The Legend Of The Emigration Of Turi, An Ancestor Of Wanganui
The following narrative shows the cause which led Turi, the ancestor of the Wanganui tribes, to emigrate to New Zealand and the manner in which he reached these islands.
Hoimatua, a near relation of Turi, had a little boy named Potikiroroa, this young fellow was sent, one day, with a message to Uenuku, who was an Ariki, or chief high priest, to let him know that a burnt offering had been made to the gods.
As Uenuku was the Ariki, he was to eat a part of the offering.
The little boy accidentally tripped and fell down in the very doorway of Wharekura, the house of Uenuku, and this being a most unlucky omen, Uenuku was dreadfully irritated.
So he laid hold of the little fellow, and ate him up, without having the body cooked, and so the poor little boy perished.
Turi was determined to have revenge for this barbarous act, and to slay some person as payment for little Potikiroroa.
After casting about in his thoughts for some time as to the most effective mode of doing this, he saw that his best way of revenging himself would be to seize Hawepotiki, the little son of Uenuku, and kill him.
One day, Turi, in order to entice the boy to his house, ordered the children of all the people who lived there with him to begin playing together, in a place where Hawapotiki could see them.
So they began whipping their tops and whistling their whiz-gigs, but it was no use.
The little fellow could not be tempted to come and play with them, so that plan failed.
At last, summer came, with its heats, scorching men’s skins, and one day, Turi ordered all the little children to run and play in the river Waimatuhirangi.
So they all ran to the river and began sporting and playing in the water.
When little Hawepotiki saw all the other lads swimming and playing in the river, he was thrown off his guard, and he ran there too.
Turi waylaid him, and killed him in an instant, and thus revenged the death of Potikiroroa.
After killing the little boy, Turi cut the heart out of his body, which was eaten by himself and his friends.
Shortly afterwards, a chieftainess, named Hitukura, sent up a present of baskets of food to their sacred prince, to Uenuku, these were carried in the usual way, by a long procession of people.
Some of Turi’s friends pushed into a basket of cooked sweet potatoes, prepared for Uenuku, the heart of Hawepotiki, cut up and baked, too.
Uenuku, who had missed his little boy, being unable to ascertain what had happened to him, could not help but sighing when he saw such an excellent feast, and he said,
“Poor little Hawepotiki, how he would have liked this, but he now no longer comes running to sit by my side at mealtime”.
Then he himself ate the food that was laid out in front of him, he had hardly, however, finished his meal, when one of his friends, who had found out what had been done, came and told him, saying,
“They have made you eat a part of Haweotiki”
He replied, “Very well, let it be, he lies in the belly of Toi-te-huatahi,”.
Meaning, by this proverb that he would have fearful revenge, but he showed no other signs of feeling, that he might not gratify his enemies by manifesting his sorrow or alarm them by loud threats of revenge.
At this time, Turi was living in a house, the name of which was Rangiatea, and there were born two of his children, Turangaimua and Taneroroa.
One evening, shortly after the death of Hawepotiki, Rongo-rongo, Turi’s wife, went out of the house to suckle her little girl, Taneroroa, and she heard Uenuku in his house, named Wharekura, chanting a poem.
“Oh, let the tribes be summoned from the South,
Oh, let the tribes be summoned from the North
Let Ngati-Ruanui come in force
Let Ngati-Rongotea’a warriors too be here, that we may all our foes destroy
And sweep them utterly away
Oh, they ate one far nobler than themselves”.
When Rongo-rongo heard what Uenuku was chanting, she went back to her house, and said to her husband, “Turi, I have just heard them chanting this poem in Wharekura”.
Turi replied, “What poem do you say it was?”
She hummed it gently over to her husband, and Turi at once divined the meaning of it, and said to his wife, “That poem is meant for me”.
He knew this well, because, as he had killed the child of Uenuku, he guessed that they meant to slay him as a payment for the boy, and the lament his wife had heard evinced that they were secretly laying their plans of revenge.
He, therefore, at once, started off to his father in law, Toto, to get a canoe from him, in which he might escape from his enemies.
Toto gave him one, the name of which was Aotea, the tree from which it had been made grew upon the banks of the Lake Waiharakeke.
