Even the ariki seemed to feel the influence of hidden forces.

“O Wise One!” he said. “Perhaps the great Lake and the mountains beyond and all the lands about them are not for me, but are for my son Manaia.”

“The same thought is with me,” replied Te Moana. “The fires kindled by Ngatoro will be renewed by Manaia.”

Soon all three rose quietly and moved out into the night. Together they walked slowly across the marae to the dwelling of Te Moana, and there the Aged One spoke:

“O Manaia, I will teach thee the hidden mysteries, but the time is not yet, for this trouble with Tuhoe grows apace. Alas! Already I can see a taua departing from Hikurangi, and with it thy father and thyself.

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But though I am old, very old, I will be here on thy return. Therefore, wait!

“One thing more, ere I rest for the night! Hast heard again the spirit-call from the south?”

………..

Midnight found Manaia standing erect upon one of the high towers, with his face turned steadily towards Taupo. His keenly imaginative spirit was responding to the call. A year, perhaps, and his war-canoes would be cleaving the waters of the Lake. He would explore the Lake from end to end, and from side to side. He would scale the distant mountains to their tops.

At last he spoke softly to himself:

“First this war with Tuhoe! Then Taupo and Tongariro in the south! Manaia there!”