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II. The Children-of-the-Mist

Hokihoki tonu mai te wairua o te tau
Ki te awhi-Rerenga ki tenei kiri-é,
I tawhiti te aroha é pai ana é te tau,
Te paanga ki te uma mamae ana, é te tau.
Oft the spirit of my love returns to me
To embrace in Rerenga-land this form of mine.
Always, though far away, I dream fondly of thee,
And a sweet pain is ever in my bosom, O my love!

James Cowan.

The morning of the fourth day after the Battle of the Plains saw Manaia well on the way with his party for the Uréwera, taking a direct but very rough route across country instead of going by the roundabout way past Pukékura; and at dusk he was sitting in conference with his father and the chiefs and tohungas, gathered together upon a hill slope facing the entrance to the great gorge.

The taua had driven Tuhoe besiegers away from the Red Hill of Pukékura and had pushed them back into the mountainous country away to the north. The main object of the expedition had been achieved when the power of Te Arawa to protect an outlying section of the tribe had been proved afresh. Yet still there remained one thing to do, for Mawaké-Taupo had made a promise. He was speaking now:

“O leaders of Te Arawa, listen! At the head of yonder gorge is the pa we seek, and well is it named the Cliff of Death. Twice during my younger days did I traverse the gorge with a war-party, and twice did we reach the rock pa at the top, but each page 73 time we were baffled, and turned back. So will it be in this case, for I will not agree to waste the lives of men on a mad assault.”

Mawaké-Taupo paused, and held up a small basket in which lay a heap of reddish soil, soil from before the home of Manawa-roa on Pukékura Hill, and then continued:

“In one way, or in another, this soil shall reach the aged captive in Pari-maté Pa, for though the promise I made on Hikurangi was a rash promise, it must be fulfilled, and it will be for me or for my son Manaia here to find a way. Moreover, we will make of it a sign and a warning that Te Arawa can reach even the hidden strongholds of Tuhoe, if the need be but great enough.

“The taua moves up the gorge at dawn. Enough! The council is ended.”

Murmurs of approval greeted the words of the ariki. Truly he was the preserver of his people. Not even to give effect to his spoken word would Mawaké-Taupo throw away the lives of his warriors. One by one the chiefs and tohungas moved away to attend to the preparations for the morrow's task, leaving Mawaké-Taupo alone with his son, to whom he said:

“A way shall be found, and to me or to thee will be the honour and the danger. When the taua moves, forget not the ropes of plaited flax, for they will be needed!”

“É pai ana! It is good!” replied Manaia. “This matter of Manawa-roa is for me.”

“Yes!” agreed the ariki. “Now tell me of thy doings in the south!”

To the tale unfolded by his son, Mawaké-Taupo listened with the keenest interest. With his mind's page 74 eye, he saw the distant Lake and the snow-capped peaks of Tongariro that held up the sky beyond. In the spirit, he followed along the track of Manaia's band across the pumice country and on into the foothills region of the Kaimanawas. It disquieted him to hear of the presence of a Tuhoe war-party there, and he readily agreed to Manaia's suggestion that the Uréwera people should be warned against any further activities in the south and west.

But when Manaia proceeded to speak of the maiden who had been saved from the Tuhoe raiders, the ariki could not restrain an exclamation of mingled surprise and annoyance. Manaia interested in a maiden at last, and a stranger at that! What would the tribe say? It would object. Yes, certainly it would object. What then?

“Hear me, O my father,” went on Manaia, “even if that which I have to say pleases thee not! I am thy son. Yes, and I am known to thee, and thou knowest, nay, all on Hikurangi know, that no maiden there, save only my little sister, has ever touched my mind or heart. My body also have I kept free.

“Now there has come into my life, in strange manner, a maiden the equal of our loved Marama. She is the Puhi maiden Rerémoa, sacred to her tribe of Ngatihotu as Marama is to ours. Beautiful, yet it was a something in her voice, I think, that stirred the hidden forces in me, and made me put my mark upon her spirit. I will find her again.

“Therefore, betroth me not to any other maiden, for in this matter is my purpose fixed. Rerémoa shall be my mate; and it comes to me that she will shape my destiny in the south. Enough!”

