MARINGAROA, HILL OF FAREWELL

Te Ao Hou, June 1961, Page 40

MARINGAROA, HILL OF FAREWELL But Hohepa Kanara had mentioned a peculiar braiding of the grass, and I found this, not on Haumu, but on the next hill, Maringinoa, where some freak of the wind had apparently twisted and knotted the marram-grass, binding the heads so tightly they could not uncoil. Puckey does not mention Maringinoa at all, but states that the spirits paused and wept on Haumu, as they gazed for the last time back the way they had come. It is from Maringinoa, not Haumu, that one has the last view of Ninety-Mile Beach and the sweep of country southward. The very name Maringinoa comes from the weeping of the spirits. “Maringinoa,” said Hohepa Kanara, “is where the spirits farewelled their people,” and I am inclined to accept his statement. Puckey abbreviated his account, and it was written apparently some time after his journey to Cape Reinga. His account goes almost direct from Haumu to the high point overlooking the aka, the root by which the spirits descended into the ocean. “After Maringinoa,” said Hohepa Kanara, “the spirits descend into the valley of Waingurunguru. In that valley you can hear the water tangiing for the dead.” I thought, at the time, that he was referring possibly to a waterfall or some such thing; but below Maringinoa is a valley, very still and swampy, where a stream flows sluggishly, if at all, and although it was the wrong time of the year for most insects, at the water's edge I could hear faint droning, coming from everywhere and nowhere. Thus was Waingurunguru, murmuring-waters. It was more an eerie quivering of the air than an actual sound, and it persisted for the length of the stream.