The Delectable Land of Taiamai

Te Ao Hou, December 1956, Page 19

The Delectable Land of Taiamai by Anaru Tracing place names in the Taiamai district is like a game of general post. For Taiamai is now Ohaeawai, and Ohaeawai is now Ngawha, and Ngawha has to make do with being called Ngawha Springs. But Taiamai, the very “tino o Taiamai” is still there, solid as the rock it is, but neglected and almost forgotten by all but a few of the old people and chance visitors. cattle on Mr Ken Ludbrook's farm at Ohaeawai, about 600 yards behind the Post Office. It is roughly 12 feet high, and as much through. It is Taiamai now stands amongst the sheep and a solid block of lava with an overhang towards the north, and apparently not too securely based on an east-west axis that is narrower than the body of the stone. Under the northern overhang is the smooth surface of an ancient fracture, but most of the rest of the surface is pitted and furrowed in the shape of the original molten rock. Apart from the smooth fracture surface, Taiamai wears a coat of grey-green lichen. The upper surface of the northern aspect has two channels about an inch and a half wide, two inches deep and two feet from top to bottom. There are also a number of other variations which in a softer material would look like water channels. The western side has a deep chair-shaped depression, with the seat at about half the height of the rock, with the back rising almost to the full height. At the back rising of the chair, on rainy days, is a minute precipitous waterfall which tumbles steeply from cup-shaped pool to pool and then drains across the seat to the ground. Depressions on the top and sides hold water, and tufts of alien vegetation—hawkbits, grass, shepherd's purse and inkweed—grow here and there in the hollows. Most of the Taiamai area is volcanic, and lava flows, scoria and general volcanic detritus, form the landscape. Taiamai stands out, in a field bedevilled with stones, because of its great size and its isolation above ground. This is the Taiamai that the curious may see at the expense of a stroll across the paddock. It takes imagination in a workaday world, perhaps, to see it as the heart and essence of a famous and beautiful countryside. Legend has it that the first polynesian immigrants to sight it found that two pigeons had preceded them from Hawaiki, and were already drinking water from the pool at the top. When the land about it was cleared hundreds of years ago the pigeons were so numerous about Taiamai that their wings filled the air with a sound like the waves of the sea—hence, say the old people, the name of Taiamai. In days gone by the tapu stone was regarded as the spirit and essence of the whole area, and its mana was prodigious. It is still so regarded by older people, but their juniors are largely unaware of its existence. When the great Te Wera Hauraki was buried on Te Ahuahu mountain, his burial place—whether by chance or design seems now to be forgotten was placed to look across the “delectable lands of Taiamai”. Even today anyone with the wind and the will to climb to Te Wera's tomb may see several miles away in the middle of the picture as it were “te tino o Taiamai” standing almost forgotten amongst the farm animals.