MAORI LEGEND.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1558, 18 September 1886, Page 3

MAORI LEGEND.

Just now it may not be uninteresting if we quote a Maori legend respecting the origin of hot springs, as told by Te H< uheu to Hochstetter upwards of 30 v ars ago :—“ Among the first immigrants who came from Hawaiki to New Zealand was also the chief Ngatiroirangi (heaven’s runner, or the traveller in the heavens). He landed at Maketu, on the past coast of the North Island. Thence he set off with bis slate Ngauruhoe for the purpose of exploring the new country. He travels through the country ; stamps springs of water from the ground to moisten scorched valleys ; scales hills and mountains, and beholds towards the south a big mountain, the Tongariro (literally ‘ towards south ’), He determines on ascending that mountain in order to obtain a better view of that country. He comes into the inland plains to Lake Taupo. There he had a large cloth of kiekie leaves tattered and torn by bushes. The shreds take root, and grow up into kowai trees. Then he ascends the snow-clad Tongariro ; th’ere they suffered severely from cold, and the chief shouted to his sisters who had remained upon Whakari (White Island) to send him some fire. L’he sisters hi-urd Ins call, and sent him the sacred fire they had brought from Hawaiki. They sent it to him through two Taniwhas (mountain or water spirits living under ground), Pcpu and Te Ilaeata, by a subteiraneen passage to the top of Tongariro. The fire just arrived in lime to save the life of the chief, but poor Ngauruhoe was dead when the chief turaed to give him the fire. On this account the bole through which the fire made its appearance, the activecrater of Tongariro, is called to this day after the slave Ngauruhoe, and the sacred fire still burns to this very day within the whole underground passage between Whakari and Tongariro ; it burns at Matou Hora,Okakara, Uotoehu, Rotoiti, Rotoru, Rotomahana, Orakeikorako, and Taupo, where it blazed forth when the Taniwhas brought it. Hence the innumerable hot springs at all places m°ntioner). This legend affords a remarksble instance rf the accnrate observation of the natives, who have thus indicated the true line of the chief volcanic action in the North Island” Another legend says ;—“ When Maui stepped upon the land fi-bed out of the sea, he took through ignorance some of the fire into his hand, and, horrified, flung it into the sea, where subsequently the volcano Whakari arose. The ashes of the volcano Maui scattered about bis feet, and thus the fire-vemiting mountains of the island and the numerous hot iprings originated,”