Historic Talisman

Te Ao Hou, March 1963, Page 45

Historic Talisman The chairman of the first school committee, the late Raharuhi Puraru, O.B.E., gave Horohoro Maori School something of which no other school in the country can boast—an historic talisman almost as old as history. Long before the Pakeha came to New Zealand a well-worn Maori trail led from the Waikato round the southern end of Horohoro Bluffs to Rotorua and the coast. At a point where the trail passed round the bluffs a pyramid-shaped rock protruded from the hillside. It was a sacred stone, known to the Ngati-Tuaras as ‘Te Turi O Hinengawari’—the knee of Hinengawari. The tribal stories state that Hinengawari was a great Arawa priestess who invested the stone with supernatural powers to protect her people. She ordered the people to pay homage to the stone by laying green branches before it when ever they passed. When strangers passed by and failed to pay homage, the supernatural powers of the stone came into play, causing a sudden change in the weather. Locals were thus warned of the presence of potential enemies. Construction of the Rotorua-Atiamuri Road caused the old walking trail to fall into disuse, and a generation began to grow up which knew nothing of the powers of the famous tribal talisman. Mr Raharuhi Pururu decided to shift the stone to a place where it would not be forgotten. He brought the stone down from its centuries-old resting place, and in a special ceremony on November 30, 1937, the stone was placed behind a carved totara fence at the entrance to Horohoro school, and consecrated by a Maori Anglican minister. Horohoro schoolchildren still regard the maintenance of the carved enclosure and the weeding of the stone's surrounds as one of their most important responsibilities. Many of them pay homage to the ‘knee’ before important examinations or inter-school sports fixtures. The stone is said to bring good luck—provided you really believe in Hinengawari's magical powers. Led by Raharuhi Pururu, Horohoro's early school committees and parents toiled unstintingly to make their school as good as any in the land. With tractors and scoops they gouged out 7000 cubic yards of earth to landscape a sloping hillside into gardens and football fields. They planted shelter belts of pines, laid out gardens of shrubs. They built a model meeting-house, and gave their best carver, the late Taimona, to carve its magnificent Horohoro county, looking from the bluffs towards Mount Haparangi, on which the settlers ‘wrote’ Sir Apirana Ngata's initials in pine trees.