Far from being stories made up just to entertain children, myths and legends have special messages in them. Often these stories give us important information about a place. They help us to keep safe or when to know to do a job. Children’s stories, or at least good ones, last forever so what better way to pass on important information
This resource has explanations for myths, legends and stories spread throughout but here are the messages behind a few well known ones.
Puha and watercress can be found all over the Wairarapa. Titoki is found in forests, reserves and gardens. Maire tawake is a bit harder to find but as its name indicates likes to be near water. What all four have in common is that parts of them are really healthy eating.
Karaitiana Takamoana, 1870s
As a young warrior, in the early 1820s, Takamoana fought at the battle of Te Roto-a-Tara, near Te Aute, against a force of northern tribes led by Mananui Te Heuheu Tukino II of Ngati Tuwharetoa. He was one of the Heretaunga chiefs who refused to flee to the safety of Nukutaurua, on the Mahia peninsula. Consequently, he was captured at Te Pakake pa, inside Te Whanganui-o-Orotu (Napier Harbour), about 1824, when Waikato forces invaded the area. He was carried away to Waikato as a captive, but released through the magnanimity of Te Wherowhero. Takamoana was present when Te Momo-a-Irawaru and Ngati Te Kohera attempted to take possession of the area around Te Roto-a-Tara in about 1824 or 1825; as the war leader of Ngati Te Manawa-kawa, a hapu of Ngati Te Whatu-i-apiti, he was one of those responsible for driving out the invaders. After this victory Takamoana may have joined the Ngati Te Whatu-i-apiti leader Te Pareihe at Nukutaurua. The records do not mention him again until Te Pareihe sent him to arrange a peace with Ngati Te Upokoiri, Ngati Raukawa, and other former enemies of Ngati Te Whatu-i-apiti in the Manawatu area, about 1838.
By the 1840s Takamoana was an influential chief of the younger generation. He was the brother-in-law of Tareha, one of the great leaders of Ngati Kahungunu. He was the leading man of Te Awapuni village when the missionary William Colenso arrived in Heretaunga in December 1844, and was one of five chiefs who signed the deed of transfer of the land which was to become the Waitangi mission station. Takamoana studied in Colenso’s school, learning to read and write. He became a Christian, taking the name Karaitiana (Christian). His relationship with the self-righteous and rigid Colenso deteriorated, however, and in a violent quarrel between Kurupo Te Moananui and Colenso in January 1850 Karaitiana took the part of Te Moananui, although he later intervened on the missionary’s behalf.
In December 1850 Karaitiana welcomed the arrival of Donald McLean, investigating the availability of land for purchase by the Crown. In 1851 Karaitiana was one of the signatories to the sale of the Waipukurau and Ahuriri blocks, in which the Crown acquired 600,000 acres of land in Hawke’s Bay. Like other Maori leaders he looked forward to the establishment of towns and the trade opportunities that they represented.
Land sales soon became a contentious issue in Hawke’s Bay. Karaitiana was closely associated with Kurupo Te Moananui, Tareha and Renata Kawepo in opposing Te Hapuku’s attempt to monopolise the role of Maori agent for sales to the Crown, and his sales of lands to which he and his associates had little claim. Matters came to a head in 1856 over a block north of the Ngaruroro River. Te Hapuku was determined that payment be made for the land. Karaitiana and Te Moananui’s party prepared to make war if necessary to prevent the sale.
Karaitiana’s determination to oppose irregular land sales was strengthened by his attendance at the meeting called by Iwikau Te Heuheu Tukino III at Pukawa in November 1856. In February 1857 he accompanied District Commissioner G. S. Cooper on a tour to point out the possessions of his hapu, Ngati Hawea, within land sold or proposed for sale by Te Hapuku. This was a deliberate challenge to Te Hapuku. In the same month Karaitiana gave warning to Te Hapuku that he must quit his pa at Whakatu, which stood on disputed territory.
War with Te Hapuku finally began in August 1857 over the issue of timber at Te Pakiaka, a stand of bush near Whakatu, claimed by Te Moananui and misappropriated by Te Hapuku’s party. Karaitiana’s role was that of war leader. In three engagements his forces were consistently successful and by March 1858 Te Hapuku had conceded defeat and withdrawn inland to Poukawa. Karaitiana’s mana was in the ascendant. He was regarded as the political heir of Te Moananui, who died in 1861, despite his rejection of the authority of the Maori King, which Te Moananui had supported. However, Karaitiana, Tareha and Renata Kawepo supported the King’s runanga system of Maori self-government. Karaitiana also became an advocate of regional unity; in 1860 he visited Poverty Bay to put forward his idea that Maori of the East Coast, Hawke’s Bay and Wairarapa should consider themselves one tribe, founded by their common ancestor, Kahungunu.
