TE RERENGA WAIRUA • LEAPING PLACE OF THE SPIRITS by BARRY MITCALFE At one flank old Tasman the boar Slashes and tears And the other Pacific's sheer Mountainous anger devours. Denis Glover I had seen tidal-rips before. But here at Cape Reinga, where Te Moana-a-Rehua, the man-sea of the Maori, meets the woman-sea, Te Tai-o-Whitirea, there is a frenzy even rock cannot withstand. Only Te Reinga, last jagged extremity of the island, remains. To the ancient Maori, Cape Reinga was known as Te Rerenga Wairua, leaping-place of the spirits. Here, the Maori believed, the spirits of his dead departed the island to return to Hawaiki. There is no more appropriate point of departure for the journey between the living and the dead than Te Rerenga Wairua, not only for its desolate appearance, but also for its situation, at the northwestern extremity of the island, angling into the Pacific, towards the islands of origin. Most Polynesian islands have a Rerenga Wairua but as we move Northwards through the Pacific the Rerenga of each island swings Westward, homing towards mysterious and enigmatic Hawaiiki. The landscape is desolate and fearsome. One of the first Europeans to visit Cape Reinga, the Reverend W. G. Puckey, C.M.S., who in 1834 walked to the Cape from the mission-station at Kaitaia, was so impressed that his journal departs its usual humdrum style and takes flight! The
scenery around the place I stood was most uninviting and not only so. but calculated to fill the soul with horror. The place has a most barren appearance, while the numerous sea-fowl screaming and the sea roaring in the pride of its might, dashing against the dismal black rocks, would suggest to the reflecting mind that it must have been the dreary aspect of the place which led the New Zealanders to choose such a situation as this for their hell. In this barren landscape where the spirits of the dead gathered, every stream, hill and tree had a special significance for the Maori-and still has for certain elders, such as Hohepa Kanara (Joseph Conrads) of Te Kao, who guided us on our first trip to Te Rerenga Wairua.
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Te Ao Hou, June 1961, Page 38
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357TE RERENGA WAIRUA • LEAPING PLACE OF THE SPIRITS Te Ao Hou, June 1961, Page 38
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The Secretary Maori Purposes Fund Board
C/- Te Puni Kokiri
PO Box 3943
WELLINGTON
Phone: (04) 922 6000
Email: MB-RPO-MPF@tpk.govt.nz