FIRST OVER THE ALPS.

Hokitika Guardian, 15 April 1924, Page 4

FIRST OVER THE ALPS.

RAUREKA AND THE GREENSTONE “SWEET LEAF” AND PUHOU.

People are now able to speed ill smooth comfort through the heart of the mountains of Westland by the wonderful five-mile tunnel which ranks as oiie of’ the world’s great engineering works, writes James Cowan, F.H.S.S'., in “The New Zealander.” And those who from the carriage window survey tiie amazing Alpine world, with its rushing torrents, its wild ravines, its icy heights, should surely bestow a thought on the men who pioneered this formidable country—the great-hearted explorers, prospectors, gold-diggers, surveyors, roadmakers of the sixties. Cold and hunger, weariness, daily risk of death, were their lot. The toil and adventure of the gold-seekers who made the perilous crossing of the dividing range from Canterbury to the West Const in the “rush” days of 1865 might well form the theme of a thrilling book. But long before the golden days of the sixties, long before ever a pakehn foot pressed New Zealand soil, brown I adventurers, clad in flax mats and shod with flax sandals, pressed up through these gale-swept mountain solitudes and descended on the West Coast in search of the .most precious thing of their era, the poumamu or greenstone. • And it was a Maori woman who made the first crossing of the Southern Alps. This woman was Rnureka (“Sweet Leaf”). She was a chieflainess of the Ngnli-Wairangi tribe. This clan was akin to the Ngni-Tahu of the eastern parts of the South Island, hut it had been isolated so long on the coast of Westland, near where the town of Hokitika stands to-day, that the eastern tribes scarcely knew of its existence. Raureka it was who first made known to the- dwellers on the Canterbury Plains the strange treasure-coun-try of the far West. .1 have heard the story related with true Maori wealth of detail by the old people of the tribe now living at Arahura, and also by the last of the learned old men of Tunliiwi, in Canterbury. In the heart of th.c Southern Alps, close to Mount Cook, there is an ice* peak which the map-makers have named Mount Raureka to memorise this long-gone explored. It is on the dividing range looking down upon the Hooker Glacier. It would have been

more fitting however, had they given the name to one of the mountains above Brownin';’s Pass, seventy miles to the north of the Hooker, for it was there that R a tire lea made the crossing. Unlike the white pioneers, it was from the west that Hailreka came, and it was in a curious way that the first Alpine trail-maker made known the existence of the wild and mysterious hind of Pontini, as the .Maoris called the Most Coast, to the tribes of the plains. “SWEET LEAF'S*’ QUARREL. About 250 years ago, Raureka, as her descendants relate, leit their village at Araliura, as the result of a quarrel, and with one companion, a slave named Kapakchn, wandered far up into the mountains at the head of Rake Kunicri (or more correctly Kaniere). Quite accidentally the fugitives discovered a pass between the snowy mountains that overlooked the head waters of the Araliura, and toiling on, shod with pnraerae or sandals of llax leaves, they crossed the dividing range, descended the valley ol the Tlakaia, and emerged on the Canterbury Plains. They trudged across the gently sloping prairie, a great lone land of tussock and cabbage trees, until thev Came to a place near where the town of Geraldine now stands. Here, exhausted and starving, they were found by a party of iXgai-1 aim men, who were out on the war-patjli. The waudreers were in sore straits for food. “To Kopa a Raureka’’—“the tiny food basket of Raureka”—is to thi.s-.day a proverbial expression among the South Island -Maoris, and is used when reference is made to the necessity for husbanding supplies lest starvation came with the winter.

