THE TAPU ON THE HILLS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19702, 30 July 1927, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE TAPU ON THE HILLS

AN OLD AUCKLAND STORY.

BY FERGUS, DUNLOP.

When Captain D'Urville, of the French ship " Astrolabe," dropped anchor in the Waitemata in the year 1827, he seems to have been the second navigator to set eyes upon this harbour. The only record of an earlier vessel is that of the small colonial schooner, Prince Regent, from Port Jackson, which sailed through the Rangitoto entrance and down the Waiheke channel in 1820. The French captain must have combined an inquiring turn of mind and love of adventure with considerable physical fitness, for in his ramblings he covered quite a lot of ground. Ho ascended Mount Victoria, at that time called by the natives Takapuna, and from it obtained a general view of the surroundings. He saw little signs of native settlement, for the isthmus had been, but a few years before, the scene of Hongi's devastating and depopulating raids. He saw smoke arising here and there from " kaingas " in scattered bays and inlets, and would have noticed the large deserted settlements at Kohimaramara and Orakei. The bush-clad summit of Maungawhau (Mt. Eden) attracted the Frenchman's notice, and he determined to ascend it, and explore the abandoned fortifications, whose outlines would have been fairly visible from where he stood. A day or two later, he landed with a party at a place that, as nearly as one can judge by description, would be Hobson's Bay, and attempted the ascent of the mountain. But his party had no luck that day. They got lost in the swamp? and forests that occupied the present site of Newmarket, and were compelled to abandon the attempt and return wet, tired, and disappointed to the ship. From Tamaki to the Manukau. Captain D'Urville then went into the Tamaki River, and following by boat up to its beginning, found the portage from Tamaki to the Manukau, a broad and well-worn roadway through which the Maoris were wont to drag their canoes in journeyings to and from the Waikato. But the aspect of Captain D'Urville's visit that concerns our present purpose was the fact that he found all the volcanic hills, that evidence so plainly a numerous population in days gone by, abandoned, deserted, and overgrown with bush and fern. It was evident that they had not been occupied or used for long. The fact was that they had been uninhabited for many generations, since the day famous in Maori legend,'the day when all the pas were taken, and carnage was so grim and great that even the savage heart of the barbarian was appalled, and a tapu was laid on the mountains. Of that day we will tell.

Now, in times long ago, One Tree Hill bore the name of " Totara-i-hua," and the name of the people that owned it, and the surrounding countryside (as well as the pas), Remuera (singed gar r ment), Maungarei (Mt. Wellington), and Maungawhau (Mt. Eden) was VVai-o-hua, the people of Hua. For Hua had been a great chief and lord of all Tamaki and the isthmus; but he had been dead several generations at the time of which wo speak (say two hundred and fifty years ago) and his descendants, in peace and plenty, occupied these places. The Woman in the Case. The cause of their downfall was a bandy-legged woman. The woman came into the matter in this wise. She was a woman of Waikato and had married a chief of the people of the Hauraki Gulf. Now in Waikato she had a carved store house, doubtless an ornamental possession that had been in the family for generations, and nothing would satisfy the lady but that tlxo carved house should be removed to her new home at the Thames. Her husband, therefore, with his father Kahu, made the long journey to Waikato, and, taking down the store house, put it in a canoe, and brought it across the portages from the Waikato River to the Manukau Harbour, aiid from the Manukau to Tamaki.

The labour would have been heavy, and though Kahu and his son were doubtless assisted by a strong retinue of slaves and friends, they must have heartily cursed Hape the bandy-legged as thdy pushed and hauled the heavy war canoes, laden with the dismantled store house, over the long portages. But worse was to follow, for the Waiohua people at the last fell upon them at Otahuhu, massacred the party, and took possession of the goods. Hape, now a widow, berefit of husband, father-in-law and store house, no doubt wept bitterly, but before long recovered her composure so far as to marry her husband's younger brother, one Rautao, a warrior of name, and a mighty man of valour. To him she wept for vengeance. Rautao seems to have been slow to anger, and lent no sympathetic ear to Hape's complainings. Probably he did not like bandy-legged women, and had married her merely as a"matter of domestic convenience and social duty. Probably the Waiohua chief was rather a crony of his. However that may be, it was not until his friends and his relations, amazed at his inaction, openly and in public meeting twitted him with his lack of family pride, that the giant bestirred himself. When at last he did so, he did so to some purpose. . „ ■ Happy Ever After.

Collecting overwhelming forces, he took, in one day, all the pas on the isthmus and wiped out altogether the Waiohua people, so that the land knew them no more, and, even to this day, their fortresses stand empty and abandoned, memorials of a people of whom now there is no trace. RautaC' is said to have commenced the campaign by kill ing, with his own hand and singlehanded, the two most notable toas, or champions, of the defending side. But though Rautao had made so thorough a job of the wOrk of vengeance upon the peoplo of Hua, honour was not yet satisfied, for it remained to wipe out tho insults of his friends and relations. Rautao was unwilling to slay them, but it was clear that they must be handsomely punished, lie returned the insult to them again by a trick. It is an intolerable insult to a rangatira that ho should be soiled by the steam of cooking, the bright mirror -of his honour must be sullied by no such obscene vapour. Rautao assembled all his quondam friends, iri a meeting house as guests at a feast. Behind veils of matting at the far end were concealed the ovens filled with food. At a signal from Rautao, after the guests were seated, down came the mats, up went the coverings of the ovens, and the whole apartment was instantly dark and heavy with the savoury steam, through the folds of which the horrorstricken guests perceived the grinning face of Rautao. " Pray, do not mind the steam, friends," quoth Rautao cheerily, " Let us fall to the feast. Insults are quits, so let's be friends." And so, between jest ana . earnest, old hurts were forgotten and forgiven, and Rautao settled down again in peace to enjoy the society of Ilape of the bandy legs. He was a great cultivator, and in his day is said to have had all the arable land in the district under cultivation.