DRAGONS AND TANIWHAS

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 208, 3 September 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

DRAGONS AND TANIWHAS

By James Cowan

"■••••••I How Folk-lore Began

We hav e »il read .boat the dragons of Komodo Island, in the j Dutch East Indies. The discover? of I these veritabie monsters of flesheating habit*, lias served to confirm , the truth of the ancient stories of j fierce dragons, which valiant men j went out to fight. Lnti! a very few year* ago the: Komodo drains were not known for j • cr.ain to exist. They ha\e now been ! hunted and photographed and even < j l '.ured for a zoo in New York, and their captors have described their strength and Misery. They are know n to ; .:illed and eaten men. All this helps to show how our Maori traditions of great man-eating creatures called ngarara and taniwha j began. j It is believed tuat feme of the Maori-Poly nei-ian ancestors lived in various parts of Indies, the Malay Archipelago and the i-lands that lie in a chain between -l.ua and the coast of Papua an 1 North Australia. There they \erv likelv I encountered some of the ancestors of j the present dragon tribe on Kornodo. ] Centuries ago. when little was j known of the outride world bv Euro- ! pean mapmakers. mysterious and j unexplored places were sometimes j inscribed "Here b» Dragons." Perhaps it was one of the ancient wise men's ways of warning travellers not to be too venturesome. "Here be Dragons," again, may have been an invitation to the St. Georges of that day to sharpen up sword and lance and go forth to seek adventure even at the monster's mouth. Dragons, or some savage creatures, all spiked and beclawed and displaying fearsome teeth, appear to have been plentiful in most countries, from China, even as far away am England. But no country had them in greater abundance than New Zealand, to judge from the many traditions about them and their nasty habit of waylaying traveller* and dragging their bodies into dark caves for food. The land dragons were called "ngarara," which is the name given to reptiles generally. Lizards are of the ngarara tribe. The monsters which haunted deep river pools, and especially those which lived in the sources of such rivers as the Awahoti at Rotorua were called "taniwha." The legend of the monsters of the .Waro-uri, the fountain source of a Rotorua stream, has -been narrated on this page. "Taniwha" was also figuratively applied to a high chief or to a warrior who had performed some great feat. There is a famous proverbial saying or tribal slogan about the Waikato River: "Waikato taaiwha

rau. It means "Waikato of the hundred (or many) water monsters." It does not literally mean "Here be Dragons. but it is an allusion to the many chiefs who lived on the river side. Where there were manv chiefs there were many people of their tribes. and so the inner meaning of the saying was that the Waikato tribes were a numerous and powerful people. Again, there is a saying. "At every river bend a taniwha, which carries the same mean ing. A typical "ngarara 1 * story is the tale of the dragon of Tikitapu, tiie beautiful lake which is skirted by the road from Rotorua town to Te Wairoa and Lake Tarawpra. Several centuries ago. according to the tradition related by the old people of the Tuboiira ngi tribe, a dreadful man-eating reptile, somewhat like a crocodile, lived in a cave on that side of Moerangi mountain which sloj.es. steeply down to Tikitapu. This dragon, said tradition, bad once been a <juiet little fellow, like a tuatara lizard, ugly but harmless. It had been a kind of pet and belonged to the chief Tangaroa. But with age. perhaps a hundred years, it had increased greatly in size and became a fierce man-eater. It t<vk to a cave life and there, above the ancient track between Rotorua and Tarawera, it lay in wait for traveilers.

Maori V\/onder Tales

Many people -sver.it missing aloDg that track and at last the Rot or i: a tribes discovered that Kataore was the s'.ayer. It sa; decided then tb.at a «ar party should ;o to Tikit-apa and search for that wild old ncarara and kill hina for his crimes. The offer;-e which clinched the case aaainst bim was the seizure and slay-ix:-2 of a voting chieft-ainess named Tuhi, of Ta raw era. Two bold warriors named and Pitaka were the leader* of the party of dragon slaver?. Tfcev and o:l:er men. having scouted :":je bu-h snd dwjvered the cave in which toe Jr»y. arranged strong snares made of p]ai-<*d flax and these ro;>e traps they arranged in the path usually taken by Kataore on bis crawling way to the lake. The snares were made with loojv?; the standing parts were made fast t;.- large tree? and the loose ends were held by jbe most powerful young warriors of the tribe. Ai] was now ready for the «nar:nsr of the rt'jarara. Out dashed the boid voting Pittfka. the chief dracon--javer. He bad already made a name for himself by killing dragons elsewhere. He was armed with a stone mere, or sharp-edged club, and a wooden taiaba. He was the lure to entk-e the dragon out of his den. fie advanced, dan- ing and jumping from side to side in the Maori warrior's way, up towards the dark cave, chal-

lenging the monster. This is the act in tie great dragon drama which Mr. A. H. Messenger ha« illustrated for me in the accompanying drawing. Pitaka, as he went, shouted h* insulting taunts. He called Kataore all the names to which he could Jay tongue. At last the monster, fuming and snorting in his rage, and lashing his ' great scaly tail, came rushing out of ] his cave. Down the bosh track he • -ame. intent on snapping up the , impudent challenger. j Pitaka turned and ran straight on, j turning every now and again to shorn more insults and taunts, j The dragon came blundering on in his furious anger and so ran risht i :n:o the strong snares spread for him. j He saw only Pitaka; the others were !in h:<l:ng until the great moment came. "Haul away!" ordered Pitaka and Hereto:. The men in wait all , hau;ed on the lines; they hauled each j rope taut and took a turn round a tree with it. Jr. a few moments the monster we? tightly enclosed in a score of rope- drawn so secure! v , around his bf-dy that he c«uld not ' no matter how furiously he ' -trusi'led. j Now all the warriors took up their ; -harp spears and their heavy stone j and -hev thrust and pounded J.at that imprisoned monster until he ' -ay dead. They cut up his horrible ; body, and ere they found what was left of the missing girl Tnhi. and of j other travellers who had disappeared. j Moreover, he had swallowed weapons ! and garment*: everything went into ; his maw. And they feasted on his : body, just as primitive tribes in Africa and other countries feast on 1 "he water-monsters they catch.

That ngarara story, like eo macv other wonder tales of old Kew Zealand. appears to bear a close relation to tne true stones of Xornodo Island. The tuatara. too. niav into tne os tn^ o^2?^--torie?. for it is believed that the tuatara was onc-e misca larger mn~i more active. A blendins of th<» ha;rra win;; stones 01 Komodo w:th the knowledge the Maoris acquired of the tuatara are prooablv quite enough to account for the traditions of nsarara and taniwna told at>out a hundred places in this conn try. I have gathered suea stories from the older generation in email villages, here and there in both islands, even far down the West Coast of the >outh Inland at the littie settlement Makawhio, enfolded in the fozr forests. In a recent book on the Komodo dragons, a daring hunter from Xe« \ortc who captured some of the -mailer ones, described the failure of his party to secure a Sage old dragon who lived in a cave on a mountainside. It could not be drawn out; it snapped all the ropes. Perhaps "he would have had more success had a Maori Pitaka. or a tohunga skilled :jj ngarara-catching incantations, t>r

witii him that day on Komodo.