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Fairy Folk Tales of the Maori

Chapter XII — The Dragon of the Sacred Lake

page 129

Chapter XII
The Dragon of the Sacred Lake

Kwee, kwee, kwee, tio-o-o!” came the clear call of the shining-cuckoo in the bush above the track, and we caught a glimpse of the speckly-plumaged chanter, the pipi-wharauroa, as he shifted his perch to a higher branch of a native fuchsia tree, where the konini berries hung in thick clusters. A tui let fall a liquid chuckle now and again, by way of expressing satisfaction with his forest fare. The sunlit edge of the bush was alive with birds, native and pakeha. It was a delectable spot for them, this belt of small timbers between the lake and the tall woods of the hills. And from where we sat, the Old Man of Tuhourangi and I, we had a high look-out over a water-sheet of a mystical quality of beauty, of a loneliness and a silence almost wizardly.

Nothing moved on its level glimmerglass; no trout leaped for the flies; the thickets that rimmed its half-moon bays of glittering pumice sand were clamorous with bird life, but no wings winnowed the air above its page 130 surface and no kawau dived for fish. For all its lonely calm it did not seem to lie asleep, but rather to be crouching there, some liquid spirit of the woods, with peering blue eye in its deep hollow, waiting.

The Old Man, the head chief of the tribe which had been driven from its home at Te Wairoa by the Tarawera eruption thirty years before, was telling some of the stories of the old Lakeland. The very ground on which we sat, he said, was tapu, or rather had been until the Government ran a road right across it to give access to its New Forest reserves, where prison labour was clothing the hills with great plantations of exotic pines. This spot was the narrow ridge between Roto-Kakahi, the Lake of Shellfish, on the one hand, and Tikitapu, the Lake of the Sacred Image, on the other. We could look down into both lakes; so closely set together and yet so different in character; the one long and winding and island-studded, and of a luminous green in hue; the other an almost circular expanse of magical colour that sometimes was steel-blue, sometimes turquoise, with the play of sun and cloud.

This neck of land, said Mita of page 131 Tuhourangi, was called Te Ahi-manawa, which means “The Place where a Human Heart was Cooked.” A grisly legend there was to the name: how that a sorcerer of old, one Taiapua, was caught and killed here, while in the act of performing deeds of witchcraft at his tuahu or altar, “Te Tuahu a Tuameke.” It was the descendants of Apu-moana, of Tarawera, who slew this Merlin of the Maori country; they found him in the midst of his dreadful incantations, standing naked before his sacred fire. They ate his body; his heart was reserved as an offering to the god Maru, and it sizzled in the flames on the tohunga's own earthen altar.

The whitebeard chief's memory was stored with countless legends of pa and lake and forest, and with curious tales of magic, such as the story of the enchanted red-pine log, “Te Mata-o-Tapotu,” which went cruising like some living thing about the two lakes—it was believed that a subterranean passage connected them. But strangest of all was the saga of Kataore, the terrible ngarara or dragon that lived on the shores of this lake of wizardly beauty, Tikitapu, and preyed on the passing traveller. page 132 Some there are who would explain away these tales of ngarara and taniwha by referring them back to the ancient homes of the Maori in crocodile-haunted Indonesia or Papua or the western Pacific. But there are people who do not believe in fairies and who take a fiendish delight in demolishing the children's Santa Claus. Out with them; here in the very heart of the country of witches and faerie we will have none of their wooden-hearted criticism.

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High up yonder, on the steep forested ranges across Lake Tikitapu—its western side—was the darksome cave of Kataore the dragon. (So went Mita's legend.) Those ranges, the wooded hills, Rauporoa and Te Pou-Koropu, swell up westward, still into the mountain of Moerangi. They are divided by a deep gully—we can see it from here, a narrow gash in the hills, like a great earthquake rift, where the rimu and rata trees touch branches across the ravine. The Pou-koropu was a famous mountain for birds in olden days; the very name is a reminder of the bird-hunters of the vanished race, Ngati-Tangaroa-Mihi. The pou was a pole set in a bird-haunted page 133 place in the bush; around it were arranged fern-tree-fronds and tree-branches to conceal the fowler, and at the foot and outside the shelter a tame kaka parrot was tied as a decoy. The kaka's harsh scream, “Nge-nge-nge,” quickly brought its inquisitive wild kindred about it from the surrounding trees, and as each alighted it was struck down with a stick by the hidden hunter. And up yonder, in the bird-swarming woods and gulches, lived Kataore, the scaly spiny-backed monster who scorned to go kaka or pigeon-hunting, for his food was Man.

