ARA-TIA-TIA RAPIDS
Some of the finest landscape views in the central North Island are to be seen from points of vantage on the broken plateau to the westward of Ruapehu. On the one side the huge volcanic mass, a sloping rampart many miles long, closes the scene; on the other, the land, falling towards the coast, is first scantily clothed with coarse tussock-grass and then with open park-like forest. The timber grows heavier towards the coast, and in the river valleys where the curling Wanganui and the lesser streams Waitotara and Patea run between richly-draped cliffs to the sea. Far westward above the green expanse of foliage—soon to be hewn by the axe and blackened by fire—the white triangle of Egmont’s cone glimmers through faint haze against the pale horizon.
Between Taupo and the eastern branch of the Upper Wanganui ran a foot-track much used by Maori travellers in days of yore. At one point it wound beneath a steep hill on the side of which a projecting ledge of rock formed a wide shallow cave. Beneath this convenient shelf it is said that a gang of Maori highwaymen were once wont to lurk on the watch for wayfarers, solitary or in small parties. At a signal they sprang out upon these, clubbed them to death, and dragged their bodies to the cave. There these cannibal bush-rangers gorged themselves on the flesh of their victims. I tell the story on the authority of the missionary Taylor, who says that he climbed to the cave, and standing therein saw the ovens used for the horrid meals and the scattered bones of the human victims. If he was not imposed upon, the story supplies a curious exception to Maori customs. Their cannibalism was in the main practised at the expense of enemies slain or captured in inter-tribal wars; and they had distinct if peculiar prejudices in favour of fair fighting. I have read somewhere that in the Drakensberg Mountains above Natal a similar gang of cannibal robbers was once discovered—Kaffirs who systematically lured lonely victims into a certain remote ravine, where they disappeared.
One of the curiosities of the Taupo wilderness is the flat-topped mountain Horo-Horo. Steep, wooded slopes lead up to an unbroken ring of precipices encircling an almost level table-top. To the eyes of riders or coach-passengers on the road between Taupo and Roto-rua, the brows of the cliffs seem as inaccessible as the crown of Roraima in British Guiana in the days before Mr. Im Thurn scaled it. The Maori own Horo-Horo, and have villages and cultivations on the lower slopes where there is soil fertile beyond what is common thereabout. Another strange natural fortress not far away is Pohaturoa, a tusk of lava, protruding some eight hundred feet hard by the course of the Waikato and in full view of a favourite crossing-place. Local guides are, or used to be, fond of comparing this eminence with Gibraltar, to which—except that both are rocks—it bears no manner of likeness.
The Japanese, as we know, hold sacred their famous volcano Fusiyama. In the same way the Maori in times past regarded Tongariro and Ruapehu as holy ground. But, whereas the Japanese show reverence to Fusi by making pilgrimages to its summit in tens of thousands, the Maori veneration of their great cones took a precisely opposite shape,—they would neither climb them themselves nor allow others to do so. The earlier white travellers were not only refused permission to mount to the summit, but were not even allowed to set foot on the lower slopes. In 1845 the artist George French Angas could not even obtain leave to make a sketch of Tongariro, though he managed to do so by stealth. Six years earlier Bidwill eluded native vigilance and actually reached the summit of one of the cones, probably that of Ngauruhoe, but when, after peering down through the sulphurous clouds of the inaccessible gulf, he made his way back to the shores of Lake Taupo, the local chieftain gave him a very bad quarter of an hour indeed. This personage, known in New Zealand story as Old Te Heu Heu, was one of the most picturesque figures of his race. His great height—“nearly seven feet,” says one traveller; “a complete giant,” writes another—his fair complexion, almost classic features, and great bodily strength are repeatedly alluded to by the whites who saw him; not that whites had that privilege every day, for Te Heu Heu held himself aloof among his own people, defied the white man, and refused to sign the treaty of Waitangi or become a liegeman of the Queen. His tribesmen had a proverb—“Taupo is the Sea; Tongariro is the Mountain; Te Heu Heu is the Man.” This they would repeat with the air of men owning a proprietary interest in the Atlantic Ocean, Kinchin Junga, and Napoleon. He was indeed a great chief, and a perfect specimen of the Maori Rangatira or gentleman. He considered himself the special guardian of the volcanoes. Like him they were tapu—“tapu’d inches thick,” as the author of Old New Zealand would say. Indeed, when his subjects journeyed by a certain road, from one turn of which they could view the cone of Ngauruhoe, they were expected at the critical spot to veil their eyes with their mats so as not to look on the holy summit. At any rate, Bidwill declares that they told him so. Small wonder, therefore, if this venturesome trespasser came in for a severe browbeating from the offended Te Heu Heu, who marched up and down his wharé breaking out into passionate speech. Bidwill asserts that he pacified the great man by so small a present as three figs of tobacco. Of course, it is possible that in 1839 tobacco was more costly at Taupo than in after years. The Maori version of the incident differs from Bidwill’s.
