TIKITERE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXXIII, Issue 16061, 16 October 1912, Page 5

TIKITERE.

SOME STORIES OF A STRANGE VALLEY. A PLACE OF DESOLATION. /Written for the " Lvtteltou Times" by HAEREERE.) A few days ago, being in the Rotorua Country, I revisited Tikitero. It was curious to observe what littlo cliango the passage of the years has made in this valley of boil and bubble and deso-. lation, this disquieting scar on the face of green Nature. The tourist traffic has vastly altered, even vulgarised, many other parts of Hot Spring Land, but Tikitere remains pretty much as it was perhaps half a century ago. Even tho Tarawera eruption, which quite altered the face of the country a few miles from Tikitere, wrought no alteration in this horrific little corner of the geyser region. Tikitere is one of the very few places where you may still see the told-timo Maori whare, the snugly-thatched little dwelling built of raupo reeds. Nearly everywhere else the Maori settlement is an unpictu.rcsquo collection of weatherboard cottages, sanitary, perhaps, but hideously uncomfortable looking; and in such gainfully up-to-date Native villages as hinemutu and Whakarewarewa you hear the ring of the telephone boll and the tinkle of the time-payment piano. But there are no telephones and no pianos at Tikitere. The little group of whares at the entrance to this infernal park of strange sights and sounds, and weird and wonderful odours,'is puro Maori in construction, and the tall clump of cultivated flax growing behind one of the antique huts tells you that here lives a mat weaver of the olden times. And the venerable brown dame who hobbles out to meet you when you dismount by the.6teaming brown waters of the Muriwai streamlet is in keeping with the uncanny, wizardly look of the place. She is very old and she is hunchbacked, and as she slowly approaches tho pakeha, peering out from under her coloured bead-shawl, grasping her long staff by the middle, she might well be the sorceress of tho enchanted valley. But she is a pleasant-faced old wahino, and cheerfully talkative, and tho only sorcery of which she is guilty is the production by some miraculous means of an excellent cup of tea for tho dusty and tired wayfarer. They are a curious couple who hvo in this little slice of the material Hades, old Alice Takurua and her pakeha bus- ; band, veteran. soldier-man, Paddy j M'Crory. They have lived together here, the guardians of this sulphurous place, for thirty-eight years, and the hot mud-pools haven't swallowed them yet. For a full third of a century Alice—Arihi sbe pronounces it—and Paddy have guided visitors throuch Tikitere, and they are an affectionate old couple. Paddy served in tho Armed Constabulary during the Hauh'au.wars.on the cast and west coasts, and ho must have been a smart young fellow those days, for he is as spry as many a young man, even now. And eld Alice' must have been-quite a sweetfaced Alice in the seventies, for Paddy "cottoned to her" tho moment, he paw her, and here he decided to squat for tho remainder of his days. A curious place to squat in, says the pakeha visitor. But it is an "aisy" living for Paddy, bedad; tho visitors bring cash enough to keep tho pair going in tea and stigar, and flour and meat, and there are praties in tho little patch of garden-ground forninst the whares and the flax clumps, and there are wild pigs to be caught in the bush ouito convenient-like. So after all, Tikitere dors tho white-haired Paddy and his Alice quite well ?nough. THE ORIGIN OF THE TIKITERE * SPRINGS. The venerable priestess of the springs is a mine of local folk-lore if you can get her going. The day I

[ was there sweet Alice was in an uncommonly communicative mood. She ! had a korowni mat to finish—tho long white cloak-like garment of soft white I flax, ornamented with short thrums or " hukahuka" of the same fibre, dyed I hlack with hinau-bark dye—and she erected her " turutnru," or weavingstick, just within the doorway of her littlo thatched hut, and set to work; and as she worked she chatted, and now and again sang a littlo song of olden days. She made an interesting picture of vanishing Maoridom, that old damo weaving after tho fashion of her ancestors. After a while Alice laid her work aside, and the pakeha ■filled her pipe for her, and the old pirl told the legend of the origin of these springs, as she had heard it from her elders of the Ngati-Rangiteaorcre; and this is how it went: i Long, long ago, a great many generations ago, when this land of Aotea-roa was_ still a very new and wild and wondorful land to the Maori immigrants from far Hawaiki. there came to these shores from tho distant Isles of the Sea two priestesses, sisters, by name Kuiawai and Haungaroa. Thev landed on the coast of the Bay of'Plenty, and they wandered inland, exploring the country and performing various wonderful deeds, such as Polynesian wise women were wont to do. With them came their brother, a man named Tane-whakaraka. He was a great birdsnearer and snarer, and when he reached these parts he found with delight that the woods and hills hereabouts abounded in birds of all kinds—pigeons, kaka parrots, tui, bell-birds, kokako—oh, it was a grand place for the birdhunter ! So off to the hills above there, the blue, wooded range of Whakapoungakau. went Tane-whakaraka, trailing his long bird-spear and carrvjng his cunningly-made kaka-snares. Ho bade his sisters remain hero in their camp at Tikitere. which at that remote time had no boiliinr springs or spouting mud-holes. " Romain vou here," he said '-'and I shall bring you the spoils of the forest."

