THE HAUNTED WHARE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3829, 2 August 1927, Page 32

THE HAUNTED WHARE.

THE MAORI FACE AT THE WINDOW. By James Cowan. It is a wild gale-swept place at this time of the year. Four thousand feet ibove sea-level, it is snowed under sometimes for weeks, and the icy winds from Ruapehu’s snowfields and glaciers come roaring through the lava gorges and gullies and soughing and wailing through the mountain-beech forests that survive at

these sub-alpine altitudes. Snow-born rivers come cascading down from Ruapehu’s western and north-western flanks to join the headwaters of the Wanganui. Close to the high-wooded banks of the largest of these rivers, the Whakapapanui, the Haunted Whare stands. To thewest the rough pumice and lava country slopes down to the Waimarino plain ; to the north-east, six miles away, Ngauruhoe volcano lifts its ever-steaming, sometimes heavily smoking, cone, 7500 ft in the air. If you come here about Christmas time you will find the plains and the lower parts of the mountains up to about the 5000 ft level a wonderful garden of alpine flowers. The celmisia grows on all the mountain slopes, except Ngauruhoe, whose steep scoria slants, periodically dusted over wit«ii ash from the fuming crater, discourage plant growth. On the plain the dainty bluebell (wahlenbergia) spangles the waving tussock and grass ; blue and white veronicas are everywhere, even up into

Tongariro’s shattered crater basins; and that most charming of sub-alpine blos-

soms, the sweet little gentian, is here in millions. The tussock hillocks and slopes about the Haunted Whare are a picture for a flower painter any time from November to the end of January.

Set on a grassy mound with a dark ‘ clump of beechwoods, the native tawai at , its back, the lonely whare peers out at ' you with its one window as you approach. It is a small corrugated-iron hut, a single room, with the ordinary type of bush chimney ; a big fireplace takes up all one end of the hut. Sometimes alpine sports campers still use it, though it is nearly half a century old. But they go in parties; no one is anxious to spend a night alone in the Haunted Whare. It was early in 1880 that a Maori shepherd named Rawiri Ketu built a slab hut at the Whakapapanui, about a quarter of a mile from the river. Rawiri was in the employ of Mr L. M. Grace, ho, with his brother, Mr J. E, Grace, of Tokaanu, managed the just-started sheep farming enterprise in the Tongariro country. The owners of the flocks were land owners and sheep farmers from the south—Messrs Studholme, Moorhouse, and Morrin, and the Grace brothers—sons of the pioneer missionary of Taupo, the Rev. Thomas Samuel Grace—were then agents in the negotiations with the Native owners of the soil. Large areas of the waste land around the mountains, including what is now the Tongariro National Park, were secured on lease from the Maoris, headed by the chief, Te Heuheu Tukino. From Lake Roto-a-Ira, in the north, to the great pumice plain of the Rangipo on the south, merino flocks brought from Hawke’s Bay were depastured. The hut built by Rawiri was presently occupied by a young shepherd named Wi Takerei, a ’Maori about 24 years of age. who belonged to the Ngati-Waewae tribe, of Roto-a-Ira. Another shepherd, R. B. Maunsell—nephew of the Ven. Archdeacon Maunsell, a veteran missionary of the Waikato — was stationed at a camp called Te Rurunga, more to the north. Mr L. M. Grace lived at Pukawa, on the shore of Lake Taupo. Food supplies were taken out to the shepherds by packhorse from the home station.

It was a solitary life for Wi Takerei, in that lone hut in the wilds, the dark wizardly-looking forest on the south, the rumbling volcano smoking its volcanic pipe above him. Most Maoris avoided that part of the volcanic country. To their minds it was an abode of spirits and mysterious wild people of the bush. There were “patu-paiarehe” there, an uncouth unfriendly tribe of fairy beings, whose legendary chief was a dread being named Te Ririo. There were spirit voices in the gales and in the creaking of the ancient trees in the bush —voices of “atua” and “kehua.” Wi Takerei exhibited more than ordinary courage, unusual indifference to the affrighting sounds of the wilderness, when he agreed to live there without any human companionship. Just about this time of the year in 1860 there were uncommonly heavy falls of snow in the Tongariro region, and for some weeks Wi Takerei did not go out to his fellow-shepherd's station. In August, when the weather moderated, Maunsell and a Maori set out for the Whakapapanui camp to look up the lonely shepherd. Wi Takerei had two dogs, deerhounds, with a kangaroo-hound cross. These dogs were on guard outside the slab hut. They were wild and restless, and for a time they would not let the searchers approach the whare. When at last Maunsell and his Maori mate were able to enter the hnt, they found Wi Takerei lying on the floor, dead. He was clothed only in his shirt. One of his eyes was missing. Maunsell sent his companions off to the Maori people in the villages at Otukou and Papakai and at the Roto-aJra, and informed Mr Grace of the mysterious tragedy. The Maoris came out for Wi’s body, burned the whare and all its contents, and buried the dead shepherd at Roto-a-lra. The cause of Wi’s death was never ascertained. Now it was re ported that the lonely, desolate spot in which the whare stood was haunted by the ghost of a young woman who had come to a violent end near there and the people were disposed to think <hat the • “ kehua ” or apparition or wraith of this girl had something to do with the young shepherd’s death. If was said that perhaps the “kehua” had plucked out Wi’s ey«.

