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The Old Frontier : Te Awamutu, the story of the Waipa Valley : the missionary, the soldier, the pioneer farmer, early colonization, the war in Waikato, life on the Maori border and later-day settlement

Chapter XIII. — Kiharoa The Giant. — A Folk-Tale of the Tokanui Hills

page 96

Chapter XIII.
Kiharoa The Giant.
A Folk-Tale of the Tokanui Hills.

This curious tradition, gathered from the last of the old learned men of the Ngati-Maniapoto tribe, is given as a typical example of the Maori folk-lore with which the King Country abounds.

On the crown of the land at Whenuahou, immediately north of the Tokanui hills known to the European settlers of the old frontier as “The Three Sisters,” isan historic spot called Kiharoa, in memory of a giant warrior of long ago. It was proposed by some of the Kingite chiefs in 1864, after the British occupationof the Waipa basin, that a fort should be built here for a final stand against the Queen's soldiers. The position commanded a wide view over the valley of the Puniu and the conquered lands north of the river, but it would have been useless without a sufficient garrison to hold also the hill-forts in rear of and above it, ancient terraced pas of the Maori. The suggestion was not favoured by Rewi and the other leaders, and the warriors re-crossed the Puniu to the north side and built the pa at Orakau. Long ago, riding along the old horse track from Kihikihi to Otorohanga past Hopa te Rangianini's little village at Whenuahou, weused to see the Giant's Grave, as it was called. This locallyfamous landmark was a shallow excavation on a ferny mound; it was twelve or fourteen feet in length and about four feet in width, and vague traditions had grown up around it, but none of the European settlers of the frontier knew anything definite of its history. A few years ago, however, I gathered the story of this semimythic giant from two venerable warriors of the Ngati-Maniapoto, on the south bank of the Puniu River. There certainly seems to have been a veritable giant, a man of enormous stature and length of reach with the hand-weapons of those days, six generations ago. This Kiharoa, or “The Long Gasping Breath,” was a chief of the Ngati-Raukawa and Ngati-Whakatere tribes, who in those times owned the Tokanui hills and the surrounding fruitful slopes.

The strong terraced and trenched pa on Tokanui, the middle conical hill of the row of three, was built by the two tribes named, page break
Officers of the 40th Regiment (1863–4) With the regimental mess-house in the background

Officers of the 40th Regiment (1863–4)
With the regimental mess-house in the background

Non-Commissioned Officers of the 40th Regiment [From photos lent by Colonel Ryder.]

Non-Commissioned Officers of the 40th Regiment
[From photos lent by Colonel Ryder.]

page break page 97 under Kiharoa, about a hundred and fifty years ago. The same people fortified and occupied the other two hills; the eastern one is Puke-rimu (“Red-Pine hill”) and the western Whiti-te-marama (“The Shining of the Moon”). There were many good fighting men among the people of these hill forts, but their tower of strength was Kiharoa, who stood hugely over his fellows; he was twice the height of an ordinary man, and he wielded a taiaha of unusual length and weight, a hardwood weapon called by the name of “Rangihaeata” (“The First Rays of Morning Light”). Many a battle he had fought successfully with this great blade-and-tongue broadsword, sweeping every opponent out of his path. Kiharoa was tattooed on body as well as face, and when he leaped into battle, whirling “Rangihaeata” from side to side in guard and feint and cut, his blue-carved skin glistening with oil and red ochre, his great glaring eyes darting flame, his moko-scrolled features distorted with fury, few there were brave enough to face him. But there came a day when Kiharoa met his better on the battlefield of Whenuahou.

The Ngati-Maniapoto tribe, whose great fortress was Totorewa, an impregnable cliff-walled pa on the Waipa River, raised a feud against the Ngati-Raukawa and Ngati-Whakatere, and a large warparty set out under the chief Wahanui, who himself was a man of great frame, though no giant like Kiharoa. The “taua” took a circuitous route, coming upon the Tokanui hills from the south via Manga-o-Rongo, and then making a detour to the east to avoid the deep morass which defended the southern side of “The Three Sisters “—the present main road from Kihikibi to Otorohanga traverses this now partly-drained swamp.

Meanwhile the garrisons in the hill forts had prepared for war, and their sentinels stood on the alert on the tihi or citadel of the terraced strongholds, keeping keen watch for the expected enemy. Harua, one of the chiefs of the forts, had descended to the plain with a small party before the approach of the foewas detected, and although the people on the hill forts called repeatedly to him warning him to return, no heed was given to the long-drawn shouts. At length a keen-eyed sentry saw the glisten of a weapon—perhaps a whalebone mere—in the westering sun; the direction was well to the east of the pa, and by that token it was plain that the enemy army was lying in ambush waiting to advance silently in the night. It was imperative that Harua and his men outside the pa should be page 98 warned, and so in the still watches of the night a strong-lunged warrior on thebattlements of Tokanui lifted up his voice in this whakaaraara-pa, or sentinel-chant:
  • E tenei pa, e tera pa!

