Witch Hill and The Giant’s Causeway.
W.A. Taylor, photo
Orongomai, a melodious name when properly pronounced, is the old Ngai-Tahu name of Cass Peak, the rhyolite height which lifts 1780 ft. above the waters of Governor’s Bay, overlooking the remnant of the ancient forest at Kennedy’s Bush. It means “The Place Where Voices are Heard,” or, literally, “Place of Sounding-hitherward.” The name has fittingly enough been given by Mr. Ell to the stone house for visitors which stands under the ribbonwood trees at the head of the Kennedy’s Bush Valley. The story is that when Te Rangi-whakaputa and his followers landed, in their search for the Ngati-Mamoe, after taking the pa at Ohinetahi, in Governor’s Bay, the scouts entered the bush, and at the foot of Cass Peak heard the voices of a party of men in the bush; these men were Ngati-Mamoe, who had come across from their pa at Manuka, on the plains side of the range. Led by the scouts—the torotoro—the invaders rushed upon the Ngati-Mamoe some of whom they killed. The survivors fled over the hills to Manuka, a large pa which it is believed stood on a knoll at the foot of the range not far from Tai Tapu. (Mr. Ell, on being told of this tradition, said that he believed the site of Manuka would be found to be the spur running into an old swamp upon which Mr. Holmes’s homestead is built, on the old coach road south of Lansdowne, and about two miles from Tai Tapu.) The Manuka village, although a strong defensive position, was stormed and taken by Te Rangi-whakaputa. In the vicinity, it is said by the Maoris, there was a shallow cave under the rocky hillside which was used by some of the Ngati-Mamoe as a dwelling-place; it is known in tradition as Te Pohatu-whakairo, or “The Carved Rock.” No doubt it was so called from the natural markings sometimes seen on the faces of these overhanging rock shelters, such as were used as dwelling and camping-places in many parts of the South Island by the ancient people.
Ohinetahi[1] pa , defended with a palisade of split tree-trunks and with ditch and parapet, stood near the shore at the head of Governor’s Bay two hundred years ago. After the place had been captured from the Ngati-Mamoe by Te Rangi-whakaputa, his son Manuwhiri occupied it with a party of Ngai-Tahu. This chief Manuwhiri had many sons, but only one daughter, and he named his pa after his solitary girl, “The Place of the One Daughter.” The Governor’s Bay school now occupies the spot where this long-vanished stockaded hamlet stood.
[1] This name was adopted by the late T. H. Potts for his stone house at Governor’s Bay, directly below Kennedy’s Bush.
Orongomai, the Place of the Voices, Kennedy’s Bush.
W. A. Taylor, photo
The name of Cooper’s Knobs, the highest of the three tooth-like crags lifting abruptly above the head of Lyttelton Harbour to an altitude of 1880 feet, memorises, like so many others, an incident of the head-hunting cannibal days. After the Rangi-whakaputa and his merry men had conquered the various Ngati-Mamoe pas around the harbour, they