"Mohoao," or wild foresters, too, were talked ci in fearful tones. The story of this girl is shrouded in mystery ; often 1 have inquired the circumstances of her death, but never has there been any satisfactory answer. Maybe she is a myth. When the whare of death was burned down by the Maoris anothei one was built by Mr J. E. Grace and an assistant .1 little further to the east and close to the bush. This is the hut now popularly called the Haunted Whare. It is about a quarter of a mile from the spot where the original hut stood. It was of iron, ■with a roof of shingles. Soon after the new hut was erected it was occupied for a time by some members of a surveying party under Mr Clavton, engaged in Government work around the mountains. An assistant surveyor named Springall and his Maori wife and another Native woman were camped there some time towards the end of 1883. There was a heavy fall of snow, and for some days the weather kept them in the whare. One gloomy afternoon they were playing cards-on the slab table at the window when suddenly Ngea, the white man’s wife, looking up, saw a face at the-'window. The face was that of a young Maori woman, of a handsome and fair tvne. Tier expression

was one of unutterable sadness. Just a moment the apparition was at the window.

then it vanished. At the same time the inmates of th? whare beard the Maori does whining and barking outside. Both the women were so startled by the face at the window that they fell to the floor, fainting. The man ran outside, but there was no sign of anyone. There were no footprints on the snow. Spring

hall searched about the place to the edge of the bush in vain. He called his dogs, and returned to the whare to attend to the terrified women.

In whispers the frightened women described the apparition. It was a “kchua” ! Springhall hung a thick shawl over the window and lighted candles.

They discussed the appearance of the sadfaced, great-eyed "urukehu” vision. “Urukehu” means “fair hair” : there is a pure Maori type with light complexion and a ruddy, almost golden tinge in the hair.

Who was she? This question was debated there in the snow-bound hut. and afterwards in the villages of the Roto-a-Ira and Papakai folk. Th conclusion came to was that the spirit of the girl was looking for her lost lover. Perhaps it was Wi Takerci she sought ; perhaps some other loved one. Who knows? At any rate there co ’1 be no doubt that some spirit-face looked in at the window that dark and stormy afternoon.

The Springall party did not remain much longer in the whare. It stood deserted for a while. Then an old exArined Constabulary man named It .derick Gray was stationed there a- shepherd. Gray was an uncommon character, a recluse, who venerated the sacred mountains as the Maoris did. lie was a Nor” of Ireland man, the son of a dergyman. He had gone out to India when a young man as a subaltern in a British regiment. The effects of a sunstroke compelled him to resign his commission, and he came to New Zealand for his health. Here he . served in the Militia and then in the Armed Constabulary at Taupo. Though he took a billet as shepherd, he w an educated man; the lonely life suite his studious, contemplative temperament. About ISB3 Gray went out to fte Whakapapa end of the big sheep run, and made the Haunted Whare his quarters. It was not long before he began to see visions in that place of eerie wilderness sounds. When he went out to t’ e other camps on his sheep-tending duties, he told curious yarns about the strange people of the Whakapapa. One day, he said, he saw a wild woman near the hut ; as soon as she saw him she ran into the bush. He searched for her, but there was no sign of anyone. Then, said Roderick, a mysterious “Mohoao” woman, perhaps the same wild woman, visited him se.-ral times at the Haunted Whare. On wet, cold day he would come into the hut and sit bj the fire and talk to him. He supposed she came from the bush, and disappeared in it again. She was not an ordinary Maori woman; she was uncanny. A “kel.ua?'’ Again, who knows? One morning Roderick left the Whare to go to the Rurunga out-station, a few miles up northward. He had to cross the Whakapapanui on the way. When he reached the ford he saw that the river was in flood. But before he came to it ■ the fair apparition overto k him and , j warned him not to attempt the crossing.

‘Do not go into the river,' the woman said ; “if yon do you will be drowned.” Roderick did not pay attention to the warning, but again the mystery woman said over his shoulder: “Do not go into the river.” When he turned round she had disappeared, fie looked at the swollen ri' - er roaring through the gully, and, like a wise man, he obeyed the mystic warning and returned to the whare. The old shepherd lived many more months at one camp and another in the , Tongariro country he loved. Many nights he spent in the haunted whare, reading his Bible or some classic he had made his life’s companion; listening to the voices of the gale outside and the shrapnel of the hail volleying on his shingle roof; and piling on the tawai logs in the big fireplace. The last time he was in these parts was about. 1901. I saw him in that year at Tokaanu, coming in with a swag on his back, a grey old patriarch of the bills. * ■* * * And when the sheep station was given up—partly because of the losses of sheep in that most rugged lava country, full of gorges and precipices, and partly because of the depredations of the wild native dogs that roved the high plateau — the legends of “atua” and “kenua” and wild people of the bush lost nothing in the retelling. The haunted whare stood

there unteuanted, never entered bv *a Maori, though - there were occasional ijakehas who sought shelter there, regardless of ghostly legends. There grew up an accretion of mountaineers’ tales about the place. The merry companies of trampers and ski-sportsmen and women who enliven these parts in holiday time and come up for the “snowmanship” diversions in late winter have, perhaps, routed the last-lingering “kehua” of the Whakapapanui. Nevertheless, you will .be told that if you care to spend a night alone in the whare you may be rewarded —if you care for that kind of reward—with the midnight vision of a mournful woman’s face at the window, the wan bush girl seeking her lost lover.