--- title: Rapaki: a Village By the Sea. — Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury,… · full text with trees description: Rapaki: a Village By the Sea., «Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand» by James Cowan: the whole chapter, every sentence with its dependency tree and pragmatics. It begins: In the little Maori _kainga_ of Rapaki, folded away in a valley-fan of Lyttelton harbour-side, there is a --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73766/12/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [tales](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/) / [Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Ca…](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73766/) / Rapaki: a Village By the Sea. # Rapaki: a Village By the Sea. Rapaki: a Village By the Sea. of «Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand» by James Cowan: the whole text, 112 sentences and 3702 words. The small number after every sentence leads to its own page with its syntax tree and pragmatics, parsed by Mova itself. **1** [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73766/12/page/2/) In the little Maori \_kainga\_ of Rapaki, folded away in a valley-fan of Lyttelton harbour-side, there is a tiny, steep-roofed church, of old-fashioned build, and by the side of this church stands a twisty-branched old ribbonwood tree, that in summer showers over porch and steeple its sweet, snowy blossoms, scented like the orange tree.[1](1/ "tree and pragmatics") On the lowermost bough of this knotty ribbonwood, the \_houhi\_, or \_houi\_, of the Natives, that stood here before the church was built, over fifty years ago, hangs the bell that calls the remnant of Ngati-Irakehu to worship; and it is this sylvan belfry that symbolises for me the intermingling of modernism and ancientry in the Rapaki of to-day.[2](2/ "tree and pragmatics") Like the other \_hapus\_ of the Ngai-Tahu tribe, the Ngati-Irakehu and their kin are now half-\_pakeha\_ in blood; they have intermarried with their European neighbours, and their little township, with its sixty odd souls, is scarcely to be taken at first sight for a Maori settlement.[3](3/ "tree and pragmatics") The communal house, of characteristic Native build, with its carved frontal barge-boards and its gargoyle-like \_tekoteko\_ perched above the entrance, familiar to travellers in the Native districts of the North, is wanting here; but a survey of the village scheme, with its tree-shaded cottages grouped sociably about the central green space, and the hall and school-house and church, soon makes it plain that here stood an old-time Maori \_kainga\_, of totara slabs and raupo thatch, with maybe a tall stockade guarding its landward side and stretching from cliff to cliff of the little boulder-beached bay.[4](4/ "tree and pragmatics") The plan is the same; the buildings have changed, for Rapaki to-day believes in[5](5/ "tree and pragmatics") ribbonwood tree.[6](6/ "tree and pragmatics") \_E. Cowan, photo\_ \][7](7/ "tree and pragmatics") sanitation and modern comforts.[8](8/ "tree and pragmatics") Here and there a Maori tree, like our ribbonwood yonder, and a tattered clump of light bush in the gullies or on a rocky cliff-top, to remind us of the different setting when Rapaki was tumultuous with wild Maori life; when tattooed Ngai-Tahu were in fighting flower, and when dense and beautiful forest covered the feet and shoulders of all those dark volcanic crags and tors lifting above us there like so many ruined castles battered by the artillery fire of the gods.[9](9/ "tree and pragmatics") A remnant, a \_morehu\_, now are tribe and forest; alike they have dwindled to a shadow; “as the woods are swept away,” says the Maori, “so shall the people vanish.”[10](10/ "tree and pragmatics") The young people are so Anglicised that they use the \_pakeha\_ tongue chiefly; the older ones only cling to Maori among themselves.[11](11/ "tree and pragmatics") Yet a brave little remnant, with a fighting heart worthy of their warrior ancestry; for of these descendants of fierce old Rangiwhakaputa and Wheke every eligible young man went to the Great War, and some salted with their bones the world’s greatest battlefields.[12](12/ "tree and pragmatics") (No Kipling monopoly in the phrase: “Bury me here,” said old Major Pokiha, of the Arawa, a fighting chief of the last generation--“bury me here as salt for the lands of my heroes”).[13](13/ "tree and pragmatics") One-eighth of the population of little Rapaki voluntarily enlisted.[14](14/ "tree and pragmatics") The well-plucked Ngati-Irakehu and their kinsmen have title to say, as Nelson said of old of his fighting sailors, “We are few, but the right sort.”[15](15/ "tree and pragmatics") The \_Kaumatua\_ of Rapaki, the pleasant-mannered kindly greybeard, Hone Taare Tikao, a gentleman of true \_rangatira\_ breeding and demeanour, is the best informed man of his tribe-remnant on the Peninsula and Port Hills history and legends and genealogical recitals--\_whakapapa\_ in the Maori tongue.