In November 1863 Karaitiana held a meeting at Pawhakairo (near present day Taradale) to decide whether the Heretaunga plain should be let on a long lease. He wanted the Crown to take a 21 year lease, otherwise he would allow individual Pakeha to run stock for short periods. He also planned to organise Maori to run sheep and cattle. Crown agents increasingly recognised Karaitiana as arbiter over the Heretaunga plain. This led to a breach with Tareha, who formed a coalition with Te Hapuku.
For political reasons Te Hapuku and Tareha were inclined to support the Pai Marire missionaries who visited Hawke’s Bay in 1864. A meeting Karaitiana called in April 1865, to force the people of Heretaunga to declare themselves either Hauhau or loyal to the government, proposed an attack on the Hauhau, which government officers considered to be a thinly disguised attack on Tareha. When a band of Pai Marire erected a niu pole in their village on the Ngatarawa plain, over which Karaitiana was in dispute with Te Hapuku, Karaitiana demanded that they cut it down. Government officers restrained him from going in force to do so himself, regarding the true cause of conflict to be land rather than loyalty to the Queen.
However, Karaitiana and his allies continued to prepare for a war against the Hauhau. When Hauhau occupied Omarunui, seven miles from Napier, in September 1866, Karaitiana and Renata Kawepo collected their people and went to Napier. In October an advance was made by troops and militia under Lieutenant Colonel G. S. Whitmore, and a Maori contingent led by Karaitiana and others, and the Hauhau were driven out. For his part in this engagement Karaitiana was later awarded a sword of honour.
In the 1850s and 1860s Karaitiana had been an enthusiastic land-seller. He had become accustomed to a comfortable lifestyle, maintained on credit extended by Pakeha storekeepers. Lessees of the Heretaunga lands under Karaitiana’s control, who wished to ensure that they would have the first refusal on the freehold, encouraged him and other chiefs to make use of credit at their stores. By 1867 he was heavily in debt and by 1869 was facing writs, summonses and warrants on all sides.
His expenditure included the arming and equipping of 80 young men of his tribe to continue operations against the Hauhau and Te Kooti, and the purchase of a trading vessel, the Henry. In 1869 he dispatched 200 followers to the Taupo region to help in the hunt for Te Kooti, for which he was inadequately recompensed. By this time his creditors were pushing him to sell the valuable Heretaunga block. When the block had passed through the Native Land Court late in 1866, Karaitiana, who regarded it as his special property, had wanted the only grantees to be himself and his brother Henare Tomoana. But when he was assured, incorrectly, that other grantees would have no power to sell or deal with the block, he consented to its being registered in the name of 10 grantees. They represented the interests of the 16 to 18 hapu, consisting of several hundred people, who had occupation rights in the block. The other grantees were forced, through the pressure of their debts, to sign a contract to sell, and on 6 December 1869 Karaitiana and Henare Tomoana also signed. Since it was apparent that their debts would swallow all the purchase money, Karaitiana arranged secretly for bonuses of £1,500 for Henare Tomoana and £1,000 for himself, to be paid in 10 annual instalments.
Karaitiana then became unwilling to sell and wanted his share separated from the others, so that his people would not lose their lands on account of his personal debts. He refused to sign the conveyance of the block, and went to Auckland to lay before the government the grievances of Hawke’s Bay Maori regarding their lands, and to ask Donald McLean for a grant to pay his debts and those of his brother Henare Tomoana. As a result of his visit it was arranged that Charles Heaphy, as commissioner of native reserves, should visit Napier to set up some inalienable land trusts. Karaitiana returned to Napier without any tangible benefits, retired to Pakowhai and remained there in a state of sadness and depression. After further threats of writs, Karaitiana signed the conveyance of Heretaunga; Karaitiana and five fellow grantees were entitled to receive only £754 16s. 9d. of their £7,000 share of the purchase money after storekeepers’ accounts had been met. In fact, owing to an error, they were paid £2,387 7s. 3d.
