NZ Folk Song * Pania of the Reef

Ko Pania inaianei he papa kohatu e wha maero pea te tawhiti atu ki waho o Hukarere.	Pania today is a ledge or reef of rock, lying about four miles beyond Hukarere point.
Nepia - Napier Breakwater - kau mai ai te wahine nei ki uta i nga ahiahi i te toonga o te ra, a hei te ata po i mua atu o te putanga mai o te ra ka hoki ano ki tana iwi i te moana.	The Napier breakwater was the home of Pania, a beautiful sea maiden who, in ancient times, daily swam shorewards at the setting of the sun and returned to her sea people before the break of day.
Ko te wahi nohoanga o Pania i na haerenga mai ki uta ko roto i tetahi pu harakeke, tipu ai i te taha o te puna wai maori i te putake o te kari o Hukarere tata atu ana ki te moana.	While on shore she hid herself in a clump of flax beside a freshwater spring at the foot of Hukarere cliff, close by the sea.
I tetahi ahiahi ka hiainu wai tetahi rangatira e noho pa tata ana ki reira ka haere ki te puna nei me tana taha ki te inu wai.	One evening Karitoki, a chief who lived in a nearby Pa, became thirsty, and went for a drink at the spring.
I a ia e inu wai mai ana i tana taha ka kite atu ia i a Pania e noho mai ana i roto i te pu harakeke.	While drinking from his calabash he spied Pania sitting in the middle of the flax bush.
Ko tana haerenga atu ka mauria ki tana whare ka moe raua.	There and then he took her to his home, and they slept as man and wife.
Otira i te ata po ka hoki ano a Pania ki tana iwi i te moana, hei te ahiahi ka hoki mai ano ki uta ki tana tane.	But always, every morning, Pania would return to her sea folk and every evening come back ashore to her husband.
Ka taka te wa ka whanau te tamaiti a Pania he tane, maheni tonu kahore he huruhuru o te mahunga, tapaia tonutia iho ko Moremore.	After awhile Pania gave birth to a son who was completely without hair and so was named Moremore, 'the hairless one.'
I tenei wa ka pa te awangawanga ki tana tane kei tiro tana tamaiti i te iwi o te moana.	With the birth of this child, Pania's husband became concerned that he might lose him to the sea people.
Katahi ka haere ki te Tohunga ki te ui tikanga e mau ai tana tamaiti raua ko te whaea.	So he consulted a tohunga, in the hope of finding how to keep his child and wife with him always.
Ka mea te Tohunga me tuku a Pania raua ko te tamaiti kia warea te moe ka uta ai he kai maoka ki runga i a raua, me ta maoa kai, kia kore ai e hoki ki te moana.	The tohunga told him to place cooked food upon the mother and child while they slept, and they would never again return to the sea.
Otira ana ano te raruraru kaore pea i pai te tamaotanga i nga hoki i hoki ano a Pania ki tana iwi i te moana oti atu.	Evidently something went amiss. Perhaps the food was not properly cooked; for Pania returned to her people never to return.
Ko te tamaiti i hurihia bei mango, Taniwha, ko ana wahi nohoanga ko Hukarere - Napier Breakwater -me Rangatira kei te Ngatuawa o Ahuriri.	The child Moremore was turned to a shark, a taniwha, which lived in the waters around the reef off Hukarere, and at Rangatira, the entrance to the inner harbour at the delta of the river called Ahuriri.
Ko Pania inaianei e ai ki to korero a te hunga mahi ika, i na purata te moana ka kitea tonutia iho e takoto tapapa ana, pango tonu nga makawe o te mahunga, a ko nga ringaringa matoro mai ana ki uta.	When fishermen of today tell the legend of Pania, they claim that at ebb-tide she may be seen lying outstretched at the bottom of the rocky shelf, with her hair still as black as ever and her arms stretched shoreward.
E ai ki nga korero a o matou pakeke he toka ika inaianei.	According to the old people's stories, however, she was turned into a fishing rock, from which various kinds of fish might be caught.
Kei roto i te keke maui he rawaru anake nga ika o reira, kei te keke matau he tamure anake nga ika o reira, kei waenganui i nga kuha he hapuku anake nga ika o reira.	Within the hollow of her left arm-pit only rawaru may be caught, and from her right arm-pit snapper alone, while her thighs yield only the hapuka.
He tauranga tapu i te wa i a ratou, na te pakeha kua noa noaiho, kua kore e rite te nui o te ika ki reira me te wa ia ratou.	In the days of old these fishing grounds were sacred, but today, being frequented by pakehas, the place has become common to all and fish are no longer plentiful.

The Pania statue at Napier

In the 1920s Bishop Bennett tok some members of the Thirty Thousand Club on a drive round Napier.

When passing the tall bluffs near the break-water, the Bishop recounted the legend of the Pania Reef. Until that time it was not generally known. The romantic story greatly appealed to several members of the Club.

The suggestion was made that a statue be erected to perpetuate the legend in bronze. There were many delays for the next thirty years but in 1954 a life-sized bronze statue of Pania was unveiled on Napier's Marine Parade near Sturm's Gully.

Mei Irihapiti Robin (later Mrs Mei Whaitiri), a student from Hukarere Girls College was photographed as a model for the statue, and a clay likeness of her was made in Carrara, Italy. This was then used to produce a bronze statue.

There was a national outcry when this statue was stolen by druggies in 2005. It was quickly recovered by police and reinstalled.

The meaning of "Pania"

Pania is old Polynesian word with several layers of meanings. See Section P of Tregear

Bereaved
A wife by a second marriage
Having a smooth painted coating
Filling a gap
Pani was a goddess, the wife of Maui-whare-kino. Her stomach was the storehouse of the kumara.

Had Pania's seal husband died? Or did Karitoki take her as his second wife? Or does her name refer to the sleek sealskin coating over her human skin? Or was her rocky reef body held sacred as storehouse of food, although of fish, not kumara?

Pania similar to Selkie stories

Seals were once numerous around all the rocky coasts of New Zealand, and the Pania legend is similar to seal stories from the Shetland Islands north of Scotland.

Shetlanders say that the seals, or selkies, as they call them, can doff their coverings at times, and disport themselves as men and women.

A Shetland fisherman once rounded a ridge of rock, and discovered a beautiful woman there. Just at the man's feet lay a sealskin which he took up to examine. The woman, catching sight of him, ran to get possession of her skin.

But he wanted a wife, and he wooed her so earnestly and lovingly, that she followed him home, and became his wife.

Some years later, when their home was enlivened by the presence of two children, the husband, awakening one night, heard voices in conversation from the kitchen. Stealing softly to the room door, he heard his wife talking in a low tone with someone outside the window.

Next evening, as he was returning home by the strand, he spied a male and female seal sprawling on a rock a few yards out at sea. The bigger animal, raising himself on his tail and fins, thus addressed the astonished man,

"You deprived me of her whom I was to make my companion; and it was only yesternight that I discovered her outer garment, the loss of which obliged her to be your wife. I bear no malice, as you were kind to her in your own fashion; besides, my heart is too full of joy to hold any malice. Look on your wife for the last time."

The other seal glanced at him with shyness and sorrow, but when the bereaved husband rushed to secure his lost love, she and her companion slid into the water in a moment, and the poor fisherman was obliged to return sadly to his motherless children and desolate home.

The Pania Legend

The Pania statue at Napier

The meaning of "Pania"

Pania similar to Selkie stories