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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 3 (June 1, 1935)

The “Whare-Maire” at Hokorima

The “Whare-Maire” at Hokorima.

The old chief was a wonderful repository of Taranaki legends and poetry, and above all his still active mind, was rich in poetic memories of Taranaki mountains. Puke-haupapa—“Snowy Mountain,” he said, was the most ancient name of Mt. Egmont. Like all the dwellers about the mountain foot, he loved and revered Taranaki peak. It was his Matua, his parent, the father and guardian of the land; its forests were the refuge place for many a harassed tribe-fragment in the days of cannibal raids.

Tauke was the last of the tohungas of the Ngati-Ruanui tribe. He was a dreamer, a seer of visions, and he was the instructor of his people in the Whare-Maire, the school of legend and tradition, religion and genealogical recitals, which he revived in pursuance of the policy of conservatism and of return to the old Maori ways. He conducted the ritual of the ancient Polynesian religion. He was a priest of Hawaiki and Aotearoa. And at the same time he spent hours daily in poring over the pakeha Scriptures.

It was in keeping with the medley of ancient and modern in Tauke's character that the burial ceremony at Hokorima, beneath the lofty gaze of his ancestral mountain, should have been preceded by a poi dance by the women of Ngati-Ruanui, and that the sage of the Plains should have been laid to rest with the poetic conjunction of pakeha rites and the wild musical chants of the ancient race.