KIHAROA THE GIANT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18465, 28 January 1922, Page 17

KIHAROA THE GIANT

A TALE OF THE OLD KING COUNTRY. (By James Cowan, F.R.G.S.) . No part .of the- one-time Maori country is richer in legend and folk-story than tho district through which the old Aukati line ran, the boundary in 1864 between tjie confiscated lands of Waikato .and the territory of the Kingites. 'The.Puniu River;, was the border line for many miles. (To-day it is a frontier of a different kind: south of it for more than a hundred miles the Rohepotae continues nominally “ dry ”). Roughly parallel with the historic stream and on its south side there is _ a . series of remarkable landscape salients, the boldly shaded volcanic cones of Kakapuku, Te Kawa, Tokanui, and other heights of similar origin, seeming to mount guard over the old Kingite pale. Midway in this series of ancient fire-moun-tains are the three small volcanic lulls called. Tokanui: the old frontier settlers called, them the “ Three Sisters.” -They are greatly tattooed and carven in the lines of immjemorial forts. ; On the crown of the land at Whenuahou, immediately north of the triple mounds, where the rich land lies beautifully to the sun, is a spot called Kiharoa, famous in the so-far unwritten traditions of the King Country border. Here it was proposed by some of the Kingite _ chiefs in . 1864, after the British occupation of the Waipa basin, that a fort should be built for a final stand against the Queen’s soldiers. The position commanded a wide view over this valley - of tho Puniu "and the conquered lands north of that river, but it would have been useless without a sufficient garrison to hold also the hill-forte in rear of and above it. The suggestion was not favoured by Rewi and the other loaders, and tho warriors recrossed-- the Puniu to tho north side and built Orakau Pa. Long ago, riding along Ahe old horse track to Otorohanga past Hopa to Eangiariini’s little village at Whenuahou, wo .used to see the Giant’s Grave, as it was called. This locally famous landmark was a; shallow excavation . on a ferny mound; it was 12ft or 14ft fin length and about 4ft. in width, and vague traditions had grown up around it, but none of the European settlers of the frontier knew anything definite of its history. Lately, however, I. gathered the story of this semi-mythic giant of old from two venerable warriors of . the Ngati-Maniapoto tribe. '• . ’There certainly seems to have been a veritable giant, a man of unusual stature and length of reach with the handweapons of those days, six generations ago, and his heroic size has grown with the lapse of time. This Kiharoa, or “ The Long Gasping Breath,” was a chief of the Ngati-Raukawa and Ngati-Whaka-tere tribes, who in those times owned the Tokanui hills and the surrounding slopes.The strong terraced and trenched p& on Tokanui, the middle conical hill of tire “Three Sisters,” was built by the two tribes named under Kiharoa, about 150. years ago. The same people fortified and occupied the other two hills: the eastern one is Puke-rimußed Pine Hill ”) and the western Whiti-te-Marama (“The Shining of the Moon”). There were many good fighting - men among the people of these hill forts, but their tower of strength was Kiharoa,. who stood hugely over his fellows; he was twice the height of an ordinary man—so declare the Maoris—and he wielded a taiaha of unusual length and weight, a hardwood ■weapon called by the name of “ Rangihaeata (“ The First Rays of Morning Light ”). Many a battle he had fought successfully with, this great blade-and-tongue broadsword, sweeping every opponent out of his path. Kiharoa was tattooed on body as well as face, and when he leaped into battle, whirling “Rangihaeat” from, side to side in guard and feint and cut, his blue tattooed skin glistening with oil- and rgd ochre, his glaring eyes darting flame, his moko-scrolled features distorted with fury, few there were brave enough to face him. But there camo a day when- Kiharoa met Ms better. The tribe, whose great fortress was Totorewa, an impregnable cliff-walled pa on the Waipa River, raised a feud against the Ngati-Raukawa and Ngabi-Whakatire, and a war party set out under tho chief Wahanui, who himself was a man of large frame, though no giant like Kiharoa. The army took a circuitous route, coming upon the Tokanui hills from the south via Manga-o-Rongo and then making a detour to the east to avoid a deep morass which defended the s6uthcrn-cnd of the Three Sisters—the pifesent main Toad from Kihikihi to-Gtoeo--hanga traverses tMs now partly-drained swamp. Meanwhile the garrisons in the hill forts had prepared for'war, and their sentinels stood on the alert on the tihi or citadel- of the terraced strongholds keeping keen watch for the