TAUPO - NUI - A - TIA

Taupo Times, Volume I, Issue 26, 9 July 1952, Page 1

TAUPO - NUI - A - TIA

TALES OF THE TAUPO COUNTRY

(By

R.H.W.)

Karangahape Cliff, on the north ern face of the bold volcanic height that divides the Western Bay of Lake Taupo from the Tokaanu arm of the lake, is the dominating feature of the lake shoreiine. From its base at the bottom of the Lake to the trig station on its summit it rises about 1,500 feet, and Mr Lau- 1 renee Cussen, one of the pioneer surveyors of the Taupo Country, records that in taking soundings, with his boat's stern touching the Cliff, the lead-line showed a depth of 390 feet, and a portion of the cliff several hundred feet above seemed to overhang the boat. The fcop of the Cliff consists of a basicandesite lava flow twenty feet thick, which eame from the wide crater south-east of the actual cliffs. Half only of this crater is visible to-day, as a great scrub-fill-ed semi-circular hollow, the othey half having subsided below the lake. ft is considered likely that the latest showers of pumice at Taupo were ejected from this volcano. According to tradition certain caves in the precipitous cliffs were used in olden days as places of refuge from invading enemies. Giving evidence in the Native Land Court dt Taupo in 1884 Hitiri Te Paerata, a ' survivor of the famous battle of Orakau, related that at Karangahape there was a cave called Omumutu, used as a refuge by NgatinParekawa and Ngati-te-Ko-hera. While its exact location is inknown, it is said that one of the chief resorts was two hundred and odd feet above the lak%e level, whence it was reached by means of rope ladders. A climber would first elimb the dizzy cliff taking a thin line with which, having reached the eave-mouth, he hauled the ladder of •flax-rope up from the canoes, making it fast so that those below could elimb up. The cano,es would then be taken to a hiding place and sunk bencath the water by stones, after which the rear-guard would swim back to the ladder and ascend to the cave, v hen the ladder would bt hauled up. It is said that two . refugees were once shag-hunting on the oliffs. Greatly daring, they had reached nests and captured a number of young birds only to find that they could not return as they had come. Determining to save both the birds and their own lives, they escaped by Ieaping into the lake, some eighty feet below, and swimming along to, the ladders that had been lower for Them. In 1883 the iSurvey Department wanted to make a major triangulation survey of the. country south of the Lake to link up with that already made to the north, and Mr William Cussen took charge of the work. Te Heuheu Horonuku approved the proposed survey and most of the people followed his lead, but there was opposition from a certain section. The first trig station was erected on Motu-o-Apa Peninsula (often incorrectly called Motu-opa), under the protectio^ of Hori te Tauri, of Tauranga-taupo. Then Cussen proceeded to Karangahape, which he reached by whale-boat, rowed at night from TaurangaTaupo by a crew of Ngati-te-Rangi-ita in order to elude the threatening opposition. The latter attempted to defeat the surveyors by firing the fern, but the work was done and Karangahape remains an im-

portant trig station to this day. At Karangahape there is a spot known as Nga-Kuri-o-Tamatea, the Dogs of Tamatea, a place to which there is attached a dread scared influence, a "mana-tapu." Some thirty odd years aga I was in charge of a launch, taking a party of Maoris from Waihaha to Tokaanu. As we approached Karangahape, my friend Tupara Maniapoto, sitting beside me at the wheel, told me that I should keep further away, for fear that the taniwha would cause a storm to arise. I looked at the cloudless sky, the lake glassy cairn as far as eye could see, and remarked that I though the tapu of the place did not affect the pakeha. He shook Iiis head, doubtfully. A few minutes later we turnecl the point that opened up a view of the Tokaanu arm of the Lake. Tupara turned to me, pointing, and said with gri'm satisfaction, "I told you, Waata, I told you!" Two miles ahead a line of white stretched unbroken across the Lake, a line of bfeaking waves driven savagely before a sudden wind whipping coldly out of the southern mountains. For the next hour we battered our way through biting wind and racing seas. Do you wonder that at times I feel a kinship of belief with those who have passed on to us their tales of the strange "mana tapu" of Taupo-moana.