| The Harry Potter books borrow many details
from this epic (and true) story of a young boy born with
the power to save his kin from evil. His kinfolk living on
the Takapau Plains south of Hawkes Bay often become weak,
uncoordinated and impotent, and blame their troubles on
witchcraft emanating over the hills from vengeful
northerners. We watch as the boy is taught by a wise old tohunga how to protect the villagers with healing powers he has inherited from Hawaiiki. A foul deed long ago has provoked the witchcraft, and the boy learns how to remove its evil effects with his kaunati wand, how to prepare healing kaimoana potions, and finally how to perform mind-healing therapy sessions that make the well-fed villagers feel reborn and confident again (Their real problem was a lack of iodine and in their diet, but until Te Aute College opened nearby, 200 years later.....) This oriori uses the same "leaping-and-lingering" technique used in Harry Potter movies, shifting abruptly from one significant event to the next, with all the events building up to a dramatic ending. |
| Kāpeka 1. The newborn baby is asleep on his father's lap Shouting the
verses helps these students to memorize the words.
When we put our own babies to sleep, we sing much more quietly ,eh? |
| Pinepine
te kura, hau te kura, whanake te kura i raro i Awarua ko te kura nui, ko te kura roa ko te kura o tawhiti na Tuhaepo. Tenei te tira hou, tenei haramai nei. Ko Te Umu-rangi na Te Whatuiapiti. |
Miniature
is the treasure, but
renowned, because the treasure came up from Awarua. It is the same noble treasure, the famous treasure, the treasure from afar, that Tuhaepo was. This is the new visitor just arrived here." He's The Heavenly-Oven, a descendant of Te Whatuiapiti. |
| Small is the treasure... So why doesn't this chant begin Iti te taonga? Tao-nga means weighed down, and originally referred to heavy objects like greenstone rocks or bags of kumara in  the
bottom of canoes. And Iti is a little piece of
something, while Pi-ne means close
together - everything is there, but in
miniature. This chief sees the newborn son in his lap as his treasured miniature red loincloth. Each evening he sat with some of his people in the wharepuni, his newborn son in his lap. He had to convince his people that this miniature red bundle would be able to keep them safe and healthy in the decades to come. So each night the people listened to, and then joined in the soothing lullaby this wise chief chanted to the newborn babe covering his loins, calling him the "kura." This was a reference to maro kura that were treasured loin cloths worn by high chiefs in Tahiti and Rangiatea as symbols of their great powers. Maro were made from long, narrow pieces of fabric and maro kura were decorated with the feathers of a rare red-breasted Kura Lorikeet from faraway Rarotonga. 
 Tuhepo was a Tahitian high chief's red feather headdress that was brought from Rangiatea to Aotearoa. But near the end of the voyage they dropped it into the sea in embarrassment, because they thought the pohutukawa trees, then in full flower, were filled with thousands of red parrots! Awa-rua (two channels) is a harbour in Rangiatea with twin exit channels, and the chief was reminding his people that his son's ancestry and his special abilities could be traced all the way back to those tohunga in Rangiatea who had sailed up from Awarua 400 years ago. They sailed "up" because Maui had caught his big fish at the top of Polynesian maps. 
Te Whatuiapiti was the chief of a Ngati Kahungunu group who settled in Waipawa in about 1500AD. The murder of high-ranking twin boys at Tūranganui [Gisborne] 200 years previously had forced the assassin and his relatives to move south. They took over the coastal area around today's Napier, and later moved inland to Waipawa. Click on these whakapapa lists, to see that this version of the oriori must have been recited some time near 1700 AD. |
| Kāpeka 2.
The 2-year-old is outside the pa with his father.
|
The tohunga is begining to teach his toddler how to
protect the tribe. Toddlers learn best from things they
can see and touch and play with, so the chief begins with
manuka sticks for self-defence and for building pa walls.