This terrible reptile, strangely enough, was not without a rangatira or owner. Kataore was the pet, so to say, of the chief Tangaroa-mihi, who lived here in the fort Pa-Tarata, set like a castle above the Sacred Lake. A ferocious kind of pet? Well, and why not? Do not the pakehas cage up lions and tigers and other savage beasts (asked the Old Man)—aye, and fearful great snakes!—in their public gardens and parks? Tangaroa had his wild park, these forests of Te Pou-Koropu and Rauporoa, and in their depths roamed his ngarara-mokai, Kataore. This dragon of the bush had not always been a monster of ferocity. Once page 134 upon a time it had lived in a cave which you may see to this day in the cliff at the western end of the lake called Roto-ehu, and there it was as tame as tame could be. But it migrated to these parts, and here it was, on the shores of Tikitapu, that it developed the evil habit of preying upon passing travellers. That tourist road below us there, winding along the shores of the lakes from Rotorua to Te Wairoa, on Tarawera, was aforetime the foot track of many Maori wayfarers; and upon these Kataore would pounce. His favourite place of ambush was across the lake yonder, in the thick woods called Tu-wiriwiri—the pakeha knows the place as Tikitapu bush to-day; the motor road goes through the beautiful forest of rimu pine and tawa and flowering rata. He would creep down from his cave along a broad track which he had worn through the undergrowth; and there, just where the pathway left the sandy shore of the lake to enter the dark forest, he had his waiting-place. He would spy a solitary traveller from afar—aye, he could smell him, as a deer scents the hunter—and here he would lie flattened to the earth, his dark scaly back and his terrible snout hidden in page 135 the ferns. And then! Out he would tear, his awful eyes flaming, his spines erect, his horrible tail smashing from side to side, and with wide-open jaws he would drag down the paralysed traveller. After killing his prey he would drag the body up to his cave to be devoured at leisure.

And as the dragon grew bolder he began to attack groups and parties of people making their way by the lakeside route between Te Wairoa and Rotorua.

So huge was he that he swallowed his victims whole; and everything went into his maw—weapons, clothing, the backloads of food carried by the slaves and women, everything went the same way; and then the surfeited Kataore would slumber in his evil-smelling cave until the desire for man-meat sent him prowling forth again.

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Now it befell one day that a beautiful girl named Tuhi-Karaparapa, whose home was at Lake Tarawera, set out along this bush track for Rotorua. She was a descendant of the great chief Apu-moana, of Tarawera, and she was journeying to Ohinemutu village in order to be married to Reretoi, a young page 136 chief, already a famous warrior, of the Arawa people. The two had been betrothed when but children by their parents. Tuhi was a puhi, or sacred maiden; she was the treasure of her tribe, and the fame of her beauty had gone abroad to many a village. On her journey to Rotorua she was accompanied by a party of relatives and a number of slaves bearing loads of presents such as finely-woven garments of flax, and dogskin and feather robes, for the people of Ohinemutu.

The party had just passed up from the silent brink of Tikitapu lake into the shades of the forest when the dreadful Kataore suddenly hurled himself upon them from the trackside. With one snap of his terrible jaws he killed the lovely Tuhi; then he attacked and slew several of her attendants, felling some with great blows of his serrated tail. But some there were who escaped, and these, flying on wings of terror to Rotorua, spread the news of the fearful end of the beautiful maid of Tarawera.

Reretoi, the bereaved lover, at once raised an expedition to avenge the slaying of Tuhi and her people. There were many who greatly desired to kill the monster of Tikitapu, page 137 and so Reretoi was able to select a strong body of well-tried warriors. Not only did the people burn to exact utu in retaliation for the murders and the eatings, but they desired also to feast upon Kataore for the pleasure of tasting his flesh. Some of them had already killed and eaten a similar creature called Te Ika o Hotupuku (“Hotupuku's Fish”) at the Kapenga, over there south-eastward, in the direction of the Waikato River; they found that its meat was sweet. They had also killed a dragon or taniwha, called Pekehaua, whose den was in the deep spring which is the source of the river Awahou, flowing into Rotorua Lake; and its flesh was delicious to the palate of the Maori. Therefore they went a-hunting for Kataore with keen anticipations of revenge and feasting combined.

One of Reretoi's brother-warriors was a young man named Pitaka, who was a noted slayer of these taniwhas and ngararas. It was he who had descended into the deep fount of the Awahou, called Te Warouri, in a taiki, a kind of diving-cage, made of supplejack and other strong forest vines, from which he noosed the slumbering Pekehaua in his watery den. Pitaka and page 138 Reretoi—they were the most experienced braves of the dragon-slaying expedition.

The Ngati-Tama hunters marched over the hills to the Rauporoa forest; they scouted cautiously down to the shores of the Sacred Lake, and camped in the shades of the Tu-wiriwiri thickets.

Here they made their preparations for the capture of the dragon. They plaited long and strong ropes of flax, and these ropes they arranged in the form of mahanga or snares, with running loops. The noosed mahanga they then set in a place which they believed, from the signs of the frequent passage of the monstrous body, would be traversed by the ngarara when he came rushing down from his cave in the gloomy gorges of the precipitous Pou-Koropu. One end of each mahanga was made fast there, to trees on one side of the trail; the running ends were held by a band of strong men from Rotorua, all warriors of the Ngati-Tama tribe.

