OLD ROTORUA.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 38, 13 August 1910, Page 10

OLD ROTORUA.

LEGENDS OF THE LAKES. (Specially written for The -Post.) By J. Cowan. CAII Rights Reserved.) No. XII. LAKE OKATAINA. A CRUISE ON THE "LAUGHINGWATERS." How many New Zealanders out of the many hundreds who "do" Rotorua each summer ever set eyes on — or even hear of — Lake Okataina? It is a "lago incognita" to the general body of tourists. It deserves to be better known;, and this, tho concluding article of the "Old Rotorua" series, may, I think, be usefully demoted to a .sketch of oneof the most beautiful, but, as yet, un■celebrsfced of the many fine water-sheets in this Land of Lakes. " Okataina is well hidden from the eye of the tourist. It lies onry a few miles east- of Lake Rotoraa, but it is separated from it by the unroaded Whakapoungakau Range. To the north is Lake Rotoiti, to the south Lake Tarawera. It can be reached by road from either of these lakes ; a neck of only about a mile in length separates it from Tarawera. Okatama is five miles long, and probably averages about half that in width. It is deep, and its winding shores are the most richly forested of any lake in Geyserland. As for its name, -■it is as poetical as you could wish. Oka.■tama — a merciful abbEeviation of the full name, Te Moana-i-Kataina-e-Te Rangitakaroro — means literally "The Place of Laughing." Let us take tho liberty iof making a free translation, and call it "The Laughing Waters." Only one thing mars the beauty of ■Okataina. The water, which before the. Tarawera .eruption in 1886 was a rich blue, became discoloured and milky, as the result of tho vast quantities of volcanic debris showered into it when Tarawora burst out. It is slowly regaining its pristine hue, but it will be? many years yet, probably,, before theash and mud it holds in sohition are completely precipitated, and it becomesvas pure and blue again as its neighbour, Botoiti." There is now a Government ouMaunch plying — in the summer season — on Oka"taina. But if one has a leisure day or two it is ploasanter to pull or sail-easily close along the shore, coasting into the deep bays, and landing here and there, to ramble up the beautiful little valleys that invite exploration, or to climb to the hill-top site of some old-time pa. Hingawaka and I paddled ono summer day of long ago all along the western shore of the lake, from the southern bay., Te Haitmi — where the track from Tarawera strikes Okataina — to TauranganuL the northern landing-place. It was a. beautiful coastline, but all lono and deserted. No smoke of fire arose.; nohabitations of man could be seen. We.we're the only human beings on theshores of the Lake of the Woods-; the*, old-time people had vanished everyone. Te Haumi Bay, wliere we began ourcruise, is a pretty little nook. It is an-,, almost land-locked x cove, a favourite <■ "tauranga-waka," or canoe-landing place. |of the Maoris. Near the head of the* bay some great flat rocks form a natural landing-stage, overhung by beautiful. | drooping- tawhero-trees. The shores here are wooded with the more oEnamental trees of the New Zealand forest — the redblooming pohutukawa and rata, the ! rewa-rewa, the tawhero, 1 the whan. Tit©. | lake sides sheer up precipitously, at>d here and there huge grey rocks protrude from the never-fading *olrago. On,-. the left as we left our harbour tfeeio were the hill-top ruins of a walled }>a of the ancient people. There are many old hill-forts around the lake shores, the sites of most of them hardly to be distinguished from tho surrounding forest except by the smaller growth and Eghter green of the shrubbery, and by the cabbage trees, or "whanake," which spring up on most, of these one-time homes of the brown men of Okataina. On the r%;ht hand, again, was the long-deserted hill-castle of Oruar-oa-o-Rangi, perched on a rocky point; and beyond, where the ferny hills slope gentry down to a curving sandy beach, were the weeping willows that marked a more recent I lcainga, or village, this of the NgafiTarawiai tribe. Now the lake bends away on the left into a deep bight, its shores adorned with pretty little knob-Kks headlands, all softly green. One of these is the olden pa of Motu-whetero (well-named so, the "Isle-projecting-like-a-tongoe") ; another is Whataeau. Taking a leisurely sweep round the carving bay, we were presently under the water-worn cliffs oi Tikiiflri. This is one of the many pleasant halting-places round the lake shores, where soon pakeha picnickers will make merry m the long-silent homes of the ancient brown people of thebush. Close to Tikitiki headland He two remarkable islets, which have evidently -once formed part of the mainland, but haare been fretted from it in the coarse of Cime by erosion, assisted perhaps by earthquake. These tiny rocky islandscarry a growth of shrubby wood, and [-are honeycombed with caves and watery passages, through wMch, as one can imagine, the wawea of Okataina boom in quite salt-sea fa.shion in an easterly gale. Pohutukawa trees, lniobted and', twisted, bend their ancient branches over the water, and at .Christ-mas- time glow with crimson flowers. Between the Uyo islets we find room to paddle. 