He rose up, and began to pace to and fro, glad that page 75 he had taken a definite stand, yet dreading a break with his father upon a subject of such importance to the tribe. Finally Mawaké-Taupo rose also, and then impulsively placed his arm round Manaia's shoulder. Manaia understood. Together they turned first towards Hikurangi in the north-west, and then towards Taupo in the south-west.

………..

On this same night, the night of the death of the moon, away upon the topmost tower of far-off Hikurangi, stood the Puhi maiden Marama. Beside her crouched Niwareka, while on the ground below squatted Te Puku the Fat, with his bulky form resting against a stout post of the palisade.

“O Puhi maiden!” said Niwareka. “Is it not time for thee to retire? There is a chill in the air. I am afraid for thee.”

“The chill that I feel is not in the air, but is in my heart,” was the slow reply. “Thou dost fear for me, but I fear for my father. Night after night, and day after day, I fear for him, for Death draws near to him, and he knows it not.

“Nor can I warn him, for I am not trained, as Manaia and my father are trained, to project the thoughts across a distance. Ah! Even now I hear them calling to me, their loved one, and I am helpless to reply. Nor will Te Moana use his powers. Alas! He says the way is fixed, and must be trodden. Ah me! Ah me!”

She wept softly, but with a quiet passion of grief most disturbing to her hearers, and Niwareka sobbed in sympathy as she tried to comfort her.

Te Puku essayed to climb up from below to see page 76 what he could do, but the pole ladder would not stand his weight, and he crashed to the ground with an alarming thud. He was not hurt, but his groans made Marama forget her sorrow as she hastened down to his aid.

Her relief at finding him uninjured turned to laughter at his plight, for he had fallen on his back into a hollow, and, try as he would, he could not raise himself on to his feet again.

“Thou art a fallen star,” cried Marama, as she and Niwareka struggled to help him up; “but we will set thee in the heavens again.”

They bent their strong young bodies to the task, and rolled the Fat One over into a more friendly dip in the ground. Soon they had him on his feet again, and none the worse for his fall. They warned him to be more careful with himself, and then away they went, leaving Te Puku smiling with satisfaction.

………..

That same night, and at about the same time, upon the top of a hill pa near the headwaters of the Rangitaiki River, east of Taupo, there stood another Puhi maiden, the maiden Rerémoa, and beside her sat her father, the High Chief Nukutea of Ngatihotu. The maiden was speaking:

“Bear with me, O my father, if in this one thing my thoughts run along a different path from thine!

“Manaia the Arawa will return. In my very heart I know that he will return. Even as I stand here and gaze out into the night, I feel an influence upon my spirit, and it stirs me to the depths. I think he calls to me. Yes, he bids me wait for him until the kumara page 77 ripen to the harvest in the summer-time. That is the message.

“The thought now lies with thee, but deal gently with me, the last of thy line, thy sole surviving child, thy Rerémoa!”

She threw herself down beside him, and pressed her head against his knees. Deeply moved, her father for a time could only stroke the soft hair and relieve his feelings with a chanted dirge. Then:

“O Rerémoa, I had thought to mate thee with the ariki of the Whanganuis, that his People-of-the-River might join their power with ours, that together we might hold this Lake country against the northern tribes. Better for Ngatihotu to be singed by Whanganui than burnt up by Tuboe or Te Arawa!

“And now comes this youth Manaia. No! I know not his father's name, nor yet his place of birth, but it was an Arawa taua from Rotorua Lake that reached the southern shores of Taupo when thou wert but a child. Barely did thy mother and I escape with thee. Thy brothers perished, and with them many of our tribe. Thy mother died with the sorrow of it.”

He softly chanted a lament for the loved ones, and then proceeded:

“Now in mine old age am I almost as a branchless tree, yet it seems that Arawa and Whanganui seek to take from me my one remaining bough. Taihoa! The matter is not yet clear to me, save this, that no man not of thy choosing will be forced upon thee by thy father.”