Through his Rangitane associations Karaitiana was involved in negotiations for the sale of the areas known as the Forty Mile Bush and the Seventy Mile Bush, near the Tararua and Ruahine ranges in Southern Hawke’s Bay and Northern Wairarapa. Government agents had made strenuous attempts to buy the areas throughout the 1860s. Karaitiana was willing to sell, but was determined to get full value for the blocks. The government was prepared to pay less than half the amount Karaitiana demanded, but he held out, following T. P. Russell’s advice that the government would eventually pay whatever was asked.
In 1871 Karaitiana succeeded Tareha Te Moananui as member of the House of Representatives for Eastern Maori. (He had stood unsuccessfully against Tareha in 1868.) Maori MHRs were limited in what they could achieve, and Karaitiana referred to the deficiencies of the system in a speech to the House in 1871. Nevertheless, he made known his intention of working to settle land grievances through Parliament. In 1871 and 1872 there appeared the beginnings of what became known as the Hawke’s Bay Repudiation movement, advocating the repudiation of all Crown and private land deals on the grounds of fraud. The movement was led by Henare Matua of Porangahau, and supported by the brothers H. R. and T. P. Russell. At a large meeting at Pakipaki in June 1872 Karaitiana and Henare Tomoana spoke against the movement, and at a subsequent meeting at Pakowhai in July, Karaitiana snubbed Henare Matua. He intended to have the government appoint a commission to investigate land sales in Hawke’s Bay and promised that if this was not done he would join the Repudiation movement.
At the same time Karaitiana was arranging funds to set up schools for his people at Omahu and Pakowhai. Late in 1872 it was announced that a commission to inquire into land alienation was to be set up. The commission sat from February to April 1873, but it was soon clear that, limited in its powers and its capacity to hear scheduled cases, it would not lead to restitution of lost lands. A huge meeting at Pakipaki, attended by Karaitiana and all the other Heretaunga leaders except Tareha, decided to agitate for a new commission with larger powers, and to work for a change of government.
Karaitiana was by now a committed Repudiationist, and in May he contributed £100 to the cause, which was in financial difficulties. From 1873 to 1876 he continued to work for the movement, preparing land cases for the Supreme Court, despite H. R. Russell’s questionable methods and an alliance with Henare Matua which was never whole-hearted: in too many land disputes they were on opposite sides. In 1876 Karaitiana and his brother, Te Meihana Takihi, mortgaged their shares in the Awa-o-te-Atua block to H. R. Russell for £4,000, to enable the Repudiation movement struggle to continue.
In 1876 Karaitiana was returned as MHR for Eastern Maori despite an unsuccessful attempt by the Hawke’s Bay superintendent, J. D. Ormond, to set up Henare Matua as an alternative candidate, in the hope of splitting the Repudiationists’ vote. Karaitiana remained a member of the General Assembly until his death.
Karaitiana is said to have had three wives in the 1870s, and it is possible therefore that he had renounced his Christianity. The names of his wives are not recorded, nor are the names of his children, except for one named Arapeta Te Piriniha. When Karaitiana Takamoana died at Napier on 24 February 1879, he was said to be between 60 and 70 years old. His funeral, attended by a large number of Maori and Pakeha, was conducted by the Reverend Samuel Williams on 1 March. He was buried at Pakowhai, in a brick tomb opposite the site of his house.
This story comes from the Gladstone area. It is the tragic tale of a young woman who commits a heinous crime while in a grief stricken panic.
Many, many years ago our ancestors lived in papakainga beside the numerous streams that flowed into the ancestral river, Ruamahanga. A young woman lived with her whanau at Parakawhara, the place that we now know as Gladstone. She was very content at this time because soon her first-born child would enter the world of light leaving the safety through the sacred river of life that was her womb.
One day the woman was outside tending to the weeds in a garden when an irresistible urge came upon her, a feeling that was unknown to her before that moment. She instinctively knew that it was time to have her baby and the child was ready right then.
The gardens had been placed on a lower terrace from the kainga so that she had to walk some distance to get back to the village. Although she knew that the kuia with expertise in delivering children had been waiting for the day that she would go into labour for sometime her body told her that the baby was coming now.
The distance to the whare kohanga, the building built especially for her special event was to far away. So with surprising calm she walked out of the garden gingerly making her way underneath a large totara tree that sat in amongst a thicket of smaller trees.
