--- title: How the Sacred Fire Came to Witch Hill. — Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury,… · full text with trees description: How the Sacred Fire Came to Witch Hill., «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: As we travel northward along the Summit Track from the Poho-o-Tamatea, observing from this comm --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73766/13/) [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/) / How the Sacred Fire Came to Witch Hill. # How the Sacred Fire Came to Witch Hill. How the Sacred Fire Came to Witch Hill. of «Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand» by James Cowan: the whole text, 61 sentences and 2121 words. The small number after every sentence leads to its own page with its syntax tree and pragmatics, parsed by Mova itself. As we travel northward along the Summit Track from the Poho-o-Tamatea, observing from this commanding height--a thousand feet above little Rapaki village, lying in its grassy nest below--how that great spearhead of rock has in reality an almost level top, we come to a remarkable broken wall of grey lava moss-crusted and shrub-tufted, protruding from the grassy flanks of the craggy knoll called Witch Hill.[1](1/ "tree and pragmatics") It is in fact a huge dyke of once-molten lava, cutting wall-like through the old lava flows and trending southward across the shoulder of its parent hill.[2](2/ "tree and pragmatics") From the very crest of the range it shoots in a palisade of frost-shattered rock, towering thirty feet and more in places above the stone-strewn tussocks, and it stretches some distance in irregular cyclopean steps down the steep slope towards Rapaki.[3](3/ "tree and pragmatics") There is an old stone quarry on the face of Witch Hill, where this dyke juts out like a broken castle wall of the \_Patu-paiarehe\_, the Dim People of long ago, and just there the old waggon track goes down over the smoothed-out hills to the Canterbury Plains and the green banks of the Opaawaho.[4](4/ "tree and pragmatics") The Giants’ Causeway some fanciful \_pakeha\_ has named this wall of lava.[5](5/ "tree and pragmatics") To the Maori it is the “Ahi-a-Tamatea” or “the Fire of Tamatea”, and a strange nature legend there is thereto; a folk tale in which fable and geologic myth are curiously blended.[6](6/ "tree and pragmatics") It is a volcano myth which closely resembles, and is no doubt a copy of, the North Island legend of Ngatoro-i-Rangi and the origin of the Ngauruhoe volcano.[7](7/ "tree and pragmatics") The march downhill of this curious upstanding dyke of lava, grey against the more sombre tints of the range, may be traced in the masses of lava boulders through which the Rapaki water-course has cut its way in its lustier days.[8](8/ "tree and pragmatics") And if you turn your face southward and look far across the upper part of the harbour, near the western slopes of Mount Herbert, you will plainly see what seems a continuation of the remarkable wall of lava which welled ages ago white-hot from the cauldrons of Ruaimoko.[9](9/ "tree and pragmatics") Those grey-white parapets of fire-made rock are the Ashes of the Fires of Tamatea, and this is the wonderful tale of Tamatea and his magic fire, a tale of old which brings in, too, our great arrowhead peak, towering yonder on Rapaki’s western side, yon huge upjut lording it sentry-wise over the Maori \_kainga\_.[10](10/ "tree and pragmatics") The peak of “Tamatea’s Breast,” is one of the very few landscape saliencies in these parts which still remain in the hands of the people of Takitimu descent.[11](11/ "tree and pragmatics") A venerable name this, for it is quite six hundred years old and is a connecting link with the greatest land-explorer in Maori-Polynesian story, a prototype of the adventurous “Kai-ruri,” the white surveyor of \_pakeha\_ pioneering days.[12](12/ "tree and pragmatics") Tamatea seems to have been possessed of the true “wander-hunger,” for when he arrived on the shores of the North Island in his ocean-going canoe the Takitimu (or Takitumu) from his Eastern Pacific home--Tahiti or one of the neighbouring islands--via Rarotonga--his restless heart impelled him to more adventure.[13](13/ "tree and pragmatics") First making the land in the far north, he voyaged on down the East Coast, sailing and paddling from bay to bay, leaving here and there some of his sea-weary crew, who intermarried with the inhabitants, and he did not cease his sailorly enterprise until he had reached the foggy shore of Murihiku, the “Tail of the Land” which the white man calls Southland.[14](14/ "tree and pragmatics") Here the Takitimu was hauled ashore and if one is to accept literally the legend of the Maori, there she is to be seen now, metamorphosed in marvellous fashion into mountain form, the lofty blue range of the Takitimu--mis-spelled “Takitimos” on the maps and locally spoken of as “the Takitimos.”