The maiden pressed her face against his hands in gratitude for that promise, but she gathered its limits by the words that followed:

“As to this Arawa of thine, we shall see what the page 78 days bring forth. I fear that he but marks the track for a taua to come this way next summer. Now hear me, my Rerémoa! He shall not have thee if he bring red war to Taupo. Nor shall he have thee if he be from Rotorua, the home of thy brothers' slayers. Therefore, take heed!

“Ha! A thought has come to me. Why did Tuhoe seek to capture thee? Has the fame of thy beauty spread afar? Is it thee that Tuhoe, Arawa, and Whanganui want? Nay, rather it is the fertile lands of Ngatihotu that they seek as thy dowry.”

………..

At the first glimmer of dawn the taua moved up the gorge, advancing boldly, for there was little danger of an ambush in the gorge itself. Its rocky bottom was clear of undergrowth, and the Arawas would have welcomed a battle there. Nor was there serious risk of attack from the cliffs, for on one side the precipitous wall sloped inwards at the base, giving ample cover to the advancing warriors from any rocks that might be hurled down from above.

Half-way up, the gorge widened out considerably at a point where some side valleys converged upon it and cut it in two. The rock walls gave place to easy bush-clad slopes, but at the junction, and right in the centre of the gorge, was left a mass of rock of considerable extent and height.

Here Mawaké-Taupo placed some fifty of his men, with orders to watch the valleys on either side, and to observe all movements there. Here also, for some reason known only to the ariki, were left behind the flax ropes of Manaia's band.

Then on went the Arawas up the gorge, which page 79 narrowed again. Still no sign of Tuhoe did they see, not even when they neared the top. But there the gorge took a sudden turn, and then widened out into a basin hemmed in on every side by cliffs.

As the younger warriors pressed round this bend close upon the heels of their leader, their exclamations of surprise and consternation mingled with the warning cries of Tuhoe from the rock-pa in front.

“O Ariki! How can men of flesh and blood scale the cliffs to reach that pa? Aué!”

They dashed about the rocky basin, seeking a way up to the heights above. They found a track up a side ravine, but it was steep and narrow, and at the top were great boulders whose downward-sweeping rush no attackers might face—a place impossible of assault. Truly this refuge of Tuhoe had been chosen well, thought the discomfited Arawas as they gathered around their leader and awaited his command. Yet it was hard to have to stand there and listen to the insults and the taunts that flowed down from triumphant Tuhoe above.

But the Arawa leader remained calm, undisturbed by the clamour of Tuhoe or by the inability of his own men to assault the pa. If only Tuhoe could be tempted down, lured by the comparative fewness of the foe below! If only Tuhoe could be tempted down! Then would Te Arawa strike hard, and perhaps even find a way to scale the cliffs and rush the pa above.

Drawing his men up in a compact body towards the centre of the basin, and ordering them to remain silent, Mawaké-Taupo stepped forward alone. At a distance of a few paces he stopped, then raised his weapon Pahikauré as he hurled forth his challenge:

“Come down from your high place, O Children-of-the-Mist! page 80 Come forth from the forest around, O People-of-the-Shadowy-Depths! Come down! Come forth! Here am I, Mawaké-Taupo of Hikurangi, an Arawa of the Arawas. Tread on my feet! Tread on my feet! Make haste! Make haste!”

A Tuhoe chief stepped out to the very edge of the cliff, and behind him gathered a number of the elders of the pa. In his hand was a shell trumpet, and as he raised it to his lips and gave forth a solitary and defiant blast the veterans among the Arawas knew, by the smooth quality of its note, that it was the famed war-trumpet Te Umu-kohu-kohu which had played an honoured part in many raids.

“O People-of-the-Arawa-Canoe.” cried the Tuhoe chief, “what seek ye of us? Is the entrance to the other world barred and closed that ye now seek death amid our hills and mountains? Must ye break down the palisades that bar the way to death? Is death then so pleasant that ye seek it out? Again I ask. What seek ye of us? Speak!”

“Two things we seek of you,” replied Mawaké-Taupo, “and these two things we demand of you in the name of Te Arawa. Listen! Ye shall deliver to us alive the aged chief Manawa-roa, for he longs to gaze upon the land of his fathers ere he dies. For the rest, ye people of Tuhoe must keep to your hills and mountains. The Valley of Pukékura and the Plains of Kaingaroa and the Great Lake Taupo are not for you. Enough!”