[16](16/ "tree and pragmatics") Tikao was born at Akaroa over seventy years ago.[17](17/ "tree and pragmatics") He is of the Ngati-Irakehu \_hapu\_ of the Ngai-Tahu tribe, and he is descended by several lines from Te Rangiwhakaputa and other of the warrior chiefs who wrested the Whanga-raupo and the Whanga-roa--Aka-roa is the modernised contraction--from the dusky men of Ngati-Mamoe.[18](18/ "tree and pragmatics") From his parents and from Paora Taki, a picturesque old \_rangatira\_ who once was Native assessor at Rapaki, and kindred people of the generation that has gone, he learned the history and legends of these parts.[19](19/ "tree and pragmatics") The old man tells us first how this village came to be named Rapaki--not Raupaki, as it is erroneously spelled on the maps.[20](20/ "tree and pragmatics") The full name of the place is Te Rapaki-a-Te Rangi-whakaputa which means “the waist-mat of Te Rangi-whakaputa,” and to it, obviously, there hangs a story, which when told leads on to the tradition of the conquest of this district from the Ngati-Mamoe a little over two centuries ago.[21](21/ "tree and pragmatics") The Rangi-whakaputa’s name in these parts is associated with Homeric exploits with the weapons of old.[22](22/ "tree and pragmatics") This long-gone tattooed hero was the Hector of the Whaka-raupo, and this well-hidden valley curving down from the crags was the spot where he settled awhile when the harbour-side fighting was done.[23](23/ "tree and pragmatics") He was one of the northern invaders, a kinsman and contemporary of Moki, Tu-rakau-tahi, and other baresark warriors of the end of the seventeenth century.[24](24/ "tree and pragmatics") On the beach below the present village he left his waist-garment, a kilt of flax or \_toi\_ leaves, probably in connection with the act of \_tapa\_-ing the place as his possession, and from the fact of this \_rapaki\_, which would be a \_tapu\_ one, being cast there the place received its name.[25](25/ "tree and pragmatics") Te Rangi-Whakaputa’s name has been translated as “Day of Daring,” or “Day of Energy.”[26](26/ "tree and pragmatics") It suited this enterprising warrior, who is described by his descendant Taare Tikao as a great \_toa\_ or brave.[27](27/ "tree and pragmatics") He was indeed a fine figure of a man, nearer seven feet than six feet high, it is said, very powerful, and a most skilful man in the use of the \_taiaha\_, the Maori broadsword of hard tough \_akeake\_, and the spear and the stone \_mere\_.[28](28/ "tree and pragmatics") All these harbour-front villages and camping-grounds he captured from the Ngati-Mamoe who, as Tikao says, were the fourth \_iwi\_--race or tribe--to occupy the[29](29/ "tree and pragmatics") \_W. A. Taylor, photo\_ \][30](30/ "tree and pragmatics") South Island; the first people were the Hawea, the second the Rapuwai, the third the Waitaha and the fourth the Ngati-Mamoe, whom the Ngai-Tahu dispossessed, in their turn to be supplanted by the white-skins with their bags of gold sovereigns and their land-sale deeds.[31](31/ "tree and pragmatics") And this Homeric figure of two centuries ago, great of stature and terrible in fight, had a son whose name is scarcely less famous in the little-written traditions of the conquest of the Whanga-Raupo.[32](32/ "tree and pragmatics") His name was Wheke, which means “Octopus,” and like his father he spread terror among the Ngati-Mamoe.[33](33/ "tree and pragmatics") With his war parties he scoured all these ranges and tracked the frightened fugitives into their most secret valleys and caves.[34](34/ "tree and pragmatics") One of his camping-grounds on a war expedition was yon fort-like nest of basalt towers and upjuts above Cass Bay, overlooking our Lyttelton road; he slept one night near the summit of one of these crags, a wild hard camping place, and it is still known as “Te-Moenga-o-Wheke” or “Wheke’s Bed.”[35](35/ "tree and pragmatics") And over the doorway of the large meeting hall in the village of Rapaki you will see the name of Wheke painted, in memory of a brown hero whose bones have been dust these two hundred years.[36](36/ "tree and pragmatics") \[3\][37](37/ "tree and pragmatics") \[Footnote 3: The following note describing the occupation of these localities after the first conflict between the two great tribes of the South Island was written by Mr. T. E. Green (Tame Kirini) of Tuahiwi, Kaiapoi, who died in 1917, and who was an authority on the history of his mother’s clan:--[38](38/ "tree and pragmatics") “The Ngati-Mamoe were subdued by the Ngai-Tuhaitara section of the Ngai-Tahu tribe under Moki, an account of whose expedition is given in Canon J. W. Stack’s contribution to “Tales of Banks Peninsula.”[39](39/ "tree and pragmatics") Te Raki (or Rangi) -whakaputa was of the Ngati-Kurii section of the tribe; Ngati-Kurii carried their conquest no further south than Kaikoura.[40](40/ "tree and pragmatics") From there southward is the conquest of Ngai-Tuhai-tara.