RANGITOTO RANGES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 258, 31 October 1932, Page 6

RANGITOTO RANGES.

KING COUNTRY LEGENDS. (By J.C.) Tlie "Star's" Scout page lately contained an account of the ascent of Mount Ranginui, the highest peak of the Rangitoto Ranges, by a party of King Country Boy Scouts. It was quite an exploit, for a Ranginui climb (more than 3000 feet) is rough going, but perhaps even those athletic youngsters and their leaders did not realise the full significance and interest of their excursion into the wilds. Settlement and sawmilling around and in the ranges have removed most of the mystery which used to envelop this heart of the King Country, and the Boy Scouts' ascent of the ancient citadel of the mountains seems to me symbolical, the final touch in the pakeha conquest of the Rohepotae. It was a glamorous place to the eyes of boyhood, looking out southward from the old frontier, that rugged, blue skyline of Rangitoto. In the days when the King Country was a closed land to pakeha settlement, Rangitoto was regarded as the ultimate stronghold of the Maoris beyond the border. There was, too, a belief among some of the pioneers who had been on the diggings at the Thames and elsewhere that there was gold in those ranges, and about the year 1885 a prospector named Barry, from Oliinemuri, made a secret trip into the mountains from Kihikihi, with a half-caste guide. There was need for caution, for the Ngati-Maniapoto were exceedingly suspicious of gold-huntere, and Barry and his mate were careful with their camp fires, and travelled the open country only by night. They spent several weeks in the ranges, testing the creek beds* and Barry on his return exhibited •some specimens of auriferous quartz. In later days traces of gold, it was reported, were found at* Rangitoto, but the diggers' rush that the Kingite chiefs feared in the 'eighties is still beyond the horizon.

If there is not gold in those mountains, they are at any rate rich in Maori folk lore and poetical associations. The ranges culminating in Ranginlii were a haunt of the Patupaiarehe, the fairy people of legend. Perhaps it was not all mystic legend, for there are families to-day in tlie King Country who claim descent, in part, from Tarapikati, who was the chief of the fairy tribe of Rangitoto. Probably the story of the existence of these Patupaiarehe originated in the fact of some war-broken tribe of old taking refuge in the mountains, where they lived on the teeming birds and other foods of the bush. At any rate, they were sufficiently unfairylike to fight, and there is a circumstantial story told by the old people of Ngati-Maniapoto about a war party of these forest folk who journeyed all the way to To Ai'olia Mountain against tlie Patupaiarehe Who lived there.

The Rangitoto fairies were regarded as the guardians of the sacred places, ancl it is said the signs of their presence in the ranges are red fiax, red-haired pigs and red eels in the streams. Should any one of these things be seen by the Maori from the plains.and when out hunting in the mountains lie would know that he was trespassing on fairy territory, and he would be lucky if he were not seized and carried off to the misty top of the ranges. This strong belief in the Patupaiarehe had a curious development some fifty years ago, when a Tfauliau cult called the Pao-miere was originated in the King Country by two tohuiigas of Ngati-Maniapoto. One of tile objects of tlie incantations in the ritual of this offshoot of the old religion was to propitiate the Patupaial'che of Rangitoto and cause them to remain in their ancient haunts as guardians of tlie land alul so to preserve the Maori country for the Maori people. But the pakeha tribe had a more powerful shot in its locker, and the best the Pao-miere and tlie fairies, can do to-day in the way of guarding the siicrrd places is to raise a heavy fog for the bedevilinent of trespassers on the heights.

Rangitoto was, and is, regarded as the "light-ning-omen mOuntalh" of tlie Ngati-Mfihiapoto and its sub-tribes, Ngati-Matakore and Ngati-Whakrt-tcre. This kind of association of a tribe With a particular mountain is widespread; every tribe had some peak where the flashing Of lightning repeatedly downward Was regarded as a portent of some misfortune, such as the derttli of a chief, or a defeat in battle. There rii'S t?legifid Soiigs referring to tlie flashing of iiglitliiilg aiid the crashing of thunder on Rangitoto, An omen of death; and in popular belief the passing of the spirit of a rangatira of the tribes Who lived near the mountains was always so accompanied. Similarly Mounts Piroiigia and Taupiri afe the light-ning-omen peaks of the Waikato people.

Geographic-ally, the It a ngitotd l!nng<SS arc important as tho source and watershed of many streams. The Waipa and Mokait on the one side and some, of tho head streams of tile Ongartie Hiver at tho head of the AYarigahiil Rlvei' system have their rise in and aroilhd those ranges. Much of the olden forest has been Swept away, too much in fact for the future interests of water conservation in the Kiitg CoUntry, arid it is very desirable that the present bush reserves on the hills should be maintained unspoiled. Even' settlement in sight of Bangitoto should realise that the bush on these mountains; like that oil Pirongia further to the north; is necessary to tho farms and the townships. Some day there will he a much greater population irt these parts, and then the ancient sanctuary of the Patupaiarehe will be regarded much as Auckland City regards its Nihotupu and Wrfitakere water-supply hills to-day.