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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 6, Issue 4 (September 1, 1931.)

The Sacred Pigeon's Rock

The Sacred Pigeon's Rock.

This land of ours is studded everywhere with hills and rocks which carry like imperishable pegs curious bits of folk-lore, poetic tales of long ago. Here is an example out of many not previously recorded. There is a great grey rock in the heart of North Auckland, on which the beautiful place-name Taiamai is based. In Mr. Ludbrook's sheep-paddock, close to the township, of Ohaeawai, and about a quarter of a mile east from the hotel page 18 stands a grey rock, ten or twelve feet high, rugged of form, much cleft and grass-grown. An old Maori of the Ngapuhi tribe, Rawiri te Ruru, took me to see the sacred place, which he said was tino, or exact spot from which the whole district took its name. The great rock he narrated, about a hundred and fifty years ago (six generations) became celebrated as the favourite haunt of a kukupa or pigeon remarkable for its size and its beauty. Forest then all grew around, with here and there clearings made for cultivations, and this rock in the forest attracted the beautiful kukupa, which often was seen resting and sunning itself and preening its irridescent plumage, and its pure white breast feathers.

The legend grew that this wood-pigeon was a bird of supernatural attributes; that it had come from some distant place, from the ocean, hence the name given it. Tai-a-mai, or borne from the sea. The local chief of that day, one Kaitara, rahui'd the bird; that is, he protected it, forbade anyone to molest it, and indeed none wished to, for all believed that it possessed a mana tapu, a sacred influence of its own. So it became a kind of tribal mascot. At last it vanished as mysteriously as it came; and the Maoris, finding that it appeared no more, transferred its name to this conspicuous rock, its onetime resting-place. A fragment of place-nomenclature this, quite unknown to the European residents of those parts. And, by the way, Taiamai is a name that does not appear on any of the maps of the district. It should be preserved, for it is a good name, and an easy vun to spell, as Mr. Sam Weller would have said.