[41](41/ "tree and pragmatics") The second daughter of Te Rakiwhakaputa was the wife of Tu-Rakautahi, the founder of Kaiapoi Pa, so Te Rakiwhakaputa came to Kaiapoi after the settlement of the Ngai-Tuhaitara, here accompanied by other Ngati-Kurii chieftains, namely, Mako, Te Ruahikihiki and others, and dwelt in the vicinity of Kaiapoi for some time.[42](42/ "tree and pragmatics") There is a spot on the eastern bank of the Whakahume (the Cam), about half a mile from the Kaiapoi Woollen Mills, named Te Pa o Te Rakiwhakaputa.[43](43/ "tree and pragmatics") Some occurrence there enraged Parakiore, youngest son of Tu-Rakautahi and grandson of Te Rakiwhakaputa, and he declared that he would have no interloper in his midst, referring to his grandfather Te Rakiwhakaputa, (to whom, for brevity, I shall now refer by his short name Te Raki) and Mako (Mango) who was married to his aunt (Te Raki’s eldest daughter).[44](44/ "tree and pragmatics") As a result of this attitude of his son, Tu-Rakautahi said to Te Raki, ‘You must go out to the Whaka-raupo (Lyttelton Harbour); there are sharks there for us two.’[45](45/ "tree and pragmatics") Mako he sent to Little River, to Wairewa, saying: ‘Yonder are eels for us two.’[46](46/ "tree and pragmatics") To Te Ruahikihiki he said, ‘Go to Taumutu (at Lake Ellesmere); there are patiki (flounders) for us two there.’[47](47/ "tree and pragmatics") Kiri-Mahinahina he sent out to Paanau: ‘Go yonder and catch hapuku for us.’[48](48/ "tree and pragmatics") “Now this is what the present generation living at these places object to, the idea that their ancestors were sent there to procure food supplies for Kaiapoi.[49](49/ "tree and pragmatics") As Moki, the younger brother of Tu Rakautahi, headed the Ngai-Tuhaitara clan who conquered the Peninsula, you will readily perceive that no chief would deliberately go and settle on the territory of another, and particularly one so powerful as Tu-Rakautahi, without his permission--which in this case was given--and without tribute being paid annually for the privilege.[50](50/ "tree and pragmatics") This was strictly carried out by them until the advent of the \_pakehas\_.[51](51/ "tree and pragmatics") Of course Kaiapoi gave them \_kauru\_ generally in return, merely in Maori etiquette; some are now trying to make out that the \_kauru\_ (the sugar extract of the \_tii\_, or cabbage tree) was the payment for their fish.”\][52](52/ "tree and pragmatics") When first I went round the high bend in the harbour-side road from Lyttelton and saw Rapaki village a-slumber in the afternoon sun below, all in its green and gold of groves and flowers, grassy fields lapped about it in soft folds, the sea coming up in gentle breathings at the foot of the little cliffs, and the grand old crags above, with one huge \_taiaha\_-head of a peak lording it sentry-wise over all, I thought that for beauty of setting very few Maori \_kaingas\_ even in the romantic bushlands and highlands of the North Island were peers of this hamlet of the Ngai-Tahu, almost jostled off the map by the crowding hordes of the \_pakeha\_.[53](53/ "tree and pragmatics") Down the bend into the hollow, where the ghost of a mountain stream goes tinkling through the little gully, and the towns that are so near seem a hundred miles away.[54](54/ "tree and pragmatics") The mat-kilted conquistador of old who gave his name to the place had an eye for a secure, well-hidden site for his \_pa\_.[55](55/ "tree and pragmatics") He could scarcely have chosen a spot more snug about these savage Port Hills.[56](56/ "tree and pragmatics") The dominating tors and marline-spikes of fire-born rock and the great up-swell of land on all sides but the sea ward off the cold winds.[57](57/ "tree and pragmatics") Loftiest of all and nearest is that towering spear-head Te Poho-o-Tamatea, a dark grey triangle of rhyolite, thrusting its naked apex into the warm sky a thousand feet and more above the groves and dwellings of Tikao’s people.[58](58/ "tree and pragmatics") It looks what it is, the mountain guardian of Rapaki; its presence, grimly grand on dark lowering days when the mists trail about it and give it added height and dourness, is no less overpowering in the night, when it leans over the deep-cut valley of dreams, a huge rugged blade of blackness etched against the sky.[59](59/ "tree and pragmatics") And even in this day of sunshine, when every cave and cranny in the Poho-o-Tamatea were searched by the golden light and when the mystery of its fiery birth stood revealed, the great spear-rock still seemed a place of eeriness and \_tapu\_.[60](60/ "tree and pragmatics") **1** [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73766/12/page/2/) - ← previous: [“the Crest of the Rainbow.”](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73766/11/) - next →: [page 2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73766/12/page/2/) - ↑ back to [Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73766/)