HISTORIC MAORI INSTRUMENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 133, 8 June 1925, Page 8

HISTORIC MAORI INSTRUMENT.

TUTAX T EKAI'S BONE FLUTE. A bone flute with a history worth recording may be seen at tlie Auckland Museum. It is the famous instrument with which Tutanekai won his bride Hinemoa. The romantic story is well known; how the dulcet notes of the (lute of Tutanekai so charmed the dusky Maori beauty that she swam from Mokoia Island in Lake Rotorua to the mainland to find the musician. This flute was named "Te Muirangaranga," after the tohunga from whose armbone it was fashioned. Long years ago when Whakane was chief at Rotorua, there lived a tohunga called Te Muirangaranga. When Whakane's son Tutanekai was born, this priest was called upon to perform the rites of baptism. That really took the form of dedicating the child by mystic ceremonies to the war god of the Maoris, Tii-matuengn. After having performed those rites, the priest was strictly tapu for the lunar month. According to old Maori custom, when a man was tapu, he could not feed himself or handle cooked food. In the Lindaur collection of Maori pictures at the Art Gallery may be seen a canvas illustrating how a tohunga was fed when under tapu. He is depicted kneeling on a mat in front of an old whare made of raupo. Before him, also on her knees, is a little Maori girl quite naked. The reason for her being without clothing, is the fear that her garments might be infected with tbe tapu of the tohunga. Besides the girl is a basket of food, and she is shown putting some boiled potatoes into the priest's mouth by means of a fern stalk. As far as the priest is concerned, his life would be forfeit to the vengeance to the gods if he handled cooked foods when under tapu.

Te Muirangaranga, however, was not so careful as the tohunga in the picture referred to, for before the period of bis purification was ended, he was seen one day at Paparata on the edge of the forest behind Ohinemutu gathering and eating poroporo berries. Such a terrible act soon reached the ears of the chief, Whakane, who was incensed It was not only a deadly insult to him, but equivalent to cursing his little son Tutanekai. Only one punishment could atone for such an offence. The tohunga must die. Having himself broken the tapu by gathering and eating the berries, the priest was no longer sacred, but all the same it was unlucky to shed the blood of a tohunga, so Whakane solved the problem by having him drowned. The bone from the arm of Te Muirangaranga was then made into a flute for Tutanekai, who, by the time, he had Teaehed manhood, had become famous for his skill on the instrument. During the Waikato War in 18G4, about 800 Maoris from the East Coast tried to force, their way through the country of the Arawa tribes, in order to take part in tlie fight against the British. The Arawas, however, drove back the intruders, beating them first at Lake Rotiti, again at Maketu, and finally at Tekaokaoroa, near Matata. A great Maori warrior of the Arawas named Tohi te Ururangi, was mortally wounded while directing the attack. That chief always carried Tutanekai's flute hung round his neck. Shortly after his death another chief named Pokai te Waitun, attempted to remove tbe tribal heirloom, but was prevented by Mata, the wife of the dead man. who secured tbe instrument and thrust it down the throat of her husband. The next day it was removed from its "hiding place and banded to Hgahuruhuru, who was Tutanekai's lineal descendent. In 1870. when the late Gilbert Mair, with the Arnwas, defeated the famous Hauhau leader Te Kooti at Ohinemutu, the chief Ngahuruhuru presented tbe flute to the man who had saved the settlement from destruction. Towards the end of bis eventful life, Captain Mair deposited the flute in tbe Auckland Museum, where it is shown in a glass case.