By The Waters Of Rakaunui. #2

We landed at a small kainga [house] on the west bank of the Rakaunui, and the few Maori there came out to greet us with many loud calls of “Nau mai.” [welcome]

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Here the best house we saw that day of long ago was a whare-nikau of the type that has all but disappeared.
The Nikau palm fronds used for the thatch of roof and walls were skilfully plaited in a chevron-like design.

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It is quite an art in itself, the thatch-weaving of such a house, and really beautiful are some of these nikau dwellings that have nearly all given place to ugly cottages and mere shanties of weatherboard and corrugated iron.

Looking up the narrowed river here, between the castellated walls of rock, we saw in the distance the first of the pakeha [whitemen] settlers’ homes in these parts, on a sunward-looking hill, cleared and grassed.

Sitting at ease in the shady front of the pretty summer dwelling, one listened to tales and songs of old Kawhia and noted local place names and the stories of their origin.

One of the men told of the great hauls of shark made in the good midsummer when all the tribe gathered for a fishing excursion that they made a glorious water picnic.

But his best fishing tale was a big eel story.

The storyteller showed us the rocky arched entrance to a cave a little way above the kainga.[home]

The gateway to the ana was in a confused pile of great limestone rocks, all flaked and split by ages of weather.

The entrance to this cave was just large enough, he said, to admit a man.

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Inside, it dipped downward and opened out, and there was a pool of water there, in a high arched chamber.
In that darksome pool lived a great tuna, a famous eel which no one had ever been able to capture.

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Many had entered that cave in pursuit of the eel, but it eluded all their efforts with hook and many-pronged matarau [spear.]

At this kainga [house] there lived a man whose wife, Poroaki, asked him to go and get her a basket of eels.

The husband bethought him of the great eel in the cave; that would be a capture worth many a basket of the ordinary creek tuna.

So into the dark cave he went, with his spear and an axe and a torch (rama) made of resinous wood, and sought that big tuna.

He found it by the light of his torch gliding about the pond, and he attacked it with his spear. He transfixed it, and then there was a terrific struggle.

hunting the giant tuna.
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Dropping his torch on a ledge of rock, he drew his sharp stone axe from his belt and chopped away at the tuna writhing on his spear. “Die,” he cried, “to satisfy the hunger of Poroaki!”

Now, the great tuna possessed some supernatural attributes, and when it heard the name “Poroaki” uttered it was stricken with terror, because that chieftainess was a woman of great mana tapu, and it knew that the invocation of her name meant victory for the husband in his attack.

In its convulsions it threshed about the cave, and as it was dying it lashed its tail around with such force that it brought down part of the rocky wall.

The fall blocked the narrow entrance by which the man had crawled in, and there the eel-hunter was imprisoned, entombed in the cave of the dead tuna.

The eel-killer’s torch was extinguished and lost.

He was in a living grave.

He set to at his prayers to the gods, he recited his karakia [prayer]for deliverance.

Never was a karakia uttered with more earnestness.

Then, fortified by the recitation of his charm-prayers, he sought for a way of escape.

Groping about, he discovered the continuation of the cave, a passage, crooked and narrow, leading deeper into the heart of the hill.

He crawled on and on, wriggling on hands and knees sometimes, then entering spaces where he could stand erect.

Sometimes mysterious abysses opened in front of him; he could see nothing, but he felt around the brink of those deep wells or tomo and he dropped stones in and heard them splash into the water far below.

Shuddering, he crept on and on.

Exhaustion overpowered him and he slept, then he went on again.

Three days after the eel-hunter had left his home, a party of searchers found him lying unconscious, almost dead, at the cliff side just below a narrow opening in the limestone rocks, a long way from the cave by which he had entered.

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They carried him home and when he recovered he told Poroaki and the others of his fearful adventure.

Many a basket of eels he brought home to Poroaki in after days, but he avoided caves for the rest of his life. “Let sleeping tuna lie” might well have been his working motto.

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

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-legend-of-the-emigration-of-turi-an-ancestor-of-wanganui

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-continuing-legend-of-turi

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/turi-seeks-patea

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-legend-of-manaia-and-why-he-emigrated-to-new-zealand

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-love-story-of-hine-moa-the-maiden-of-rotorua

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/how-te-kahureremoa-found-her-husband

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-continuing-story-of-te-kahureremoa-s-search-for-a-husband

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-magical-wooden-head

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-art-of-netting-learned-from-the-fairies

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/te-kanawa-s-adventure-with-a-troop-of-fairies

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-loves-of-takarangi-and-rau-mahora

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/puhihuia-s-elopement-with-te-ponga

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-story-of-te-huhuti

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/a-trilogy-of-wahine-toa-woman-heroes

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/a-modern-maori-story

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/hine-whaitiri

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/whaitere-the-enchanted-stingray

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/turehu-the-fairy-people

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/kawariki-and-the-shark-man

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/awarua-the-taniwha-of-porirua

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/hami-s-lot-a-modern-story

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-unseen-a-modern-haunting

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-death-leap-of-tikawe-a-story-of-the-lakes-country

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/paepipi-s-stranger

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/a-story-of-maori-gratitude

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/by-the-waters-of-rakaunui-1

with thanks to son-of-satire for the banner