expected enemy. Harua, one of the chiefs of thei forts, had descended to the plain with a small party before tho approach of the foe was detected, and although the people on the hill called repeatedly to-him to warn him to return, no heed was given 1 to the shouts. - At length a sentry saw the glisten of a weapon in the western sun; the, direction was well to the east of the pa, and by that token it was plain that the enemy array was lying in ambush waiting to advance silently in the night. It was imperative that Harua and his men outside the pa should be warned, and so in the still watches of tho night a strong-lunged warrior on the battlements of Tokanui lifted up his voice. in a Whakaaraara pa or sentinel chant. , The cry of warning was- hoard and understood by Harua. and he and his scouts swiftly rejoined their friends on the hill-tops. When day came the war party of Ngati-Maniapoto appeared, working round to the north-east side of the Tokanui chain of forts. Kiharoa the giant, stripped for the battle* tiook up his taiaha, “The First Ray of Morning Light,” and led his warriors down to the open elopes of Whemiahou to give battle. As he dashed down the hill he ran through a grove of karaka trees. Hero there was a poo! where the kernels of the karaka berries were prepared for food by being steeped ( in water. There were some dead leaves of the karaka lying on the tracks, and Kiharoa slipped on these leaves as he ran and fell, narrowly escaping breaking his taiaha in his fall. Tne spot is at the foot of Tokanui Hill, where thickets of prickly acacia now clothe -the silent old fortress with a, mat of green. This accident was in the belief of the Maori a tohua aitua or evil omen for Kiharoa. The knowledge of this- fact may have unnerved the giant, or “ Rangihaeata’s ” maria may have suffered by tho mishap. He rushed to meet his foes, but he was outfought for all his phenomenal reach of arm. He fell pierced with spear thrusts and battered with blows of stone clubs, and ho lay dpad on the battlefield of Whenuahou., The Tokanui people were defeated; they fled’ in panic when their gigantic chieftain fell, and many were killed on the field. The survivors, however, held their forts successfully. Ngati-Maniapoto contented themselves with the dead, which; would provide many ovens of prime man meat, and most of all they were rejoiced to find they had vanquished the giant Kiharoa. They gathered round in amazement to measure his height and his giant limbs; and on the spot, where he.lay marks wore cut at head and feet to indicate his. length. His enormous tattooed,' head was cut off and .preserved by being dried over a fire made with mahoe and other woods which gave forth a pungent mpoko, and presently was carried home to Totorewa to decorate the palisade at the gateway of the fort. His body was cut up and cooked and eaten where he fell, and there the excavation remained to mark his great stature. He was two fathoms long and a foot over—such is the Native account! This is about the length of- the place wo used to call “ The Giant’s Grave.” on the crown of the hill below Puko-rimu. the eastern hill of, the Sisters. And the battlefield was divided among tho victors and later becahie the home of a section of tho Ngati-Matakore tribe, of whom my old warrior acquaintances Hauanrn and Hopa te Rangianini were the chiefs in the’ days of my boyhood within sight of tho terrace-carved “Three Sisters.” Such is the story of the giant’s grave—a misnomer assuredly, seeing that Kiharoa’s tomb was the stomachs of his

slayers. The Tokanui village hall standsWithiia - revolver shot *t>f" the place where.Kiharoa came to his end, and the community creamery stands at_ the cross-, : roads where once .Wahanui’s cannibal ; army plied; spear and 'mere and taiaha on the defenders, of the. triple hill, forts. Two miles to the east is the Waikeria prison farm. It rwas in,, that direction* at Tundroa, that Wahanui and. his army lay in the fern the night before the battle. There was another giant of these in the days before the white man came. This was Matauj. he was, like Kiharoa, a man, of the Ngati-Eaukawa tribe. He was lift high, according tb;,the legend; the narrators abate riot a single inch. He was a dreaded warrior, and —like Kiharoa again—his favourite was the taiaha. His homte was a palisaded hold on a cliff above the cave called Te Ana? Kaitangata (“The Cannibal’s Gave’’), which you may see in a rocky face iri tlie gorge towards the head of the stream Wairaka, which joins the Puniu River a few miles beyond Onikau. The entrance to this cave is still marked with the paint kokowai or red ochre; that is how you will know it to-day. It Was an excellent place (my Maori friends. assure me) t fin which to lie - in wait for incautious travellers in the days of .old.