Toto had first hewn down the tree, and then split it, breaking it lengthwise, into two parts.
Out of one part of the tree, he made a canoe, which he named Matahorua, and out of the other part, he made a canoe which he named Aotea.
He gave the canoe he had named Matahorua to Kuramarotini, and the canoe he had named Aotea he gave to Rongo-rongo.
Thus giving a canoe to each of his two daughters,
Matahorua was the canoe in which a large part of the world was explored, and Reti was the name of the man who navigated it.
One day, Kupe and Hoturapa went out upon the sea to fish together, and when they had anchored the canoe at a convenient place, Kupe let down his line into the sea.
He then said to his cousin, Huturapa, “Hutu, my line is foul of something down there, do you, like a good young fellow, dive down and release it for me”.
Hutu said, “Just give me your line, and let me see if I can pull it up for you”.
Kupe answered, “It is of no use, you cannot do it, you had better give a plunge in at once, and pull it up”.
This was a mere stratagem upon the part of Kupe, that he might obtain possession of Kuramarotini, who was Hoturapa’s wife.
Hotu, not suspecting this, good-naturedly dived down at once to bring up Kupe line, and as soon as he had made his plunge, Kupe at once cut the rope that was attached to the anchor and paddled off for the shore as fast as he could go.
When Hotu came up to the surface of the water, the canoe was already a long distance from him, and he called out to Kupe, Oh, Kupe, bring back the canoe here, to take me in”.
But Kupe would not listen to him, he brought not back the canoe, and so Hoturapa perished.
Kupe then made haste, and carried off Kuramarotini, and to escape from the vengeance of the relations of Hoturapa, he fled away with her, on the ocean, in her canoe Matahorua, and discovered the islands of New Zealand, and he coasted round them, without finding any inhabitants.
As Kupe was proceeding down the East coast of the North Island and had reached Castle point, a great cuttlefish, alarmed at the sight of a canoe with men in it, fled away from a large cavern which exists in the South headland of the cove there.
[The Cavern]
It fled before Kupe, in the direction of Ruakawa, or Cooks Strait.
When Kupe arrived at these straits, he crossed them in his canoe, to examine the middle [South] island.
Seeing the entrance of Awa-iti [Tory Channel] running deep into the land, he turned his canoe in to explore it.
He found a very strong current coming out from between the lands, and he named the entrance Kura-te-au,
Strong as the current was he managed to ascend it until he was just surmounting the crown of the rapid in his canoe.
The great cuttlefish, or dragon, that had fled from Castle Point, which Kupe had named Te Wheke-a-Muturangi [the cuttlefish of Muturangi], had fled to Tory Channel and was lying, hidden, in this part of the current.
The monster heard the canoe of Kupe approaching as they were pulling up the current, and raised its arms above the waters, to catch and devour the canoe, men and all.
As it thus floated upon the water, Kupe saw it and pondered how he might destroy the terrible monster.
At last, he thought of a plan for doing this, he had already found that, although he kept chopping off portions of its gigantic arms, furnished with suckers, as it tried to fold them about the canoe, in order to pull it down.
The monster was too fierce to care about this, so Kupe seized an immense hollow calabash he had on board to carry his water in, and threw it overboard.
Hardly had it touched the water when the monster flew at it, thinking that it was the canoe of Kupe, and he would destroy it.
So it reared its whole body out of the water, to press the calabash under it, and Kupe, as he stood in his canoe, being in a most excellent place to cut it with his axe, seized the opportunity, and, striking it a tremendous blow, he severed it in two.
The labours of Kupe consisted in this, that he discovered these islands, and examined the different openings which he found running up the country.
A bird that he named the Kokako.
Another bird that he named the Tiwaiwaka,
He did not, however, ultimately remain in these islands, but returned to his own house, leaving the openings he had examined in the country as signs that he had been here.
He left his marks here, but he himself returned to his own country, where he found Turi and all his people still dwelling.
The first of the below posts has a list of the previous posts of Maori Myths and Legends
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/how-war-was-declared-between-tainui-and-arawa
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-curse-of-manaia-part-1
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-curse-of-manaia-part-2
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-legend-of-hatupatu-and-his-brothers
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/hatupatu-and-his-brothers-part-2
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