Taniwha Was Invisible But Known By Effects

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31381, 29 May 1967, Page 9

Taniwha Was Invisible But Known By Effects

(Specially written /or “The Press” by ARTHUR LUSH)

There is some discussion just now about how Maori legends came to include the taniwha Some people think that it was from distant memories of crocodiles in South-east Asia.

I doubt it I knew there was a taniwha—in the Waikato river—though I never actually saw it but came near enough to doing so if my understanding of the word is correct

The clue came from an entry on an old plan in a Government office in Wellington. It showed a diversion works at the head of the Horahora rapids. The entry read “Pakipaki Wai Rocks, —Taniwha here.” The power development at the Horahora rapids was made for the Waihi Gold Mining Company, at the beginning of the present century. Much of the flow of the Waikato was diverted into the head race by a weir which went part of the way across the head of the rapids. A little beyond the end of the weir was a very large rock lying in. the riverbed like the body of a large hippopotamus or an elephant. It must have been large and very heavy to have stayed where it was, a short distance down those rapids, where it would get the full force of the river, particularly during high floods. All Maoris Knew When I went to Horahora there was the rock, and the water slapping against it, as its name suggests, but no taniwha to be seen. The plan had been prepared by Mr Roche, a civil engineer and surveyor, of Cambridge. Later it was proposed to extend this weir right across the top of the rapids, and it was my good fortune to meet there Mr Roche himself. He had come out to see the works and what was then proposed. I asked him about the taniwha and he assured me that the entry was quite correct. All the Maori men there new about the taniwha. When the short weir was being built, Mr Roche was doing some work with his theodolite standing just where we were when I met him. He had noticed a couple of Maori workmen getting into a boat but as they were almost always good boatmen he took little notice.

When he looked up again after his observations, he saw the men had got a grip of a steel cable which was stretched across the river at that point, one man at the bow of the boat, the other at the stem, trying to hold the boat broadside on to the current. Saved by Pakeha

The force of the river was too great for them and one man lost his grip. There were oars in the boat and Mr Roche called out to them to get the oars. They made a hasty snatch at them. One man got an oar, the other man knocked his oar overboard. The man with the oar rowed uselessly, keeping the boat turning round while the current carried it along towards the gap at the end of the weir, and then downstream past the Pakipaki Wai Rock. Water piled up on the upstream face of such a rock might prevent the boat from actually hitting it, but as the boat went round the end the two men managed to jump overboard into shallower water and waded ashore. They told Mr Roche that

the taniwha would have got them if he had not been there. The Maoris were also sure that if the pakeha persisted in making the weir right across the river, the water would become too shallow in the rapids and the taniwha would go away. This indeed actually happened in due course.

So there you have the taniwha, meaning a real danger, in this case a whirlpool or undertow which would have swallowed anybody down on the lee side of the rock, and probably drowned him. You can if you like represent such a danger by an allegorical figure like the dragon slain by St. George, or the dragon that has long been shown in Chinese art, or a dragon such as might resemble a crocodile if a Maori tried to picture it, representing something to be dreaded, a very real danger. Taniwha Country

During school holidays, I bad stayed at a place called Maunga Taniwha, which you may translate if <you like as The Dragon Mountain, but Danger Mountain would be better. The name belongs to a peak which you can see on maps, west of Waikari Moana. This name also belonged to the block of land extending south from the trig station beside the Waiau river and west for some distance, an area of over 36,000 acres. It was rough, mountainous country, entirely forest-clad when the Maori originally knew it, and most of it still forested when I saw it. Its streams had many waterfalls. The Waiau river ran through a steep, narrow gorge with large boulders occupying the riverbed. Further upstream there was a tributary containing quite a fine hot spring. Much to my regret I never managed to get so far. Someone who had visited Maunga Taniwha about the year 1900 told me that she had seen a flight of pigeons there which had actually darkened the sun. I should

like to see that block of land added to the Urewera National Park; but I can only guess at the reason for the name Maunga Taniwha. It may have been on account of the steep, rough country, dangerous gorge and the cold river running between large boulders where anyone who fell into the rapids might be swept away. Intangible

Putere, the next block of land downstream, may have been regarded as safer. It was not so steep. There were three lakes as well as the river, plenty of tuna, and plenty of fern root. There was also a cliff, at the foot of which fires could be made when titl were flying over the top on dark evenings, so that they would be dazzled by the firelight and come down and be easily caught by the Maori. So far as I know there had never been a taniwha at Putere. A friend from Whakatane told me erf a boiling spring in that district Any small creature unfortunate enough to fall into this spring would certainly have perished. A Maori said of the spring: “Taniwha there!” The name never seems to have been given to dangerous things brought by the pakeha, such as the big locomotives which could run over you and kill you. These were things that you could touch and you could see. The taniwha was very real too. It could swallow you in a whirlpool and leave your mangled, drowned body in a pool somewhere below the rapids where you would never be found again. There are many real and important things in this world, like thoughts for instance, of which our five senses can give us no knowledge. We may include the taniwha in this class. It could only be known by its effects on other things or on people. It could not be touched and could only be seen as you may see, as a danger, by the keen eye of imagination.