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Fairy Folk Tales of the Maori

Notes

Notes

Tamaohoi was no mythical personage. He has descendants living at Rotorua today. I have a whakapapa or genealogical list from Tamaohoi down to a member of the Ngati-Tu tribe, of Ngapuna, containing the following names in direct descent: Tamaiewa (son of Tamaohoi), Te Rakau-pango, Te Upoko, Paha, Ikapuku, Te-Rangi-tupu-ki-waho, Tahu Whakatiki, Upoko, Te Rua, Te Rangi-ka-tuho, Te Whakarau, Tauhuroa, whose son is Hohepa Tauhuroa (now about fifty-five years of age).

All the men on this list preceding Tauhuroa are said to have been wizards and priests, possessed of strange powers of necromancy and skilled in makutu, the black art.

Literally, Tarawera may be interpreted as “Burnt Peak.” In this sense the name is particularly applicable to the mountain, and was descriptively correct even before the eruption of 1886. Tarawera proper is the abrupt-shattered peak overlooking Lake Rotomahana. The middle peak is the Rua-wahia (“Chasm burst open”) and the eastern one Wahanga (“Split” or “Divided”). All three names bear reference to the volcanic origin of the mountain. The place where Ngatoro-i-rangi, according to the legend, forced Tamaohoi into the earth to be a demon of the underworld is on the summit of Ruawahia. Before the eruption there were warm springs there, in the forest which originally clothed the mountain.