of Kaitaia, were no exception to this rule. But Puckey did not cut the root. He himself describes the trouble his visit caused, and how the trouble was met by Te Paerata, his guide: During the time I was absent, great rumours were spread among the tribes that I had gone to cut away the Aka of the Reinga. Many angry speeches were made, and some said they would go and waylay us, as we were returning. It, in fact, roused all the affections of those who had any, for their old Dagon; while numbers who had begun to feel a little enlightened said ‘And what of it? It the ladder is cut away, it is a thing of lies, and the spirits never went there.’ On being asked, ‘What are you afraid of, having no place of torment to do to?’ some of the old men would touchingly say, ‘It is very well for you to have your Rangi (Heaven), but leave us the old road to our Reinga, and let us have something to hold on by, as we descend, or we shall break our necks over the precipice.’ Puckey and Te Paerata were intercepted by the chiefs of the Far North and their followers, who were in a most threatening mood. Te Paerata spoke for two hours, told them every detail of the journey and said they had not harmed the aka in any way; this was found to be so. The chiefs then let Puckey and Te Paerata return. The same pohutukawa tree that Puckey was supposed to have chopped is still there today, an insignificant thing growing in a cleft in the rock, but its endurance over the centuries on this barren place where nothing else grows is almost beyond nature, supernatural.

MAURIANUKU Below Te Aka, the long dry root of the pohutukawa which does not quite reach the sea, is Maurianuku, the entrance to the underworld. Puckey calls this place Motatau and says that here the Maori spirits godown to their hell. He describes how the kelp used to slide back and forth over the entrance, and how the rocks are reddened with Kokowai or red-ochre, with which the Maoris used to daub themselves. According to Puckey's guide, even the fish caught at this place were red. But there is no sign of Kokowai today, only coralline, the reddish sea-algae. I put on goggles and flippers and swam, rather tentatively, in Maurianuku. Although the coast, a hundred yards away, is thick with paua and crayfish, here the underwater walls of the Reinga were almost bare of any growth. One could put this down to the force of the perpetual surge, the backwash of the tidal-rip. I found no sign of any great depth, but there was an eerieness in this water that made me stay close to the rock and not look too far. As we climbed back up the slow steep ridge to the lighthouse, we could see more clearly the ocean beyond Te Rerenga Wairua, running like the rapids of a river, a square mile of water convulsed in the clash of tides. But the constant, distant roaring seemed to be diminishing—the change of the tide was approaching. Now we would see Te Ripo-a-Mauria-nuku, the current of Maurianuku, the first sea-stage of the spirits' journey. Slowly, the sea subsided and was still, and the Ripo took form, a winding line of demarcation between those two uncongenial bedfellows, Tasman and Pacific. Te Ripo-a-Maurianuku leads the spirits out to Manawatawhi, mis-called Great Island by the Pakeha, the largest of the Three Kings. The Maori name is just as literal, but infinitely preferable to the pakeha: it means, “Last breath”, for at Manawatawhi the spirits came up for the last glimpse of their island home. Then, the way was theirs' alone, into the unknown.