TAUPO-NUI-A-TIA

Taupo Times, Volume I, Issue 24, 25 June 1952, Page 1

TAUPO-NUI-A-TIA

TALES OF THE TAUPO COUNTRY

(By

R. H.

W.)

The story of the origin of the name "Te Heuheu" has already been told in this column, and mention has been made of Tai-pahau, a great tohunga of the Tuwharetoa people, who predicted that Te Heuheu the Great would not die by the hand of man. The circumstances which led to Te Heuheu becoming known as Te Heuheu Mana-nui furnish an interesting example of an ancient Maori rite, that of "Ngau-taringa" or biting the | ear of a dying person, a rite by | which in the days of old one of higii rank could secure and carry on the occult powers and wisdom possessed by the dying men. Tai-pahau was a great tohunga, a man of high rank and great learning, an uncle of the first Te Heuheu, one schooled in the ancient wisdom of the past and possessed of strange psychie powers. His gods, nis atuas, were many, but in particular he was the priest of Rongomai, guardian of the Heuheu family. The abiding place of this god may even to-day be pointed out, the "Whakamarumaru of Rongomai, " the Shelter of Rongomai, a flat-topped rock close to the beach at Waihi village. It is said that from beneath this rock the atua was sometimes seen to pass in the form of a ngarara, a large lizard.

The time came when at last, at a great age, Tai-pahau lay in his house at Waihi, dying, tended by his daughter, Te Wai-aromea. Not long before, Te Heuheu had declared his intention of making an attack on the tribes- of the West Coast, and his expedition had actually left , and made its first camp at Poutu, on the shore of Lake Rotoaira. During this day Tai-pahau directed his daughter to send a message post-haste to Poutu, with an urgent message for Te Heuheu to retun, leaving his men at their camp. Tai-pahau knew that it would be a little before midnight when the message reached Te Heuheu, and when he was to be expected to arrive in answer to his summons. He had his daughter place him in a sitting positicn. facmg the doorway of the whare, and at last, knowing that the time had come when Te Heuheu would appear, he again called his daughter and directed her to turn him so that his right side was toward the open door. The next movement there came the sound of hurrying steps and Te Heuheu entered the whare. Intuitively he knew why his uncle, the tohunga, had commanded his presence, and swiftly he bent down to the dying man and opening his mouth closed it firmly on Taipahau's right ear in such a way that the whole ear was in his mouth. The tohunga gasped convulsively several times and his wairua, his spirit, left • his body. Then only did Te Heuheu "loo.se his tooth-grip, having thus by the act of "Ngau-taringa" absorbed the sacred wisdom and super naturai powers, the "mana-tapu," of Taipahau. His solemn duty thus performed, Te Heuheu set out through the night to return to his men, making his way over the Ponanga saddle and through the forest, and by the reeitation of powerful karakia he was enabled to rejoin his war party in time to lead them, when morning came, on their so uthward march. Through out this expedition the wairua of Tai-pahau,

was Te Heuheu's guide and councillor, enabling him to take another path when danger threatened from a more powerful force. Through the promptings of the spirit of Taipahau all dangers were averted, and when these promptings forbade him to go further in Taranaki Te Heuheu returned homeward to Taupo. From this time, owing to this transfer to him of the powerful mana tapu of the great tohunga, Te Heuheu became known as Mana-nui. When Te Heuheu Mana-nui perished in the landslide at Te Rapa in 1846 his son Patatai was absent on a visit to an old home of his family, Pa-motumotu, in the iManiapoto country, and later he assumed the name of Horonuku in memory of hfs father's death, a name which may be translated as "Swallowed up in the Earth." It was said that Horonuku did not possess the occult wisdom which would have passed on to •him had he been able in his turn to carry out the rite of ngau-taringa.