The Wise Tohunga
xii 1840 a chief on the Thames River named Te Awho (the same chief whom Marsden met 20 years earlier and recorded his name as Awaughj told a visiting commissioner a story illustrating the meaning of a local proverb, an equivalent to our “What cannot be cured must be endured.” Once the rain was so heavy that the river overflowed its banks and when the people of a village close by saw the waters encroaching, they besought their tohunga, Whare, to repeat a charm to compel the waters to subside. But Whare was too wise to attempt what he could not do. He replied, “Whare will not charm for the rain is coming from ML Keteriki.” For when the wind blew directly across this cloudcatching mountain, it brought heavy and continuous rain. So the hapu lost their huts and their crops, but no blame was attached to the tohunga, for he had prophesied correctly.— T. (Wellington).
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Bibliographic details
Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 202, 23 May 1936, Page 19
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159The Wise Tohunga Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 202, 23 May 1936, Page 19
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