  • Titiro ki nga tahanga roa

  • I Tunaroa!

  • Pewhea tena te titiaho

  • Kia haere ake ki te pa.

  • Hoi tonu, hoi tonu!

In this chant the garrisons of the pas on each hand, Puke-rimu and Whiti-te-marama, were called upon to be on the alert, and to scan the long slopes towards the place called Tunaroa where the enemy lay concealed. Yonder perhaps was the place whence the foe would advance in the morning sunshine against the pas. “Ye heeded me not—heeded me not,” the chant ended. Had any lurking enemy scout been near enough to hear the words he would take them as being addressed only to the garrisons of the hill-top fortresses, and would not suspect that it was really a warning for the ears of Harua and his small force of scouts who were liable to be cut off from the pa as soon as daylight came.

The cry of warning was heard and understood by Harua, and he and his scouts swiftly rejoined their friends on the hill-tops.

When day came and the warparty of Ngati-Maniapoto appeared, working round tothe north-east side of the Tokanui chain of forts, Kiharoa the giant, stripped for battle, took up his taiaha, “The First Rays of Morning Light,” and led his warriors down to the open slopes of Whenuahou to give battle to the invaders. As he dashed down the hill he ran through a grove of karaka trees. Here there was a pool where the kernels of the karaka berries were prepared for food by being steeped in water after having been cooked; this food was termed “kopiri.” There were some dead leaves of the karaka lying on the track, and Kiharoa slipped on these leaves as he ran, and fell, and narrowly escaped breaking his taiaha in his fall. The spot is at the foot of Tokanui hill, just outside the thickets of prickly acacia which now clothe the silent old fortress with a mat of softest green. This accident was in the belief of the Maori a tohu aitua or evil omenfor Kiharoa. The knowledge of this fact may have unnerved the giant, or “Rangihaeata's” mana may have suffered by the mishap. He rushed to meet his foes, but he was outfought for all his phenomenal reach of page 99 arm. He fell pierced with spear thrusts and battered with blows of stone clubs, and he lay dead on the battlefield of Whenuahou.

The Tokanui people were defeated; they fled in panic when their gigantic chieftain fell, and many were killed on the field. The survivors, however, held their forts successfully. Ngati-Maniapoto contented themselves with the dead, which would provide many ovens of man-meat, and most of all they rejoiced to find that they had vanquished the dreaded Kiharoa. They gathered round in amazement to measure his height and his giant limbs; and on the spot where he lay marks were cut at head and feet to indicate his length. His enormous tattooed head was cut off and preserved by being smoke-dried, and presently was carried home to Totorewa to decorate the palisade at the gateway of the fort. His body was cut up and cooked and eaten where he fell, and there the excavation remained to mark his great stature. He was two fathoms long! So says the native account. My Maori friends will not abate a single inch. This is the length of the place we used to call the “Giant's Grave,” on the crown of the land below Puke-rimu, the eastern hill of the “Sisters.” And the battlefield was divided among the victors, and later became the home of a section of the Ngati-Matakore tribe, of whom my old warrior acquaintances Hauauru and Hopa te Rangianini were the chiefs in the days of my boyhood within sight of the terrace-carved “Three Sisters.”

Such is in brief the story of the giant's grave—a misnomer assuredly, seeing that Kiharoa's tomb was the stomachs of his slayers. The Tokanui village hall stands within revolver shot of the place where Kiharoa came to his end, and the community creamery at the cross-roads stands where once Wahanui's cannibal army plied spear and stone club and taiaha on the defenders of the three hill forts. Some distance to the east is the Waikeria prison farm. It was in that direction, at Tunaroa, that Wahanui and his Totorewa army lay in the fern the nightbefore the battle.

There was another giant of those parts in the days before the white man came with his guns. This was Matau; he was, like Kiharoa, a man of the Ngati-Raukawa tribe. He was nearly as tall as Kiharoa, says an old word-of-mouth historian. He was a dreaded warrior, and, like Kiharoa again, his favourite weapon was the taiaha. His home was in a palisaded hole in a cliff above the cave called Te Ana Kai-tangata (“The Cannibal's Cave”), which you may see in the rocky face in the gorge towards the head of the page 100 Wairaka Stream, a tributary of the Puniu River. The entrance to this cave is still marked with the paint kokowai or red ochre; that is how you will know it. It was an excellent place in which to lie in wait for incautious travellers in the days of old.