THE MAN-MOUNTAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 110, 5 November 1935, Page 7

THE MAN-MOUNTAIN

SOUL OF NGAUKUHOE

TE HEU.HEU AND HIS MERE

SACRED FIRES ' STILL BURN

King Canute took a trident to stop the waves, but Te Heuheu Tukino (the Great Te Heuheu who was killed at Te Rapa in 1846) took Pahikaure to stay the lightning. Like the old Norse weapons, Pahikaure (a sacred greenstone mere) had magical powers. Te Rapa, on the shores of Taupo Moana, was at the foot of a hillside greasy with water and hot with steam. On the fatal night in 1846 there had been much rain, and early in the evening there was a thunderstorm. "It was alarming to the people of Te Heuheu's household, and seemed to threaten the village as the lightning flashed downwards and the guns of heaven crashed. Te Heuheu took his famous sacred greenstone mere Pahikaure in hand, a-weapon of wondrous mana, and climbing to the roof of his house he essayed to quell the spirits of earth and sky. He loudly recited his prayers to avert the death-stroke from the sky, and after thus invoking the gods of his race and the spirits of his sacred ancestors he returned to his house. A CHALLENGE TO FATE. "It was in the midnight hours when all but one or two were asleep that destruction fell on the kainga. Te Rapa was close to the lake shore, fair in the mouth of the valley of the Wai-mataii and the steamy gulch and slopes of Hipaua. It was a challenge to fate. A fortunate wakeful one was young Tokena te Kerehi. When the hillside came down and buried the village he was outside his house; he was restless, for the night was ominous. He was all but buried as he ran— there was no time to warn the sleepers —and only escaped at last by climbing up a leaning tree, a moari or swinging tree of the young people, at the lake edge. Old Heuheu might Have escaped, but he tried to save his wives." A mere, even a magic mere, is not an ideal tool with which'to avert a land-slide. Besides, in the superphysical field, there were other forces at work. "The high priest Te Pahau had prophesied-that Te Heuheu would not die by the hand of man, but by the stroke of the gods. . . . Truly was this fulfilled." TREASURE PAHIKAURE. And, even after 1846, the gods were not satisfied. The uncovering of Te Rapa was not carried out except in regard to Te Heubeu's house. Here they found his body, also the body of his favourite wife, lying near him with the sacred talismanic Pahikaure clasped to her breast. . The chief's bones were removed arid placed in a cave on Tongariro. In 1910 they were brought down from the cave to the kainga, now sited at Waihi. "A few days later another horo or landslide came down the water-logged steaming valley alongside the landslide of 1846; it was a larger slip which went out a long way into the lake. There was only one person killed by /this slip, which took place in the daytime. A curious coincidence, one of several strange occurrences at that time discussed;- by the Maoris." i The/ab.oy%<3uotationscare ; frbm,>Mri Jame&^owarfs story-'of the- Heuneus in the '"New Zealand Railways Magazine." "Here they are, in chronological order, from 1840-down:— '■' l.Te'Heuheu Tukino, the bestknown Te Heuheu, physically and' in every way Te Heuheu the Great. .'■ j 2. Te^ Heuheu Iwikau, brother of No. 1, and paramount chief of Taupo after his brother's death in the Te i Rapa landslip of 1846. Died 1863. 3. Te Heuheu Tukino (Horonuku), the Park-giver, second son of Te Heuheu No. 1; succeeded Iwikau in 1863, presented to the Government the mountain peaks in 1887. Died 1888. 4. Te Heuheu Tukino, M.L.C., son of the Park-giver, who died in 1921. 5. Hoani te Heuheu, the present paramount chief, grandson of the Park-giver. I AM THAT MOUNTAIN! .- The Great Te Heuheu impressed white men by his majesty as well as his physical greatness. The central position of his domain, and its unique •topography, helped to mark him out as a Maori apart. Its central mountains and its great inland sea, give Taupo a lofty distinction, and Te Heuheu and his mountains were one. This was no mere figure of speech. . "I am that Mountain," said Te Heuheu to those who asked his permission to climb Tongariro and Ngauruhoe; "you cannot tread on me." Or again: "That Mountain is my ancestor; it is tapu to alien foot." But white people did not understand this as a Fuji-loving Japanese might have understood it. Mr. J. C. Bidwill has left on record how.in 1839, without permission, he climbed Ngauruhoe, claiming to be the first white man who did so. When the Wanganui fighting chief,* Major Kepa te Rangihiwinui, known as Major Kemp, claimed at the Native Land Court in Taupo that certain lands of South Taupo were his because his fires of conquest had burned there, the Great Te Heuheu's son Te Heuheu Horonuku pointed to vapouremitting Ngauruhoe and said: "That is my fire of occupation. Now show me yours!" "It is to this chief Te Heuheu Tukino Horonuku that New Zealand owes the nucleus of the wonderful National Park, but the moving power behind the gift was the late Mr. Lawrence M. Grace, the son of Taupo's pioneer missionary. The Native Land Court at Taupo township in 1886 awarded the mountain peaks of Tongariro, Ngauruhoe, and Ruapehu to Te Heuheu and his family, because of the intimate tapu associations of the mountains and the Heuheus. DOES THE WHITE MAN REALISE HIS TRUST? "The old chief was troubled as to the ultimate fate of his ancestral volcanic peaks. /After I am dead, what will become of these sacred places?' he asked his friend Mr. Grace (who had married his daughter Te Kahui). Mr. Grace suggested that the best plan would be to make them a tapu place of the Crown, a sacred national property under the mana of the Queen. 'Yes,' agreed the chief; 'let them be a gift to the Government, a sacred gift for ever from me and my people.' And so it was done, with all the necessary formalities, and the mountain tops, an area of 6500 acres in all, were deeded to the Crown. "Thus came into being the Tongariro National Park, the area of which was increased from time to time by purchase until it is now a splendid domain of over 150,000 acres. "The Park is a grand memorial to. the noble donor and his line, and as is fitting one of the most beautiful of the peaks in the Park bears the family name. This is the North Peak of Ruapehu, which is mapped as Te Heuheu; it is a perfect pyramid seen from the north, a glorious sight under snow."