In the uneasy year of 1845 Te Heu Heu marched down to the Wanganui coast at the head of a strong war-party. The scared settlers were thankful to find that he did not attack them. He was, indeed, after other game, and was bent on squaring accounts with a local tribe which had shed the blood of his people. Bishop Selwyn, who happened to be then in the neighbourhood, saw and spoke with the highland chieftain, urging peace. The interviews must have been worth watching. On the one side stood the typical barbarian, eloquent, fearless, huge of limb, with handsome face and maize-coloured complexion, and picturesque in kilt, cloak, and head-feather. On the other side was a bishop in hard training, a Christian gentleman, as fine as English culture could furnish, whose clean-cut aquiline face and unyielding mouth had the becoming support of a tall, vigorous frame lending dignity to his clerical garb. Here was the heathen determined to save his tribe from the white man’s grasping hands and dissolving religion; there the missionary seeing in conversion and civilisation the only hope of preserving the Maori race. Death took Te Heu Heu away before he had time to see his policy fail. Fate was scarcely so kind to Selwyn, who lived to see the Ten-Years’ War wreck most of his life’s work among the natives.
As far as I know, Te Heu Heu never crossed weapons with white men, though he allied himself with our enemies and gave shelter to fugitives. His region was regarded as inaccessible in the days of good Governor Grey. He was looked upon as a kind of Old Man of the Mountain, and in Auckland they told you stories of his valour, hospitality, choleric temper, and his six—or was it eight?—wives. So the old chief stayed unmolested, and met his end with his mana in no way abated. It was a fitting end: the soil which he guarded so tenaciously overwhelmed him. The steep hill-side over his village became loosened by heavy rain and rotted by steam and sulphur-fumes. It began to crack and slip away. According to one account, a great land-slip descending in the night buried the kainga and all in it save one man. Another story states that the destruction came in the day-time, and that Te Heu Heu refused to flee. He was said to have stood erect, confronting the avalanche, with flashing eyes, and with his white hair blown by the wind. At any rate, the soil of his ancestress the Earth (he claimed direct descent from her) covered him, and for a while his body lay there. After some time his tribe disinterred it, and laying it on a carved and ornamented bier, bore it into the mountains with the purpose of casting it down the burning crater of Tongariro. The intention was dramatic, but the result was something of an anticlimax. When nearing their journey’s end the bearers were startled by the roar of an eruption. They fled in a panic, leaving the remains of their hero to lie on the steep side of the cone on some spot never identified. There they were probably soon hidden by volcanic dust, and so, “ashes to ashes,” slowly mingled with the ancestral mass.[2]
[2] The accepted tradition of Te Heu Heu’s funeral is that given above. After these pages went to the printer, however, I lighted upon a newspaper article by Mr. Malcolm Ross, in which that gentleman states that the bier and the body of the chief were not abandoned on the mountain-side, but were hidden in a cave still known to certain members of the tribe. The present Te Heu Heu, says Mr. Ross, talks of disinterring his ancestor’s remains and burying them near the village of Te Rapa.
