TAUPO NUI-A-TIA

Taupo Times, Volume II, Issue 82, 12 August 1953, Page 1

TAUPO NUI-A-TIA

TALES OF THE TAUPO COUNTRY (By R.H.W.) In the early decades of last century the Taupo Country was an unknown land to the white people of the coastal settlements, famed for its great volcanic mountains, its fabled lake, and the renown of, its pararnount chief, Te Heuheu the Great. But few pakehas had opportunity to meet this Maori leader, whose mana equalled that of any chief in New Zealand, and it is interesting to note the impression he made upon the few early travellers who came to Taupo before his death in 1846. John Carne Bidwell, the first white man to climb Ngauruhoe, which he dld on March, 3, 1839, met Te Heuheu Mananui on March 6, the latter havmg sent him a message desiring to see hini. Bidwell does not refer to Te Heuheu by name, but as "the gTeat chief," and intimates that he was thus known throughout "all the differeivt villages of the Towpo tribe." "He was very handsome, and one of the fairest of the New Zealand men I ever saw; indeed I have seen but few women fairer," writes Bidwill. At this period Te Heuheu would be about sixty years of age, a man of noble bearing, well over six feet in height, with silyery grey hair. E. J. Wakefield, son of the well known EdwTard Gibbon Wakefield, of the New Zealand Company, had hunted wild cattle on Kapiti Island with Bidwill, and heard of "a lake ealled Taupo far in the interior." He once journeyed some sixty miles up the Wanganui River to meet Te Heuheu ""and to endeavour to dissuade bim from attacking the Maori people of Waitotara, where the Taupo people had previously lost some chiefs, to avenge whom and bring back their bones was the object of the warparty. Wakefield describes the gathering assembled to discuss the projected attack. The Wanganui people. wrhose chiefs had been converted to Christianity, were for peace, but Te Heuheu scorned them. "Listen to me!" he said, "I go to Waitotara to avenge my people and to bring their bones home. I have not come to beg canoes, or food, ®r assistance. If you lend me no canoes, I can walk along the banks with my children. I can help myself to food. I want no help but that of my own mere pounamu, which my arm knows how to shake," and he brandished Pahikaure above his head. "As to ihe missionary words, who cares for them? My creed is my mere." He then censured the chiefs who had signed the Treaty of Waitangi, saying that they were all slaves. "Your dignity and power is gone. But mine is not. I am Te Heuheu and rule over you, as my ancestor Tongariro, the mountain of snow, stands above #11 this land!" After the speech-making Wakefield was assured that Te Heuheu intended no harm to the white people, and when his warriors came down to the settlement Heuheu placed guards at the pakeha houses to protect them. There was much slaughter, followed by" a triumphal march back to Taupo with the sacred bones. Later Wakefield met Te Heuheu again, this time at the chiefs home at Te Rapat when the young pakeha adyenturer spent a month at the southern end of the Lake. Among other interesting ex- ! periences, he saw Iwikau, younger jbrother to Mananui, being tattooed by a skilled Maori, working, not with the ancient tools, but with iron instruments. Another visitor to Te Rapa was George French Angas, the artist, who ferought to Te Heuheu a lettef of mtroduction from the Waikato chief Te Wherowhero, which was read to him, says Angas, by a grandchild. Angas was made welcome and allowed to make sketches of everything about Te Rapa, and his whare was made "tapu" by the great chief to protect his belongings from molestaiion. He speaks of the fine upstandIng figure of the old chief, now "very corpulent," and mentions how the people proudly compared his white hair with the snow of Tongariro. Te Heuheu sat very gravely for his portrait, displaying Pahikaure, his

mere, and other greenstone treasures. A few months later he perished in the Te Rapa landslide, dying not by the hand of man but by that of the gods, as Tai-pahua, the tohunga, had foretold long years before.