A roar of laughter came from the crowd of Tuhoes above, but their chief at once commanded silence. He gave another melodious blast upon the shell trumpet before handing it over to a warrior near by. Then he spoke with spirit:

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“This is our reply to Te Arawa. Manawa-roa dies on the third day from now. Can Te Arawa save him?

“As to the rest, we claim the Valley of the Red Hill, and we claim the Plains and we will occupy and possess them. Too long have Tuhoe been held back by the threats of Te Arawa.

“As to the Great Lake Taupo, we claim it also. Another summer, and war-parties from every district in the Uréwera will be sweeping down upon the Lake and round its southern shores. And who are Ngatihotu that they should stand in our way? Even now a war-party is setting up the boundary-posts of Tuhoe on Ngatihotu's lands. What know ye of that war-party, O Arawas who fought with Tuhoe upon the Plains?

“But enough! Thus and thus do we reply to the threats of Te Arawa, and we care not whether thy word be now war or peace.”

A vigorous war-dance by the Tuhoe warriors gave added defiance to the reply, but it merely called forth contemptuous shouts from the watching Arawas below. Unless the Mountain People could perform the war-dance better than that, they could never hope to hold an Arawa taua in a real fight.

All eyes were now turned upon Mawaké-Taupo as he moved forward a little farther still.

“Hear me, O Tuhoe,” he cried, “as I speak in the spirit of Ngatoro-i-rangi, the Great Tohunga of the Arawa Canoe!

“As to some things the end is not yet known to me. But as to the Taupo-nui-a-Tia, it shall never be for the people of Tuhoe, for it is destined to be for my son and for his children for ever.

“To my side, Manaia!” he added sharply. He cast aside his dogskin cape and his waist-garment of page 82 flax, and, in a moment, he and Manaia stood side by side, each stripped to the loin-cloth or maro.

“Behold, my son Manaia!” he cried again. “To him, I say, shall be the Great Lake and the mountains beyond. He also has erected a boundary-post on Ngatihotu's land. Ha! What know ye of that? And now I seek a sign.”

He pressed Pahikauré to his brow, and waited. Manaia, however, kept looking at the cliff face as he carefully scanned every portion of its broken surface. All, now he understood about the matter of the ropes.

The Tuhoe warriors and the women-folk in the pa above crowded to the edge of the cliff, gazing down in wonder upon two superb forms, and freely discussing which was the nobler figure. The younger one was the taller, and gave promise of the greater strength, and the Tuhoe women openly praised his curve of shoulder and limb.

They pressed nearer to the edge to gain a better view. The Tuhoe chief, in surly fashion, pushed some of the older women out of the way, but he was caught in the backward surge, and lost his balance. He tried to recover himself, slipped, and fell sideways over the brink before a hand could save him.

Not one of the horrified onlookers above saw their chief strike a half-way ledge and bounce outwards, but they all heard his gasping scream as he fell, and they all heard the mata-ika cry of the Arawa chief—then came a dreadful sound, and the wailing of Tuhoe for their dead.

“Behold, the sign of fate!” cried Mawaké-Taupo. “Thus shall Tuhoe fall before Te Arawa. Enough!”

With his waist-garment readjusted, and with his war-cape again adorning his shoulders, he moved page 83 back with Manaia to the waiting Arawas, and led them to the outlet from the basin. Then, turning, he suddenly raised his voice so that his words reverberated along the rocky walls and carried well up into the very inmost recesses of the pa:

“Hearken! The Kahu-Korako, the White Hawk of the Arawas, is spreading his wings for flight. His talons are red, but not with the blood of men. Taihoa! He shall cleanse them upon the top of this Cliff of Death ere he bear an Arawa chief to Hawaiki. Therefore, though the sun will set, the sun will shine again. Enough!”

“Hu! Hu! Hu!” cried the Arawas as they swept round the bend and out of sight down the gorge.

………..

In all that Tuhoe pa of Pari-maté, only one person really understood the meaning of those final words, and that one was the captive Manawa-roa.

To him alone had come the hidden message.