Now, when all was ready, out dashed that brave young man Pitaka, the slayer of Pekehaua. He was stripped for the work, and the blue tattoo stood out beautifully on his well-oiled skin. He carried a hardwood taiaha, half spear, half sword; his hair was page 139 bound up high on his head and adorned with feathers. He advanced up the trail towards the dragon's rocky den; he was to be the “maunu,” the human bait to draw the monster from its cave. Leaping from side to side, making cuts and guards with his taiaha, his eyes wildly glaring in warrior defiance, he boldly challenged the hidden man-eater.

Tena, tena!” he called, as he scouted up to the cave. “Haere mai, haere mai!” “Now, now, come out, come out!” And he pukana'd — made terrific grimaces — and shouted insults and taunts, all with the intent of provoking Kataore to issue from his dwelling in the cliff-side.

Presently, out burst the dragon, angered by Pitaka's taunts, furious to slay and eat the impudent intruder into his domain. Down he rushed along the track which he had made to the place of ambuscade in the bush below. He ponderously pursued his now fleeing bait, who ran straight towards where Reretoi and his men lay in concealment on either side of the track. The dragon's enormous jaws snapped; he lashed his great tail from side to side. He ran blundering straight towards the snares spread ready for him.

page 140

Then Pitaka's voice was heard in a great shout. “Takiritia! Takiritia!” he loudly called.

It was the cry to his comrades to feign a retreat, in order to lead the foe into the ambuscade.

And Reretoi's voice now was heard, as the monster's body entered the nooses—“Tarorea! Tarorea!” (“Make fast the snare!”)— bidding the warriors haul away on the line and secure their quarry. They ran away with the ropes, took a quick turn round a big tree with each, and there the man-eating ngarara struggled, securely caught by the loop round the middle of his great scale-armoured body.

Tremendously he twisted and wriggled and heaved to get free, and smashed his tail against the trees and shrubs. He was firmly held; his struggles only drew the slip-knots tighter.

The warriors dashed upon him with their weapons. Reretoi, Pitaka, and Purahokura —they were the chief men of the assailants. With their hardwood broadswords and spears and stone axes, their sharp-edged clubs of stone and whalebone, Ngati-Tama hacked and lunged at the captive monster. page 141 The three chiefs attacked his savage head; the others slashed and chopped and pierced his neck and back and tail, and at last his struggles ceased and he lay dead before them. The ogre-reptile would lie no more in ambush for lone travellers in the woods of Tu-wiriwiri.

Then came the cutting-up of the monster, as sailors cut up a captured shark. With knives and axes of obsidian and flint they laid bare its hideous belly; and then rose a great aue! of wonder and grief as they beheld lying there, heaps of bones of human beings, and there, too, the head of the missing girl Tuhi; they recognized it by the uncommonly long masses of hair. Garments of flax and dogskin and feathers, too, they saw in the dragon's maw, and even the stone patus or hand-clubs of sundry men whom he had overwhelmed and devoured.

So died that murderous habitant of the Pou-Koropu cliffs. The warriors sought for his heart, which was cut out and brought across to the sacred place close to where we are sitting, this ridge of the Ahi-manawa, and here it was cooked and eaten by the priests as an offering to the gods. This was because of the tapu girl whom he had killed and eaten. As for the ngarara's page 142 flesh, the people fell upon it and ate it, as an ito, or object of revenge, in retaliation for the many people whom the creature had slain. And parts of the flesh were potted in calabashes and sent to Rotorua, so that all the tribe were able to feast upon the body of that much-hated dragon of the wilds.

The only person who was not pleased at this retribution exacted by Ngati-Tama was the chief who owned the dragon—Tangaroa-Mihi, head-man of the Tikitapu district. He would not believe that Kataore was so dangerous a creature. The truth was that the dragon was so cunning a fellow that whenever Tangaroa-Mihi came to visit him and bring him food, as was his wont, he behaved with exceeding mildness, like a well-trained pet dog. So Tangaroa wept long for his slain saurian protégé, and then he rose and called his tribe together, and they made war upon the people of Rotorua, and many battles followed and palisaded forts were taken by storm, and there was much slaying, and eating of men; and all because of this rascally ngarara.

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The Old Man rose and pointed with his stick to the precipitous forest-hung side of page 143 Te Pou-Koropu, glooming there across the silent lake.

“Straight over yonder,” he said, “in the darkest part of the woods, where the rocks arch overhead in a cavern, is the dwelling of that fellow Kataore. Some of our young men from Whakarewarewa have sought for it when out there shooting pigeons and hunting wild pigs, but none of them have been able to find the cave, it is so concealed by the close-growing trunks and the great roots of the trees. But I know it, I have been in the cave. And we shall go up there some day and enter it together, and maybe we shall camp there, so that we will be able to say we have slept in the cave of the dragon. For I have the incantations that will prevent anything from troubling us there; and anyhow, when ngarara and taniwha are killed that is the end of them; they don't leave ghosts behind them.”

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Kura-of-the-Claws. The ogre-woman of the forest. (From doorway of a carved meeting-house at Whakarewarewa, Rotorua.)

Kura-of-the-Claws. The ogre-woman of the forest. (From doorway of a carved meeting-house at Whakarewarewa, Rotorua.)

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The phantom canoe on Lake Tarawera, 1886.

The phantom canoe on Lake Tarawera, 1886.