Kahikā-toa were manuka poles, used in
hand-to-hand combat, or sharpened and fixed point upwards
as a defensive wall against attackers. This name is
derived from kahika,
a hardwood myrtle, called kafika in its Malayan
homelands, was one of the useful plants carried by
Polynesians all across the Pacific where it has a variety
of similar
names. I first tasted these mountain
apples that the Fijian boys with me in the highland
jungles of Viti Levu called "Kavika." Kahika
would not grow in our cold Aotearoa climate, but the
manuka here had similar hard aromatic wood, and the red
blood of a victim was the fruit of a manuka-wood weapon,
so it was nicknamed kahik-ā-TO-A, hardwood-of-warriors,
while the tall white pine with its tasty berries was named
the kahika-TE-A.Next the chief introduced his son to the impenetrable shrubs that protected the rear approaches to a pa: matagouri, speargrass and stinging nettle. The little boy will learn to identify these, and then master the way of very gingerly transplanting their small seedlings. Tū-mata-kuru "Stop! Points hit!" perfectly describes the words of an attacking enemy party who encounter a hedge of matagouri bushes or taramea speargrass planted as a defence at the rear of a pa. So both of those plants have this nickname. |
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| Here are the vines that frustrated Kupe's inland exporation, the bush lawyer and supplejack. | |
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| Kāpeka 3. The chief tells his 3-year-old a fairy tale |
| Piki
ake, kake ake i te toi huarewa, Te ara o Tawhiki i piki ai ki runga; I rokohina atu ra Maikuku-makaka, Hapai-o-Mauri. He waha i pa mai, ‘Taku wahine purotu!’ ‘Taku tane purotu!’ Korua ko te tau, e!" |
Climb,
climb up by way of the suspended vine, the pathway of Tawhaki when he climbed up high, and there found Maikuku-makaka, also known as Hapai-o-Mauri. Greetings were uttered: ‘My beautiful lady!’ ‘My handsome man!’ Here's to you two lovers! |
European children are told a fairy tale about Jack exchanging his mother's milk for seeds that formed a beanstalk which enabled him to challenge 'giant' authoritarian adults in the wider world and meet a woman who gave him great powers.  Polynesian toddlers were told a similar tale about Tawhaki climbing a vine to higher worlds and meeting a heavenly woman there. Tāwhaki was the epitome of a Polynesian chief, in appearance, mana, deeds and character. By climbing to these personal heights, Tāwhaki found a woman who had also achieved that "heavenly" status. By quoting this old "fairy tale," the chief is encouraging the the boy to strive for these same chiefly attributes, and wishing him success with the opposite sex. The boy is being urged to use  daring
and charm to rise up in status, and not to literally climb
a rope hanging down from the clouds; adults knew these
stories were allegorical morality stories and not
historical fact. Elsewhere in Polynesia Tāwhaki is known as Tafaki, Tafa'i, Kaha'i, Tahaki or Tava'i, and there are many variants of his adventure. |
| Kāpeka
4. The 7-year-old and his dad are in the sunshine,
then a thunderstorm comes. |
 The tohunga has introduced Umurangi to the idea that he will be able to reach a heavenly status as he grows older, and now sketches this spiritual realm about Rangi who is the life-spirit in Rā the sun and sends down rays that create warmth and food, both essential for good health. Eventually he will teach Umurangi how to use Rangi's fire to bring robust health to the tribe's people. When the boy later attended the whare-wananga at Okawa, up in the hills behind Hawkes Bay, he would have learnt all the stories about Rangi summarized HERE Umurangi is reminded that when he was baptised, a bolt of lightning came from the sky. This thunderbolt was an Apa, a messenger from Rangi, who bestowed on the boy the ability to create a sacred fire that brings good health. The chief emphasises this by repeating the chant used during the boy's 'tohia' ceremony, held when his umbilical cord dropped off and was then ceremonially buried. At Ahuriri in 1846, this same chant was used at a Tohia, or baptism ceremony, of a high chief's first-born son. Elsdon Best gives a full account of that ceremony and other Maori birth customs HERE. |
Kāpeka 5. The tohunga and his 12-year-old are on Kairakau Beach. |
The tohunga has now taken the growing
boy to Kairakau Beach on the rocky coast 60 km east of
Waipawa. Up on a ridge behind Kairakau Beach was
Ō-kai-ure, a sanitorium for curing weakness and
impotence. The reefs offshore from Kairakau have always
been crammed chock-full of sea-food rich in proteins,
fats, vitamins and minerals, making them "kai-ure," a
great cure for sexual impotence and general lack of
energy. But all these seafoods were not enough to effect a cure by themselves. They had to be cooked with a fire lit by a flame obtained from rubbing wood where Rangi's essential healing powers had been stored, so that the food was infused with Rangi's power. 
 Ritual ceremonies were performed before almost every Maori activity. Many ceremonies involved tapu fires and steam ovens. Fire was looked upon as representing the sun, and so was seen to be a divine being, shut up in wood. Elsdon Best gives more details HERE |
| Kāpeka 6. At the
wananga - the teenager is learning the healing power
of fire. |
| Umurangi is being trained how to
carry out his father's healing work. He is shown a
wooden fire-starting block like the one used by Tura,
who introduced fire and cooked food to an old women
living a primitive livestyle, and in return was given
herbal remedies for diseases thought to be caused by
witchcraft. When herbal remedies are ceremonially cooked
and ritually administered, the patients' positive
attitudes are boosted, making the herbs more effective.
The full story of Tura is HERE.