Within the privacy and shelter that the trees afforded her the young woman brought her own child into this world. Through the pain of birth she felt an indescribable joy as she had now contributed to the ongoing maintenance of her families bloodline.
With tears of happiness and sighs of relief she looked down to her newborn babe, but much was wrong. Instant despair came over her; she started to shake with disbelief and to wail in revulsion at what met her eyes.
The baby she had dreamt about for nine months was so severely disfigured that its form was hardly human. Nothing but dread and fear rushed through her mind so that in a moment of madness and utter panic she gathered up the poor infant and ran towards a nearby stream. In the depths of a waterway full of the life giving power of waimaori the babe drowned within minutes of taking its first breath. In other circumstances the baby’s first immersion in water would have been through the process of cleansing and dedication of the tohi ritual, but for this little one it meant premature death.
By the time that the woman realised what she had done it was to late so her thoughts turned to her new predicament. When she returned to the kainga the people asked her where her baby was. Her account of earlier events was honest and exacting up to the point that she first laid sight on her own flesh and blood. At this point she tried to convince both herself and everyone else that the mischievous turehu or fairy folk had come down from the mountains and spirited her child away.
Although turehu were known to do such things the people saw that there was no conviction in the story and suspected that a far different fate had befallen their mokopuna. Although no one could prove anything the once cheerful and industrious woman became possessed with hidden demons.
One day some months after the time of the babies birth and immediate disappearance a group of men went to check a pa tuna the special place where they catch eels. They had proceeded out from the papakainga, down the terrace, skirted around the gardens, beyond a grove of native trees and down to the stream where the pa tuna was located. As they had set all of the hinaki or eel baskets the night before all they had to do was empty them of fish.
The mother who would have been was sullenly going about her business when it dawned upon her that the men had gone to the place where she had killed her baby. She nervously awaited their return lest they should have discovered any evidence of her crime.
When the men returned they gave no indication that anything out of the usual had occurred down by the stream. They entered the village confines carrying large kete laden with the catch that would sustain the people for weeks. This was a time of celebration for the people due to the atua obviously looking upon the people favourably.
Each kete was taken over to special large mats where it was placed before the eels could be prepared for eating or preserving. Kaumatua recited karakia to thank the atua for giving the eels so that the people were fed. Soon the last kete was laid down and even the woman felt somewhat positive about the day’s events so far but even more so about the rest of the day.
The leader of the fishing party opened the last kete that held but one eel. One after the other and sometimes in groups mouths dropped open in disbelief or knees dropped to the ground as eyes filled with tears. One of the last ones to take in the scene, or to realise what was happening was the young woman.
She ran, ran far away never to return to her village or to see her whanau again, an exile scorned by her own until she died. Her guilt attached in her mind and her heart forever as she wandered from stream to stream, river to river looking for her baby.
At the moment that she ran the full horror of her deeds was getting etched upon the minds and into the history of her people forever more. Whilst all had seen the eel once not many could draw their eyes back onto it a second time. This tuna had a marked difference to all of the others laid out on the mats – from its tail along its body and right up to its front fins it was the same, the onlookers were dismayed to see that it had the face of a newborn baby child.
The fate of the mother was certainly deserved but the eel child could not help its predicament. Although the people could not treat the creature as a human they could accept that at least in part it was still of them. The eel child was taken back to the pa tuna. The whole stretch of this stream was declared tapu which meant that no more fishing occurred there again, a fitting home for the eel but also another reason why the ashamed woman was banished.
For generations the people cared for the eel child. Then for an unknown reason it was forgotten about so that only this story is left over to remind us of the young mother and her baby.
Tararua Forest Park [Holdsworth Sign]
Holdsworth Sign
Holdsworth Sign
And Pa Punanga [on Holdsworth Lookout Track]
Punanga Pa at Mount Holdsworth
Te Aitu-o-te-Rangi was born about 1820 and was the daughter of a chief – Te Whatahoronui. Her people were of Ngati Moe at Papawai, in the Wairarapa – a hapu (sub tribe) of Rangitāne and Ngati Kahungunu. Her parents and grandfather, Muretu, lived at Te Ureta, Waka-a-paua and Wharehanga – areas situated on the western side of the Ruamahanga River near present day Martinborough.
Te Aitu-o-te-Rangi means “misfortune of the sky”. It has been told that the day she was born the sky was red/orange in colour.
