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Legends of the Maori
The Last Look Back. — Puhi-Wahine’s Love Song
The Last Look Back.
Puhi-Wahine’s Love Song.
On the hill-top village of Hikurangi (where a road from the Waipa to Kawhia goes up to the shoulder of Pirongia mountain) there lived, fifty years ago, a young chieftainess of the Ngati-Tuwharetoa tribe from Taupo, named Puhi-Wahine. She loved the cousin of the Maori king Tawhiao, a chief (who was also her own cousin) named Mahutu te Toko, a tall tattooed warrior, who had fought the pakeha in Taranaki and the Waikato. The course of true love did not run smoothly; Mahutu interrupted it by taking to himself another wife, whereupon Puhi-Wahine, wounded in heart and pride, rode away for her Taupo home. She crossed the Waipa valley, and on the third day of her journey she left Wairaka village, on the Wairaka stream near Orakau, and, ascending to the hill-top at Aratitaha, she halted and looked back at the distant peaks of Pirongia and Kakepuku. Her descent to the Waikato River on the southern side of Aratitaha would presently hide these mountains of the Waipa from her view. As she gazed on the blue cone of Kakepuku, beyond which her old lover dwelt, her anger died within her, and sorrow and affection came forth in a song of farewell. This was the waiata she chanted:
Ka eke ki Wairaka,
Ka titiro whakamuri;
Kati ko te aroha
Te tapui i Kakepuku.
Kia rere arorangi
Te tihi ki Pirongia,
Kei raro koe, e Toko!
Taku hoa tungane.
Naku ano koe
Huri atu ki muri,
Mokai te ngakau
Te whakatau iho
Kia po ruatia
E awhi kiri ana.
Kati au ka hoki
Ki toku whenua tupu,
Te wai-koropupu,
E ki a mai nei
I Hawaiki ra ano,
No Ngatoro-i-rangi,
I hu ra i Tongariro
Ka mahana ki tana kiri.
Na Rangi mai ano
Nana i marena,
Ko Pihanga te wahine,
Ai hu, ai hau,
Ai marangai kiri,
Ki te muri e-i!
Kokiri e!
[Translation.]
As up I climb from Wairaka,
I pause upon the mountain-side
For one last longing backward look,
My farewell gaze!
Cease, O my sorrow!
For my lost loved one
Far off ‘neath Kakepuku hill.
Yet, would that I could fly,
Soar as a bird to Pirongia’s crest,
For there below thou dwellest,
Toko, my cousin lover—
Ah! still my heart goes forth to thee.
Cease, O my sorrow! for I now shall go
Home to my childhood’s land,
To my sacred land where the soft waters
Bubble up in fountains of enchantment.
From sacred fires those hot-springs rise,
On Tongariro’s height where magic flames
From far Hawaiki came—
The saving flame of Ngatoro-i-rangi,
The fire that warmed the chieftain’s frame.
Pihanga* was the wife (of Tongariro);
They unite in the smoky clouds
Breathed from the mountain’s pit,
They embrace in the storm-wind Marangai—
So darts my love to him I leave behind!
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* Pihanga mountain, the beautiful wooded range between Lake Taupo Roto-a-Ira, is in local Maori mythology the wife of Mt. Tongariro. Tongariro (includ-ing Ngauruhoe volcano) was the victor in the battle of the mountains for the favour of fair Pihanga.