The witchcraft comes from Turanganui (Gisborne). In about 1450 AD, Tupurupuru, the great-grandson of Kahungunu, had been groomed for tribal leadership there, but was eclipsed by his highly gifted twin cousins, so they were killed and buried. Kahutapere, the twins' father, gathered a war party, killed Tupurupuru and desecrated his body. In shame Tupurupuru's father, plus about 150 of his followers moved south into Hawkes Bay, displacing the people already at the Ahuriri estuary (Napier) and along the Tukituki (Hastings). In about 1530 AD Te Whatuiapiti and his followers left the abundant seafood of Ahuriri estuary behind and moved south to the Takapau Plains, 50 kms from the coast. The people often became weakened there, especially when the hot, ennervating winds blew from the north, and they blamed witchcraft sent by Kahutapere's vengeful descendants at Turanganui. |
| Ko te
matamata ki te tū-āhu e makutu mai ra Ko Tama-i-riakina-te-rangi te hekenga o rangi. Ko Taramuru anake titi kaha mai ra E popoki noa mai ra i runga te rakau Tērā te tukou a Maui-rangi kei o tuākana. lines from this Tuhoe version. |
The
seer at the enclosed altar performing witchcraft is Tama-who-lifted-up-the-sky who descended from the heavens. Only Taramuru's plantings brings strength by liberally covering each plant of that Heavenly-Maui kumara like your cousins have. |
 Tukou
was the sweetest variety of kumara that Polynesians bred
from their Peruvian cumar (we now eat the
larger camotli varieties from Mexico) x.
Maui-rangi (or Rongo-Maui) is the husband of
Pani-tinaku, who gave birth to the kumara in the misty
past. Taramuru may have lived nearer the coast. His tukou kumara variety probably brought strength because he was un-inhibited (noa) with the materials he used to mulch his kumara mounds, including seaweed, a source of iodine (plus potassium, iron, calcium, magnesium, selenium, and zinc), minerals that were absorbed by the kumara, and then by those eating them. The weakness blamed on "witchcraft" was most likely caused by thyroid hormone deficienciexs. Today a tiny amount of potassium iodide is added to ordinary table salt to prevent this. Read about traditional Maori methods of cultivating kumara HERE. |
| Kāpeka 7. The
young man's graduation cermony on Kaurakau Beach |
 The
tohunga, his apprentice Umurangi, and many others are on
Kairakau beach at the ceremony marking the completion of
his wananga training as a young tohunga. Hāpuku (groper) graze on seaweed in warm coastal waters, and are top-rated eating fish. The two reefs mentioned here, Waimatai and Hinemahanga, are just offshore from Ōkaiure, where people were cured of debilitating witchcraft spells that probably included fear-induced bouts of depression. No doubt a few good fishing trips and feeds of hapuku could raise the spirits of the most depressed soul! Some translators have named these two reefs Maunungarara and Wharerauaruhe, but these names appear to be two of the guardians of the reefs.  |
| The officiating tohunga tells the
young man's older relatives to put the cloak signifying
his rank around his shoulders. This would have been
accompanied by karakia, a ritual fire-lighting, kaimoana
cooked with that fire, celebratory songs and a big
feast. There are more details of a young tohunga's
training HERE. Marokotia is a coastal headland 8 km north of where the cloaking ceremony was taking place at Kairakau. The young tohunga is being told to look north towards Tūranganui and listen very carefully for the ghost voice of Noho-atu who stayed behind there chanting a warning. Successive generations were taught never to return to Tūranganui because they would be attacked with witchcraft if they did so. The tohunga then backs his tribe's claim to their Tūranganui origins by recalling a story associated with one of the places there. Hinerakai was a young woman who woke one night to find herself naked and being stared at by the old men of the village. She was profoundly shamed, and redeemed the situation by committing suicide. |
| Kāpeka 8. At
Okaiure that evening - a group psychotherapy session |
| Whiti
ke mai koe ki rāinahi nei. Tē ai he mahara, ka mate koe i Awarua; |
You
crossed the Pacific Ocean
only yesterday, without a thought that you might die due to Awarua. |
 To
take away the effects of those evil spells, the tohunga
now takes all present into the realm of imagination,
beyond time, beyond distance and beyond individual
identity; a realm where truths are recognized by one's
subconscious mind (Te Kore). Their ancestors had crossed
the Pacific Ocean from Hawaiiki 400 years ago, but the
people still feel so close to those intrepid navigators
that the waka voyage felt like only yesterday.
