page 29

Love Myths of the Mountains.

In the folk-lore of the Maori these mountains are husband and wife. The Maori personified such boldly cut hills, and so Kakepuku, with its steep upthrust of shape is the male and rounded Kawa is the gently reclining female. To the south again is a minor mountain, the Puketarata Range on our left. This, say the old storytellers, is the rejected lover of Kawa. Here is the eternal triangle; and there was another lover, too, a volcano called Karewa, which once stood where the Kawa swampy lagoons shone like silver plates among the raupo reeds and flax. It is the legend of the Tongariro volcanic heights over again. Karewa fought Kakepuku for the love of Kawa, but was defeated with furious volleys of lava and hugh fiery rocks, and was compelled to flee. He retreated westward to Kawhia and into its ocean, and there he stands to this day, lone Karewa, called also Gannet Island, in the Tasman Sea, off Kawhia Heads. So Kakepuku won fair Kawa, and remains the overlord of this Waipa Valley.

A stirring tradition, too long to give here in full, tells of the siege of the fortified pa that once stood on Kawa's tattooed nipple of a hill. Tarao, the chief of the pa, realising that the fort must be captured, had a tunnel dug by which he and his people escaped one night under the very feet of their besiegers into the safety of the near forest, and so over the hills and far away. The ancient Maori was as skilful a digger as any modern warrior.

Fairy folklore is associated with some of these mountains of the border. High up on Kakepuku there is a deep dingle of a valley, thickly wooded, which was in local belief a haunt of the fairy tribe, patu-paiarche. This part of the mountain, towards the summit, where there are the remains of two ancient trenched forts on the rim of the crater, is a State scenic reserve.

Pirongia Mountain yonder is the chief home of the fairies. Their favoured abode is Hihikiwi, the forested crest of the range. The people say that albinos—we used to see an albino woman at the Puniu—are the offspring of fairy men and Maori women.

Otorohanga (114 miles), a pakeha-Maori township on the Waipa River, at about the old-time head of canoe-nagivation, has a rather curious scrap of history and folk-belief embodied in its name. It means a small portion of food caused by supernatural means to last for a long journey. The story is that a warrior chief setting out from here for Taupo in ancient days had only a little provision (o) for the long route march, but by his prayer-charms he stretched it out (torohanga) so that it sufficed him until he reached his destination—a kind of Maori version of the widow's cruse of oil.

(To be continued.)