THE MAORI NAVIGATOR.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10159, 8 February 1911, Page 5

THE MAORI NAVIGATOR.

CAUSES IN WAIRARAPA.

Concerning the proposal that , a monument be erected to the memory of the great Maori navigator, Kupe, the Carterton News says:— The Wairarapa has a vested interest in .all .that concerns Kupe, for are not his three canoes under the. hills near Martinborough to .this day? Their outline is visible to travellers 'by the railway, and the place where they rest, after being hauled out of the sea at the conclusion of Kupe's voyage, is named on the maps and celebrated in Maori tales as Nga-waka-Kupe. Kupe's outlook and Kupe's bathing pool are very well known on the coast not far from Palliser Bay. The pool is still tapu. A settler who was once camping and fishing in the neighbourhood relates an anecdote about it. He and his party had 'been having good sport in their fishing, but one morning they took their early dip in Kupe's pool. An old Maori wo•nuui met them as they were returning to camp, and asked them where they had bathed. She was horrified when told, and declared they would catch no fish that day. Her prophesy was verified, for, although the weather was favourable, they did not hook a fish. In the afternoon, they gave up trying, and went shooting ', goats, getting some good skins, j Kupe's tapu evidently not extending to goats.