Awa-rua, the harbour at Rangiatea with two channels, was considered to be the source of both hara and kura. By putting his tribe into their ancestor's voyaging waka, the healer now creates word pictures, first of hara and then of kura, of disaster and then revival. Ka mate, ka mate; ka ora, ka ora! |
Our tohunga is creating a nightmare
vision of how disaster can befall our tribe. In this
terrible dream we are members of a crew exhausted after
a long stormy ocean voyage, now beaching our waka
at the end of the Hauraki Gulf. Lacking
the energy to fight, we are  slaughtered
in the shallows by Ngati Paoa warriors led by
Tutawirirangi. (as i ndeed Tutawirirangi and his
warriors had defeated these enfeebled Ngati Whatuiapiti
people in recent times)A dying warrior mutates into a dolphin: it is Karo-timu-timu, the totem animal of Ngati Whatuiapiti that lived in the sea between Awahuri and Te Awanga. Our dolphin is hacked open and its heart removed, skewered on a stick, roasted over a nearby fire. Now the Ngati Paoa warriors are taking turns to eat our dolphin heart, devouring our Ngati Whatuirangi mauri. We are gone, annihilated; ka mate, ka mate...Aue... |
Kāpeka 9. Okaiure at dawn next morning - a theraputic rebirth |
|
te waka nui, ka kai ki te kirikiri, Ka kai ki te ponga, Ka kai ki te mamaku, Ka kai ki te ngarara whakapae, Ka kai ki te pananehu, E tama, e! |
But
eventually the great canoe nibbles at the sand, gnaws on the ponga log, munches on the mamaku shoot devours the obstructing insects, and savours the young bracken shoots, O son of mine! |
As the sun comes up over the horizon and fills our wharenui with warmth and light, that bad dream evaporates like the morning mist. Overnight, the food has made its way from our bellies to our 
blood-stream, heavenly food cooked in an umu with
stones heated for the first time in a sacred fire
ignited by Te Umu-rangi. We feel the food's magic as our
tohunga's morning karakia reminds us of our waka being
hauled ashore in the peaceful Ahuriri estuary, first
chewing at the sand, then biting into tree-fern rollers,
munching a rotten trunk full of tasty huhu grubs, and
finally resting peacefully on a luscious patch of newly
sprouted bracken fern shoots.
We're that waka, eating better and better food everyday, gaining new strength, new confidence. Soon we'll leave Kairakau beach and return to our homes on the Takapau plains, taking baskets of dried karengo and mātaitai that we'll add to our own food each day while reciting that same karakia, to ward off those witchcraft spells from Turanganui. |
Bodies and minds both need healingMakutu (witchcraft) was blamed as the cause of illnesses. So when appropriate herbal remedies were applied – collecting, boiling and applying extracts of kawakawa, manuka, koromiko etc – there would have been similar chants and fire-lighting rituals to ease the patients' minds as well as their bodies. RongoāAt Tūranganui (Gisborne) in the late 15th century, two young boys were killed because they threatened Tūpurupuru's chance of becoming the next high chief of the region. Tūpurupuru was executed and his relatives were banished south, with some of them ending up far inland on the Takapau Plains. Without any seafood in their diet, some of these 'inlanders' would have become deficient in iodine and other nutrients. As a result their thyroid glands did not function properly and they suffered from energy loss, impotence and depression. These symptoms were especially bad when enervating winds blew from the north. With the guilt of Tupurupuru's foul deed still on their minds, they blamed their weak condition on witchcraft wafting up from the north, resulting in mass hysteria. 
It seems their leader Ngāpū-o-te-rangi noticed that those who regularly visited the coast or lived there were never affected by this witchcraft. In a discussion with other wise ones, they would have figured out there was something in seafood that kept the makutu weakness at bay, so they developed this process for curing both the physical weakness and negative emotions of the afflicted. Those being cured needed to know that the young tohunga being trained up to cure them had received his special powers from Rangi-tu. So to make sure that this healing process would keep working in sucessive generations, the wise ones encapsulated the main points of the process in a chant, and by linking together several old ritual chants with some fatherly advice, plus references to historical and mythical events, they produced this masterpiece. Iodine deficiency today
Just under your throat is your thyroid gland. It
secretes two hormones into your bloodstream that make
sure the food you eat is burnt up fast enough to keep
your body warm, your brain active, your leg muscles
pumping and your sexual organs functioning. |
For
most Maori living inland 400 years ago, iodine
deficiency was not a problem: eels migrating from the
sea, and tītī chicks fed on herring would have been
part of their diet. Also known as the sooty shearwater
or mutton bird, the tītī is a seabird that often used
to nest in burrows far inland, so that marauding skua
gulls wouldn't eat the young chicks while their
parents flew out to sea for bellyfuls of small fish
that were rich sources of iodine and other minerals.
Inland
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Webpage put onto folksong.org.nz website Dec 2018,
updated and reformatted Sept 2020 and June 2024