[15](15/ "tree and pragmatics") It is curious that this isolated range--fairy-haunted in native legend--lifting abruptly on all sides from the tussocky plains that slope to Lake Manapouri, from more than one point bears a resemblance to the form of a colossal canoe upturned.[16](16/ "tree and pragmatics") Legend, too, says that Tamatea settled awhile at the foot of the Canoe Mountains, and that he had a camp village at the lower end of Lake Te Anau, where eels and birds were abundant.[17](17/ "tree and pragmatics") \_C. Beken, photo\_ \][18](18/ "tree and pragmatics") Then, wearying for the trail and the \_pikau\_, he set out on a march which was nothing less than heroic, from Southland to the newly-settled homes of his people in the North.[19](19/ "tree and pragmatics") With a number of companions and food bearers the barefooted explorer trudged across country, through the unpeopled tussock prairies of Otago and the plains now known as Canterbury, fording or swimming the rivers or crossing them on rude rafts (\_mokihi\_) made of bundles of flax-stalks or of dried \_raupo\_, until he reached the hills that wall in Lyttelton Harbour.[20](20/ "tree and pragmatics") He travelled along the range-top, as was the way of the Maori explorer, until he neared the dip in the sharp ridge at the back of Rapaki, over which the Maoris and the pioneer white men made a track.[21](21/ "tree and pragmatics") Now, Tamatea had carried with him, in a section of a hollow \_rata\_ log, as was the fashion of the Maori, a smouldering fire for his nightly camps.[22](22/ "tree and pragmatics") No common fire this; it was an \_ahi-tipua\_, a “magic blaze,” a sacred fire directly kindled from that trebly-\_tapu\_ fire which Uenuku, the great high priest of far Hawaiki, had sent with his canoe voyagers.[23](23/ "tree and pragmatics") The Takitimu, being a \_tapu\_ canoe, carried no cooked food, and the only plants the people brought in her were ornamental ones, for scent and beauty and sweet flowers.[24](24/ "tree and pragmatics") She was a great double canoe, and could carry two hundred people.[25](25/ "tree and pragmatics") Her consort was the canoe Arai-te-uru, which carried “Te Ahi-a-Uenuku--Uenuku’s Fire”--and all kinds of food plants, even, says Tikao, a grain which is said to have resembled the \_pakeha’s\_ wheat.[26](26/ "tree and pragmatics") Coming round Te Matau-a-Maui, Hawke’s Bay, the Arai-te-Uru nearly capsized; she went over on her side, and continued in that attitude until she finally overturned at Matakaea Point, near Oamaru, where she still lies--turned to stone\![27](27/ "tree and pragmatics") The sacred fire was saved and it was taken by the chiefs up the Waitaki River and placed there in the ground; and there until about forty-five years ago it was still actually burning, issuing from the earth in a little undying flame, and it was called “Te Ahi a Uenuku.”[28](28/ "tree and pragmatics") (A seam of lignite is said to have been found burning in the locality by the early settlers and explorers, and this the Maoris identified with the Hawaikian sorcerer’s magic blaze.)[29](29/ "tree and pragmatics") But it seems that Tamatea’s fire so carefully tended by the gods went out as he travelled slowly up the hills from Otago, and none had been kindled again when he reached the Port Hills.[30](30/ "tree and pragmatics") And as he and his companions came out of the bush and passed out on to the summit of the mountain above Rapaki, a great storm of wind and rain, followed by hail and snow, burst upon them from the south and they were like to perish from the cold.[31](31/ "tree and pragmatics") It was freezing cold, and Tamatea was without fire or the means of making one, for no fire-making timbers grew in that spot.[32](32/ "tree and pragmatics") In his extremity he stood upon the tall crag-top yonder--the one that now is called “The Breast of Tamatea”--and called aloud and \_karakia’d\_ and made incantations for sacred fire to be sent from the North Island, the land of active volcanoes, to save the lives of himself and his companions.[33](33/ "tree and pragmatics") He called to his elder relative, Ngatoro-i-Rangi, and to the guardians of the Ahi-Tipua, the volcanic fires.[34](34/ "tree and pragmatics") And the chief’s fervent prayer was answered in a moment.[35](35/ "tree and pragmatics") The fire, sent by the gods in the heart of the North Island, burst forth from Tongariro and speeding down the rift of the Wanganui River valley it touched a spot near Nelson, and again it touched Motu-nau--the small island close to the Canterbury Coast--and then it appeared again in a magic blaze on the side of Witch Hill, and the Maori explorers warmed their frozen limbs and were saved.