Rauroka’s few handfuls of food were quite exhausted when the Ngai-Tahu discovered her. The starving couple were fed and kindly treated, and at the camp fire Sweet-Leaf told her new friends about her home and people in the forest land beyond the snowy heights. i

She told of the greenstone—To Ika-A-Poutini, or “'The Fish of Poulini,’ as it was called in native myth—which was abundant at Arahura, and she exhibited a small axo of poumanm which she had carried across the mountains. And she softly chanted a rythmic song to herself as she chipped away with the little axe a piece of knurn, the saccharine root of the ti-palm which she was scraping preparatory to rooking it. This is a translation I have made of the chant she crooned, a karakia or charm used by her people when felling forest trees and supposed to give additional clficnev to the woodman’s axe and more strength to his brawny arms:—

I lay my sharp nxo to the foot of the

tree. llow it bites; 0 my sons, How it sounds through the woods! llow keenly 1 long For this tall child of. Tane! Taiio the Tree-God towering high— Tane felled and lying at my feet. See how the chips fly from my axe! Bared to the light of outer day Are Tune’s children, Once pillared lofty in the tores! shades, Now stripped and prone, On Tane’s sacred day.

A CUNNING LISTENER. While llaureka was telling her story, one Puhou, a warrior of the Ngai-Tahu, lay quietly listening hut pretending to bo asleep. He heard of the wonderful poiuiamu treasure, and he determined to steal secretly away and exploit this rich new land for himself. , In the morning the expedition continued to march northward to Taumutu and Kaiapoi. The artful warrior contrived to secure charge of llaureka, and as he had to all appearances been asleep when the woman displayed her axe of pounamu no one suspected him when he announced that lie and several of his companions intended to make a scouting detour and- to rejoin the. main body further north. Out of sight, Puhou and his men travelled inland and. ascended the valley of the Rakaia. He induced llaureka to pilot him across to 'Westland by the pass she had discovered. She gave Poutou her little axe and taught him the magic “chopping song,” and, moreover, became his wife.

The scouts made paraerae, sandals of fiax leaves, for the rough passage over the trackless range of rocks and snow, and by devious and perilous ways, by mountain, flood and forest, they reached Raureka’s home at Arahura. There they .made friends with the Ngati-Wairangi and became possessed of much pounamu in the rough, and also in the form of weapons and ornaments. It was a true treasure house for the Maori, that kainga on the bank of the Arahura. Puhou explored the country as far

north,as the.iojeijtrgirt lake namedTe Ivotuku-whakaoka . (“The Darting Heron”), now known as Lake Brunner. Then he returned to Araliura, and he and his companions loaded themselves with all the greenstone they could carry, and set back over the range to the East Coast, skirting Lake Kani-ere and crossing the mountains by Raureka’s Pass, They had been absent from the East Coast several months, and it was summer when they emerged from the Rakaia Valley atid kindled a great fire on a llitl overlooking the homes of their tribe.

The Ngai-Tahu at once realised the truth. “Aue!” they said, ‘‘the cunning of that sleeper! He has outwitted us all. Ho has found the Fish-of-Poutini.”

And, wearily but triumphantly, Pillion and his greenstone-bearers marched into the village square, set down their heavy oilcans or swags, and exhibited their spoils of pounamu. BARTER—AND THEN SLAUGHTER

This was the beginning of annual expeditions across the mountains to, Araliura,- ,tho wonderful Greeiist/me river, the Ngai-Tahu carrying loads of preserved 'food delicacies packed in totara-bark and sea-kelp baskets to barter for treasure stone. It was the beginning of grievous trouble for Nga-ti-Wairongi. llaureka was indirectly the means of her elans ruin. NgaiTahu, being numerous and fierce, no longer swngged their goods over the pass, hut obtained the greentsone by the process of killing the owners, whom they also ate.

After severhl generations of fighting peace was at fast made between the East, and West Coast people, cemented by the giving of a Ngati-Wairangi girl in marriage to To Whatarangi, a chief of Kaiapoi. Tile peace was not a permanent one, for the pounami-greeil was on the outer tribes again, and in the onrlv years of last century Tuliuiu and other Kaiapoi chiefs ravaged the Pontini coast with war parties, practically exterminating the unfortunate Ngati-Wairangi and carrying off their stores oj the Maori jewel-stone. There arc three passes at the head of the Rakaia waters— Browning’s Pass (4800 feet) above the source of the Wilberforec, a tributary of the Rakaia; Mathias Pass, and Whitcombo's Pass.. These give access to the West Coast, but it is Browning’s Pass, although the highest of the

three that Raureka discovered, as it is the most readily reached from the Araliura. and it was used lor generations by the Trans-Alpine Maori pilgrims and warriors.