1 Pohutukawa and bright-leaved toa trees slant over the hall-hidden, waterway. The islands bear signs of having been inhabited by the Maoris ; in their cliffy ■edges can be seen the shells of the "kakahi, tho fresh-water brvalvo common to these lakes, which were dredged for by the natives with the ingeniously made "rou-kakahi. " The islets, which formed one island at no very recent date, bora the name of Te Taparoro. The. i inhabitants of this island pa wore the Nga.ti-Matau section of the Ngati-Tara-whai tube. Skirting along in this fashion, aiuL landing here and there, one had time to study and admire the loveliness of the wild vegetation which clothes every hillside aud gully, and which has even swept over the olden homes of the Mauri villagers and reclaimed its- own again. A tree growing plentifully on these shores is the- whau, or "cork-wood tree" (entelea arboresoens), which in spring bears showers of beautiful white blossoms. Its large leaf, like that of the wharangi shrub, which also abounds hero, -.vas much used by tho Maoris in former clays, after the missionaries had taught them to write, for sending messages to each other. With a sharp stick or a nail a letter could be written on these leaves; whuu and "harangi and flax-leave* were, in fact, the "papyrus" of the natives befoie paper, became plentiful. Many an aboriginal "billet-doux" v,'a& .-cratfhed on those bright green leave?. The Maoris also say that the whau leaves, being so lnrge and soft, vveru oiten used as a wrapping for now-ly-born infants. In many places the whau, with its, diooping clusters of iiuu, overhangs tho water. NoVw comes tho finest bit of the wholo i coastline. Immediately, above thg lake

rise blue-wooded ranges, vastly broken, and cut into by many gulches. The. hghesi point of these ranges is Mount Whakapoungakau, altitude 2542 feet. The distance in a straight line between the western shore and Lake Rotorua is only six or seven miles. The cambinastion of fretted bay and projecting rocky clilf and dense and beautiful forestclimbing^away up to the lofty skying reminds ono strongly of the delightful scenery of that loveliest of all North Island water-sheets, Waikaremoana. A forest-girt bight opens out, running deep into the land, with a curtain of foliage clothing the face of the precipitous mountain from water-line to the ridge-top a thousand feet above. Hereand there an immense weathered rock pokes its storm-worn head through the.forest trees and the ferns like some huge, old rhyolitic Titan who refuses to be hidden in his bed-clothes of leaves! Then, we come to historic Mokoroa Pa, on a»-boldly-projecting headland or "kuvas." Right oh the face of the ti-crowned point, the steep hillside is dimpled into a little carving gnfiy, all filled with waving tree-ferns. Rounding the point, the scenery, becomes, if anything, bolder still. Groy and white cHffs of volcanic rock rise straight up from the deep water, and carry a lustrous broidering of shrub and fern. The pofcutukawa trees growing here are larger than on most other parts of the lake; they take aIJ kinds of weird and twisted shapes, and send down long root-feelers which look just like so many huge goblin, stringy fingers searching for the water. J?Tom Aiokoroa we steer across the northern arm of the lake to Te Koufcu, a beautiffij little rounded "lazrae," jutting out island-fashion into Che lake ; a high mound joined to the mainland by a much lower neck, and all densely grown with'wildwood. There is an inviting crescent of silvery beach ; above are the shrub-grown parapets and r ditches of tho most celebrated of the Okataina, fortified villages of ancient days. Tall cab-bage-palms stand out above the lower bush-; , there are some cherry-groves on •the hill slopes, still bearing loads of fruit every season. Here and there, as one explores the twilight depths of the woods that envelop everything, the timbers, of old d-welfiogs art? found, and thocarved posts of the old paHsad© fences, fast crurflbJing "into dust, a reminder of the faded glories of sstvage Maoridom. "This village was inhabited up to fifty .years Ago. An interesting sketch is exmad© by a European missionary trawdler in about 1839, showing the pa. and its fences and houses. Te Kanto, •was once- the fighting- pa of ,a noted chief' - named Te Baaigftakaioro, from whom, many of the Rotorua^and Batoitd 'famffieß. of to-day trace their descent. A huge carved post, called by the Maoris "TeRangifcakaroro," in commemoration of itds truculent warrior of the past, is. stai to be seen, staradrng here-; it form-, ed part of the olden main gateway of 1 the pa. Te Rangitakaroro lived fcweiregenerations ago — three hundred years. Hi& mam© was one of dread to the unfortunate Ngafo-Kahnpoko, from whom tho Ngati-fCsjaMrfrai fßangTs trib&) had captured Okastaina, and whose leading chief and 1 patriarch, one Kaiiupako, was killed in. a bush fight on the route of the. present road from Okataina to Rotoiti. Concerning this ill-starred ex-owner of Okatoina and Te Kcratu, a poetic lament for the slain chief, composed by one of his tribespeopie, is still chanted as a tamgi-song by the people of Rnato, Bnioiti, where the remnant oi Ng&ti- ' Tararahai now rhre. The- poem begins : 0 thou Sun, sinking- o*er theahills, Bring back to ma, when thou retumest, . The spirit of my chicf — He who was in > days now gone Tho glory Of his tribe. Alas ! He!s gone, Shattered by death's blow As broken lies my tall ti-palm, Shattered by the whirlwind On the eiiffside of Opoura. The Oponra mentioned in. the^ong is a black di& of fire-fused rock rising above the beach-side woods just before the northern head of the lake is reached, at the sandy beach called Tauranganui. Reverting to Te Rangitakaroro, it may be as well to explain that it is to him that the lako owes its name. The namewas originally applied, say the Maoris, to a rock, now submerged, near the eastern side of the lake. On this rock Te Rangi' rested on his canoe-voyaging round the lake, and because of some incident or other that excited the warrior's merriment it was given the- name "Okataina" — "The Laughing," or "The Place, of Laughing." Afterwards the lake came to be spoken of as "Te Moana-i-Kataina-e-Te Rangitakaroro," meaning " r £ne Sea where Te Rangitakaroro Laughed." This historic sunken rock is the "tino" of Qkataina, the exact spot from which the district takes its name, and it bears the* reputation amongst the Ngaia-Tarawhai people of possessing a "mana tapa," or certain supernatural attributes and powers. Now our cruise is ended) for our keel grates on the sands of Tauranga-nui, '•The Great Landing-Elace." This is tho northern end of the lake, the jcampingground and embarking and disembarking point of many, a war-^party in the days, of old. In the iong ago 'this lake was a useful connecting waterway for the Maori tribes, living on the shores of Rotoiti and Tara'wera. An instance of its use as a strategic war-route is related by the natives of Rotoiti. A little more than half a century ago a War^arty of the NgatiPikiao tribe, of Hotoiti, made a foray against the Tuhtmrangi tribe, living in Te Ariki Pa, on the south side of Lake Tarawera. With immense labour they hauled several largo canoes through the forest from Rotoiti -ito. Okataina, pad•dled across the lake, and then- made another portage across the neck to Tarawera Lake. It -was rather a pity, after going toall'this.trottblej-tiie .Maori could work like a fury when there was any fighting to be done — that the NgatiPikiao were beaten off by the garrison of Te Axiki y had six of their chiefs killed, and had to retreat sorrowfully by the way they came, canoes and all. That was a Httie .fight of the pakeha era ; the Maoris all had guns in thosedays. Rut farther back many a wild -cannibal raid made things lively ar&und'those parts. ' One hears- no end of queer stories from the xN gati-Tarawhai and NgatWPikrao. They were not nice people, those fighting anthropophagi of Lakeland. Take the Haukeka, for example. Ilaukeka was the war-chief of Ngati-Piktao, who ruled the fighting-pa Motutawa, on Rotoiti, a hundred and fifty years ago, or so. He was a savage cannibal, whoso delight was "man-meat." It is related that a relative of his named To Rinui died, whereupon tho Tuhourangi, his hereditary enemies, to glut their ghoulish greed for utu, disinterred the body, and bore it off by way of Lake Okataina, to Tarawera, where they made uso of the bones in their method of catching iiianga. or whitebait, in the lake. When Haukeka heard of this gross aifront, he plan ned an even more ghoulish revenge. Setting forth from Motutawa, be travelled by devious and secret ways to Taravr«ra to seek the body of a chief named Tohuteiki, belonging to the Tuhourangi tribe, whoso death had just occurred ; this body was to be tho "payment 1 ' for Tc Rinui's — bone for bone and flesh for ilcsh. He discovered the body of the chief in a burial cave, and packing it in mats carried the awful burden on his shoulders all the way back, passing Okataina, to tho shores of Rotoiti. At Motutawa the old cannibal placed tho body in tho water to soak in order that it might "become tender" before ha ate it, as hid descendants explain. It v/as a dainty feast I And Haukeka tho CoraseEatev had a son called Te Tuhi, who had

a famous daughter named Tikawe (sho who committed suicide by throwing herself over the cliff at Motntaiwa after singing her mournful death-song), and a brother Manuariki, whose son Rawiri Manuariki told this anecdote of his ancestor in the course of his sworn evidence in- the Land Court at Taheke. [The End.J