[36](36/ "tree and pragmatics") The fire did not stop here in its wonderful flight, for it went on across the harbour, and the white chute of rock, like a huge sheep-dip trough, shining yonder above the bay of Waiaki is the last of the sacred flames of Tamatea.[37](37/ "tree and pragmatics") And when the chief left the spot next day to continue his journey he said, “Let this place be called The Place where Tamatea’s Fire-Ashes Lie”; and so to-day the rocky wall which the white man has named the Giant’s Causeway is to the Maori “Te Whaka-takanga-o-te-Karehu-a-Tamatea.”[38](38/ "tree and pragmatics") And the volcanic fire itself is “Te Ahi-a-Tamatea.”[39](39/ "tree and pragmatics") Such is the story of Tamatea’s Fire as told by Hone Taare Tikao, in reciting the legends learned from the long-dead elders of his tribe.[40](40/ "tree and pragmatics") A legend embalming a distinct perception of the geological history of these hills.[41](41/ "tree and pragmatics") The \_Kaumatua\_ truly says that the magical walls of Tamatea’s Fire Ashes are of later origin than the volcanic crags and hills which lie about them, and across which they cut.[42](42/ "tree and pragmatics") The Wanganui River, down which the sacred fire came from the crater of Ngauruhoe, was then dry; it was a rift opened for it by the Volcano Gods.[43](43/ "tree and pragmatics") Tikao speaks of a time when the lower part of Lyttelton Harbour was not in eruption, but when the upper part was; from the southern side of Quail Island to the head of the bay was a furnace; there was no water in it at that immeasurably distant day.[44](44/ "tree and pragmatics") There are lava rocks, he says, like those of the Ahi-a-Tamatea on the shore of Quail Island; and then there are the always wonderful cliff of Pari-mataa and the wall of Otarahaka on the Mount Herbert side of the upper harbour.[45](45/ "tree and pragmatics") Of the lava dykes Professor R. Speight writes in his account of the geology of the Port Hills that they radiate from the harbour as a centre and form, as it were, the ribs of the mountain, holding it firmly together and helping it to resist the enormous strains to which it was exposed before and during eruptions.[46](46/ "tree and pragmatics") “Judging from the persistent nature of these dykes,” he adds, “it is clear that the mountain must have been split at times from top to bottom, and the liquid material which welled from the fissures must have looked at night like a red-hot streak across the country.”[47](47/ "tree and pragmatics") distance.[48](48/ "tree and pragmatics") \_W. A. Taylor, photo\_ \][49](49/ "tree and pragmatics") And so, by way of the long Maori story, the one solitary example of volcano-legendry the writer has heard from the South Island, we come to the Rapaki peak’s guardian name, Te Poho-o-Tamatea.[50](50/ "tree and pragmatics") The explorer bestowed his name upon the height, \_tapa-ing\_ it after himself and his sacred breast, much as a present-day traveller justly might claim the right to map-name some peak after himself.[51](51/ "tree and pragmatics") Tamatea’s travels led him far after he turned his back on the Port Hills.[52](52/ "tree and pragmatics") He marched up on the coast to Kaikoura, and there or further north he built a canoe, or, what is more probable, borrowed or forcibly appropriated one belonging to the \_tangata whenua\_ who must already have been living in the Marlborough country, and crossed to the North Island.[53](53/ "tree and pragmatics") He canoed up the Wanganui River--there is a curious rock, the end of which the natives used to paint red with \_kokowai\_ ochre, projecting from the eastern bank many miles above Pipi-riki, still known as Tamatea’s Rock--and crossed the central plateau to Lake Taupo, and thence went on to the East Coast.[54](54/ "tree and pragmatics") There are innumerable stories illustrating his genius for exploration, and from end to end of New Zealand place nomenclature memorises his travels and justifies the name by which he is known in history, Tamatea-pokai-whenua, or “Tamatea-who-travels-through-the-land.”[55](55/ "tree and pragmatics") He was a true type of the pioneer and the path-finder, the Fremont of Aotea-roa and the Wai-pounamu, the man who heard the “one everlasting Whisper”--[56](56/ "tree and pragmatics") Something hidden.[57](57/ "tree and pragmatics") Go and find it.[58](58/ "tree and pragmatics") Go and look behind the Ranges-- Something lost behind the Ranges.[59](59/ "tree and pragmatics") Lost and waiting for you.[60](60/ "tree and pragmatics") Go\![61](61/ "tree and pragmatics") - ← previous: [Rapaki: a Village By the Sea.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73766/12/) - next →: [The Little People of the Mist.](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73766/14/) - ↑ back to [Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg73766/)