Long the sisters waited, dav after day; a moon they waited, and still Tano, their brother, came not: Perhaps ho had been slain in the forest, or perished by accident. Or haply he had wandered on and found a' homo to his liking amongst the "tangatawhemm," tho orici'tial people of the land_. and had forgotten his promise to liis sisters. They knew not "what had happened. At last they decided to return t«( tho coast and to their old home, in far Fawaiki. They struck camp and departs . but before thev did so they crcatcd these boiling sprines of Tikitere, as wai-ariki or bathing pools, wherein Tnne should be able to lavo his tired limbs when he returned from the great forest. Thev repeated their most powerful incantations, and called upon Ruaimoko, the God of Volcanoes, to send forth his hidden fires, and Ru' did so, and these springs burst forth; and so to-day you see bore these ever-boiling puias and ngawhns. the vast cauldrons of Tikitere. And so tho weird sisters went their ways, leaving the tall columns of steam that ever ascent from this valley of wonders as,a sign and a euiding-mark for their lost brothec Heoi anof That's all about it, and now you know how tho Tikitere got its hot springs. A perfectlv satisfactory explanation that of the thermal marvels hereabout. But one tempted to remark that the dilatory Tane-whakaraka would have required the constitution of a Salamander to have bathed in all these springs. Tho temperature of yon rrreafc pool of muddy greyish water called Huri-tini, for instance, has been ascertained to be considerably over 200 deg Fahrenheit. And the unctuously boiling cauldrons of horrible mud look even hotter. Plowever, no doubt, Tanc, if he ever returned, wisely contented himsslf with sampling the grateful and comforting warm waters of .tho little Muriwai stream, which carries off the outflow of the springs. For generations past tho Maoris have bathed therein for relief from many complaints of tho skin and .the joints and muscles, and not a few

pakeha» have been cured of rheumatism after a 'course of baths under tho care of Paddy and his sweet Alice. THE TRAGEDY OF HURI-TINI. There is a story, too, touching that horrible-looking cauldron called HuriTini, the " Ever-Circling." Sometimes clouds of sulphurous vapour completely hide the infernal brown broth, heaving and surging with tremendous heat; then they are blown aside, and you shudder with horror at the thought of what would happen if the narrow bunk of sulphur on which you stand were v/» suddenly cavo in. But long ago a Maori woman found courage to leap into that seven-times heated lake of brimstone. Her name was Kaiwha, and she lived hero seven generations ago. Her husband decided to discard her and to take her younger sister to wife. Kaiwha, crazed with grief and wounded love, resolved to end all her troubles in Huri-Tini. She was " whakamomori " —desperate with sorrow—says Old Alice. She stripped off her garments on Huri-Tini's sulphur bank, and then, chanting her own lament, sho threw herself into tho awful pool below. Such was the dreadful end of poor Kaiwha. One hopes bor fieklo husband had bad dreams at nig'.i for the rest of his life. Other folk-storios there aro in abundance around Tikitero and its eversteaming lakelets of brown water and oily mud, its hot waterfalls, and its brilliant patches of yellow sulphur and red ochre. Just on the opnosito side of tho sulphur bridge, which Paddy, the guide, has christened "The Gates of Hell," there is a small shallow cavo, once much larger, half-hidden by tho steam from another groat boiling pool. In that cavo was once a place of Refuse for tho women and children of Tikitero when war-parties invaded their valley. It was a secure hiding-place for few would suspect its existenco in that dangerous place, and if attacked two or three men could have held the ; narrow approach against a large party '■ a.- foe m , And close "J'. i« st whoro ! Alice Takurua. boils her little kettle to-day, tho man-eaters of old used to boil their enemies in the hot springs. No fires were needed in Tikitere. And ! those soaring steam-clouds lifting high above tho springs were clouds of omt , long ago, and they arc weather-signs to-day. When the people of Mokoia Island or Te Ngae or the Rotoiti settlements wished to set out fishing on the lakes or to go on expeditions to Maketu, on tho coast, for sea-fish-ing, they would first tako note of tho loftiest steam-column rising from Tikitere's hidden valley. If the vapourpillar roscr up straight and unswayed to tho sky, and remained steady," it : was a favourable " tohu," or sign; the i weather would bo fine, and they could ! safely go a-fishing in their 'cances. But if the steam-cloud, after rising some distance, was deflected towards the earth again, it was a sign that windwas abroad,; and perchance a gale brewing, and the fishers would remain ashore that day and perhaps the next, such were the " tohus " of Tikitero. in the days of old,