When Te Aitu was about 14 years old the mighty warlord Te Rauparaha led an invasion on the Wairarapa and killed the chief, Te Whatahoronui. Te Aitu and a cousin, Wi Kingi Tu-te-pakihi-Rangi, were captured and taken as slaves on Kapiti Island . Being of high born status Te Aitu was forced to become one of Te Rauparaha’s slave wives.
Two years had passed and a European named John Milsome Jury came across a chance meeting with Te Aitu while whaling in NZ. He was immediately spell-bound by the now beautiful 16 year old slave princess. The feeling was mutual and the couple concocted a plan to escape from Kapiti Island and flee to Te Aitu’s ancestral homelands.
One night when is was very dark John Jury stole a small whaleboat from the ship he had sailed in on and rowed to a pre-arranged meeting place to collect Te Aitu. Both of them manned the oars, and together they pointed the boat across Cook Straight towards Palliser Bay.
All night they rowed determind to reach their destination. At last the wind changed to the south and John was able to hoist a makeshift sail. Into the big southern bay they sailed, with Te Aitu pointing the way towards the Lake Onoke bar.
To young John it seemed like they were headed for certain disaster, but as they neared the coast, sure enough the bar was open and in they sailed through. To John Jury’s further surprise the little lake gave way to the huge, shallow expanse of the shimmering Lake Wairarapa. Te Aitu urged her whaler on until at last they came to the entrance to the Ruamahanga River.
Meanwhile, back at Kapiti Island an enraged Te Rauparaha had awakened to find his beautiful captive missing. He immediately assumed she had escaped and her intentions would be to head towards her homeland. The warlord summoned 60 of his most ferocious warriors, launched his big war canoe and …. seating himself in the stern, pointed his big canoe towards Cape Turakirae . The 60 paddles dipped in accelerating unison and were gaining on the little whaleboat. However, they were unlucky on approach to the Onoke bar, for the turbulence threw many warriors overboard and they were drowned. But despite this Te Rauparaha commanded his warriors to continue the persuit.
The lovers and their whaleboat had scarcely reached the comparative safety of the Ruamahanga River when they were terrified to hear across the still waters of Lake Wairarapa the triumphant paddling song of the Ngati Toa – Te Rauparaha’s war canoe.
In desperation, Te Aitu directed John to leave the main channel and pull into a quiet backwater behind a little totara-clad island. The boat was beached, screened by a tangle of fallen trees, and the occupants quickly hid in the thick bush at the waters edge.
Nearer came the throbbing chant as the warriors drove the big canoe on. Breathlessly the pair waited amongst the trees – wondering if their pursuers would take the channel.
Trembling, Te Aitu clung to her whaler as Te Rauparaha and his war canoe sped past their island refuge and on up the river.
For three days they dared not light a fire, nor even scarcely move lest their wily enemy was lying in wait for them.
Then, to their immense relief, they spied the big canoe drifting silently down river. In the stern sat a sullen Te Rauparaha looking neither to the left nor right, as empty handed he made his way back to Kapiti Island.
With the danger past Te Aitu showed John the way up the Ruamahanga and into the Waiohine River. Coming ashore at the Kuratawhiti clearing. At last they were at their destination – Te Aitu’s ancestral homelands. She gestured to the land around them and explained to John that what was hers was his and she offered this for their future home.
Te Aitu then went to an aged totara stump and took from it a flax kete (woven basket) containing a greenstone hoe which her people had hurriedly placed there before fleeing from Te Rauparaha’s invasion. This was a tangible symbol of family ownership.
John Jury and Te Aitu-o-te-Rangi married and had four children. The first was Hoani Te Whatahoro, who recorded many tribal traditions, laments and songs. A daughter, Annie Eliza Te Haereaute, who married Joseph Oates, was born in 1846, and another son, Charles Joseph Te Rongotumamao, in 1850. A male child, born in 1854, did not survive.
Te Aitu died in the 1850s, probably in 1854. There are several different accounts of her death. The most likely one suggests that she caught measles during the epidemic which swept through the east coast districts of the North Island towards the end of April 1854. Charles Bidwill made her coffin and she was buried either at Ngapuke or Waitapu, old villages near Martinborough.
John Jury farmed and continued to farm Waka-a-paua after Te Aitu died by right of his wife’s claim to her ancestral land. John Jury died on 6 August 1902 at his daughter’s house at Taumata.
