ngaro. Kāhore tētahi Pākehā, nēhi rānei i tata atu. Nā ōku ringa i rauhi, i opeope ngā tāngata i taua wā.” I tēnei rā, kei te takoto a Hihita i te hōhipera. Kei roto ia i te mamae kino e takoto ana, ko tana tinana kua kino katoa, i te mahinga mō ētahī noa atu, ēngari ko tana hinengaro, ko tana wairua kei te kaika ki te okioki i te rangatiratanga o te Atua. Kia ū te aroha noa o te Atua ki a ia i ōna rā mutunga, i roto i ngā mamae katoa o tēnei ao. body, have been used by Him. They nursed those people who suffered during the depression, during which some dropped dead. No one else had the courage to go near these people.” She is now lying in hospital in pain and agony, her body distorted, but her soul, her spirit, is longing to go to rest in God's peace. God's grace be upon her in her last suffering and endurance.

TUPURUPURU An Old Maungaraki Maori Love Story told by T. V. Saunders Many, many years ago, the romance of Tupurupuru and the beautiful maiden Konini, was retold over and over by the Wairarapa Maori people, and handed down through many generations by the hapu (tribes), where the roots of the romance first came into existence. Our story began in the Valley of Taueru, at a place known as Te Whiti, on a hillside where a cave exists even to this day. The cave was, and is still, known as Tupurupuru's cave. It is sited in the middle of a clearing in the vast forest which surrounded the Taueru Valley. On a beautiful clear morning just at the break of dawn, the surrounding bushland was filled with the songs of thousands of birds — the tui, kaka, bell-bird, the tiny riroriro, the cooing of the kereru (wood pigeon), and other songsters who all contributed their part towards the melodious music of the forest. The last calls of the kiwi and the weka had ceased at the approach of dawn, while the sweet melodious notes of the sacred huia, could be heard calling its mate from amongst the scarlet blossoms of the rata tree. Soon it would be spring again, and from now on could be heard the long drawn out notes of the migrating pipiwharauroa, the long-tailed cuckoo. Within the cave a young man awoke out of his sleep. This was Tupurupuru, known to his kith and kin as ‘Tu’. Now Tu was awakened from a vivid dream, and as he rose and stretched himself, one could see that he was very tall, very lean, but very powerfully built. He seemed full of eagerness and purpose as he moved about preparing a meal, and well he might be, as in his dream his father, Mananui, had appeared to him, as he had done many times before. Mananui in his time was a great tohunga, who had devoted all his powers to bring up his son to be mighty and powerful — for a set purpose. This purpose was to slay the taniwha Huarau. For many years the taniwha had been raiding his pa and fishing parties. Ngarara Huarau, being a water taniwha, could not travel very far from the water. His permanent home was at Uwhiroa, the swamp of some 500 acres in the centre of the Longbush area. This swamp was very tapu to the older Maoris, even after the early European advent into the Wairarapa. The usual route the taniwha took on his foraging was down the Makahaka stream, through Gladstone, and thence to the Taueru and the Ruamahanga rivers. Now on one of its raids the taniwha came upon a large fishing camp, with people from several pa who had joined together to harvest kakahi (fresh water pipi), eels and native trout, etc.