THE SWIMMER.

Otago Witness, Issue 3783, 14 September 1926, Page 26

THE SWIMMER.

MAORI FOLK-TALE OF LAKE TAUPO. A GREATER FEAT THAN HINEMOA’S.

By

James Cowan.

We have several recorded instances of remarkable swimming performances by Maori women, who seem to have been even more expert in the water than the men, and to have been capable of wonderful long-distance swims, under the impulse of some great stress. Once I told in the Otago Daily Times the story of Te Rauo-te-Rangi’s wonderful swim from Kapiti Island to the mainland near Waikanae, with her little daughter on her shoulders. This will remain, probably, the greatest feat of the kind in New Zealand waters, for it was an ocean swim, across a current-swept, shark-infested strait. Here is the story of another heroic swimmer, which has never been previously told in print. I imagine this long-ago heroine could achieve the English Channel crossing were she on the scene to-day. There lived in a stockaded village on the north shore of Lake Taupo, some 200 years ago, a young* and beautiful woman whose name was Rau-wbato. She was the wife of Turiroa Tuwharetoa—not the great founder of the Ngati-Tuwharetoa tribe of Taupo, but a descendant and namesake—and there was one child of the union, an infant boy. Rau-whato was probably about 25 years old at this time. The home of the pair, with their little clan, was Poniu Pa,—a steep cliffy mound on the eastern side of Rangatira Point, that hilly peninsula which you see looking southwest across the northern bay of the lake from Taupo township. Fern-grown, long deserted, the defence works of Poniu fort can still be traced. Not far away, at the headland, there is a lakeside cave, at the foot of the cliffs. This, too, i 9 a scene in this story. Rau and her husband lived happily there in their lakeside home until one black day there came a war party from the Waikato. This was a man-slaving and man-eating expedition led by the chief Whiti-patato, a name of renown in those parts. Whiti was an ancestor of the Paerata family, of Orakau Pa fame. The leader of the war party cautiously scouted the place, and reconnoitered from the high hill approaches to the village. His warriors lay in wait behind the hill until night fell, when he led them to the surprise attack, and the peaceful village was. all in a moment a fearful arena of slaughter. The invaders fell like a hurricane on the helpless lakemen, yelling, spearing, clubbing. Most of the men were killed, the women captured. Such of the children as were not killed were reserved for captivity. Rau-whato and her husband escaped from the ravaged village to the beach below, where they took refuge in a shallow cave near the point. This, however, was no place for security; the victors were scouting for them, and, as it proved, they knew of the cave. Turiroa realised that he would not escape death, but he was determined that his wife and little son should not share his dreadful fate. There was no canoe there, and none could be reached by his wife, but he knew how powerful a swimmer she was. “Wife of mine,’’ he said, “take you our child and swim to yonder shore, to your mother’s home.’’ He pointed through the gloom to the opposite shore line, the eastern coast of the lake. “You will reach it, for you are strong, and I shall fasten the child on your shoulders.” Hurriedly the mother’s waist-mat was bound upon her shoulder.s as a pad on which the little child could rest and keep its face above the water. Turiroa pressed his nose to his wife’s nose and to his child’s in farewell. They wept tears of agony, the husband and wife, for death was verj? near. Then Rau-whato turned and entered the dark water, and when it came to her breast she began her long swim for two lives. And behind her the lone chief of Poniu stood reciting a prayer to the gods for the safety of his wife and son. For himself it wa9 useless, for the victors, with horrible cries of blood madness, were already rushing down to the cave.

Whiti-patato entered the shallow cavern by the waterside. In his hand was his sharp-edged stone club, or mere. ‘ Come forth,” he shouted. Turiroa calmly accepted his fate. He asked whose war party it was, and when tho answer came that is was a “taun" to avenge the death of a certain chief—the story is too long to be brought in here—he simply said: “It is a just cause,” and he bowed bis head for the death-stroke.

Out yonder in the dark, cold lake the heroic mother i 9 cleaving the waters with strong, iteady strokes. The brave little boy does not cry or whimper; his mother turns her head now and again to give him a word of love and encouragement. She pauses in her swimming to float while she sets her mind to recite a “Karakia” to the god 9 for power to sustain her in her effort—a charm-song that is still remembered among her descendants. She invokes the powers of Nature to shorten the distance to the farther shore. Thus she puts forth her appeal to the spirit world, and she swims on again with sure and confident strokes. She will live; she will save her child; for she is an Ariki-tamwha—she is the sacred chief of all the beings that haunt the waters. Ahead, life and succour; behind her the fire 9 of the blazing village send «an awful glow across the calm lake waters.

So swimming, resting now and then, the brave mother at last approached the dark, looming cliffs near Te Kowhai-a-Taku, that high point which you may see on the eastern shore by Lake Taupo looking due south from Taupo Township. Here at Wharewaka, five miles from where she began her swim, she came to a flat rock. There she drew herself up and rested. She unfastened her poor little child from its place on her shoulders, and she chafed and warmed ; ts cramped body and limbs, and «ho wept over it, mingled tears of grief and joy, rnd then set out along the beach and ud the hill to Te Tara-o-te-Marama Pa. In that strong hill village dwelt Rau’s mother, a chief woman named Hine Kaharoa. In the midnight hours, the refugee called to the people as she stood at the gateway, and she and the child were in the home of warmth and love again. And Rau-whato lived to marry train and bear more children. Her third husband,

Weiewere was more fortunate than the other two, for he did not fall in battle. The pair were the progenitors of some of the present families of Taupo; it was one of their descendants who told me the story at Taupo. And the little boy, saved by the devotion of his parents and the strength of body and greatness of heart of his mother, was given the name Te Urunga, meaning “The Pillow,” in memory of that swim for life, for his mother s garment fastened on her sholders was the pillow on which he was borne to safety and life. Hinemoa, of romantic memory, swam two miles across Lake Rotorua to her lover. Rau-whato swam at least five miles. And Hinemoa aid not carry a baby on her shoulders.