Kupe`s Discovery of Aotearoa

Kupe`s Discovery of Aotearoa

(A Legend from New Zealand)

It was the demigod Maui who fished up these islands from the bottom of the sea, but it was Kupe who discovered them, and returned to Hawaiki* with news of a land inhabited only by birds. The voyage of Kupe came about in this way. There was in Hawaiki a very great canoe-builder named Toto, who had two daughters. He went to cut down a fine large tree on the banks of the lake called Waiharakeke, and when it fell this tree split lengthwise into two equal parts. Toto therefore made two great ocean canoes, one of which he named Aotea and gave to his daughter Rongo-rongo, and the other he named Matahorua and gave to his daughter Kura marotini.

Now Kura marotini was the wife of Kupe's young cousin Hoturapa, and Kupe desired her. One day Kupe and Hoturapa were out fishing, a long way from the shore, when Kupe's line got caught on a snag. Being accustomed to giving orders, he said to his cousin: Hotu, my line is caught on something, just dive down and loosen it for me, would you?’ Hotu took hold of the line and said: ‘Let me see if l can't loosen it.’ “It’s no use,’ said Kupe. “I've tried, it won’t come, just dive down, go on.’

So Hoturapa jumped over and dived. But as soon as he was gone Kupe cut the anchor rope, threw the rest of his line into the sea, and paddled quickly for the shore. When Hotu came up again the canoe was far away. “E Kupe!’ he cried, 'Kupe! Come back and get me!’

The whole thing was a trick on Kupe’s part to get rid of Hotu and have his wife. Hoturapa was drowned, and Kupe made off with Kura marotini. But her relations were suspicious about the accident, and to escape their vengeance Kupe decided to leave Hawaiki. And so, in her canoe Matahorua, taking his own family, and Reti as the priest and navigator, he set off into that part of the Ocean known as Te Tiritiri o te Moana, Share of Ocean. It was thus that Kupe came to explore this part of the Great Ocean of Kiwa, and found these islands that now are called Aotearoa.

After they had sailed for many days, keeping a constant watch for any sign of land, such as a patch of different colour on the underside of the clouds, or a cloud of unusual shape, it fell to Hine te aparangi, wife of Kupe, to be the first to see something. She cried, ‘He ao! He ao!’ and the land beneath the cloud, when they sailed along it, was found to be much longer than any island those people had ever known. They therefore named it Aotearoa, Long White Cloud (today known as New Zealand).

As he was going down the east coast of the north island Kupe passed close to a small projecting piece of land** In a large cave there a wheke, or giant octopus, had its home, and Kupe surprised this wheke. Frightened by the sight of a canoe with men in it, the wheke left its cave and fled before the bows of Matahorua, turning round the bottom of the island in the direction of Raukawa***. Thus Kupe found the opening between the two islands of this land. He passed Cape Terawhiti and crossed the strait to look at the land on the other side. Finding the opening at Te Awaiti, he went into it and encountered a very strong current, to which he gave the name Kura te au. Strong as it was, Kupe made his paddlers fight that current, and he entered Te Awaiti.

Castlepoint, New Zealand

Now the wheke, whose name was Te Wheke a Muturangi, had gone there to hide. And when it heard the canoe approaching, and the paddling chants of Kupe's men as they struggled against the current, it raised its enormous arms above the water and slapped its suckers against the sides of Matahorua, to devour her and her crew. Then followed a great sea battle between the wheke and this chief. Kupe took up the adze Rakatuwhenua, which he had with him, and with fierce strokes he slashed at the wheke's many limbs. When the wheke had laid them over the sides of the canoe Kupe sliced bits of them, and his people ate them, but the monster took no notice at all. It writhed and lurched, and lashed about, and the canoe was in danger of being swamped in that rapid current. Then Kupe thought of a way to deceive the wheke. Dropping his adze, he picked up a large hollow gourd that had been full of drinking water. He threw it overboard, and the wheke, thinking it was a man, let go the canoe and seized the gourd. Then Kupe took his adze again, and when the wheke’s head and vital parts were wrapped around the gourd he severed it in two with one tremendous blow. Thus died the wheke of Muturangi.

Kupe and Wheke

After this, Kupe also severed the island of Aropawa from the South island, and the islands of Kapiti and Mana from the North. That is to say, he sailed in through Te Awaiti and around Aropawa island, and then up the west coast of the north island on the inside of Kapiti and Mana. And this old chant recalls these facts:

I sing, I sing of Kupe,

the man who severed the land!

Kapiti stands apart,

Mana stands apart,

Aropawa stands apart.

These are the signs

of my ancestor Kupe,

who discovered Titapua,

who explored the land.

Kupe stayed a short time at Whanganui a Tara, the great harbour of Tara****, and two small islands in it were named after two of his daughters, Matiu and Makoro, who were with him. It is said also that another of his daughters, Taiapua, killed herself at the red cliff Tamure, outside the western heads of the harbour. Kupe went there to bewail her death, and cut his forehead with a piece of obsidian, as was the custom, to show his grief. The blood of this chief stained the rocks all red, and they are red today, as can be seen by those who pass that way.

It was after this that Kupe travelled up the coat to the place where Patea now stands. He set up a post there to mark his visit, and he heard the voices of the only two inhabitants of this country he ever spoke of. He heard the cry of the kokako, or crow, and he saw the little tiwaiwaka, which flicked about in front of his face and snapped its tiny beak, and fanned out its black-and-white tail.

Now Kupe’s work was this, that he discovered these islands and some of the openings, the harbours and rivers, and to some of them he gave names. On his return to Hawaiki he spoke of the great land of high mists which he had seen. When he was asked if there were people there he replied, he saw only kokako and tiwaiwaka. This was more polite than saying ‘No’. When he was asked if he intended to return, he replied ‘E hoki Kupe?'-‘Will Kupe return?’- which down to this day is used as a way of saying no.

* * *

Kupe’s friend Ngahue travelled with him. Ngahue left Hawaiki because of the quarrel between obsidian and greenstone. Ngahue owned the block of greenstone which was called Pounamu, or sometimes ‘The Fish of Ngahue', and Hine tu a hoanga became enraged. Her fish or stone was waiapu, or obsidian. She drove him out, and Ngahue, seeking a resting place for his greenstone, travelled to Tuhua. But Hine-of-the-Whetstone-Back pursued him, and to escape her again he came to this land, Aotearoa. He travelled beyond the places Kupe visited, and carried his greenstone to Arahura, on the western coast of the south island, or Te Wai Pounamu. There he made an everlasting resting-place for his greenstone.

He broke a piece off it, and taking it with him he returned to Hawaiki, and reported that he had found a country which produced pounamu in abundance and also the very large bird called moa, standing higher than a man. According to some persons he killed one of these moa, and put it in a taha, or calabash, and carried it back to Hawaiki. From his greenstone Ngahue made the sharp adzes Tutauru and Hauhau te rangi. From the little pieces that were chipped away many precious ornaments of chiefs were manufactured. The eardrop Kaukaumatua was one of these. This was in the possession of Te Heuheu, and was only lost as recently as 1846, when he and many of his people were killed by a landslide.

*Hawaiki - mythical ancestral homeland of the Māori.

**Castlepoint

***Cook Strait

****Wellington

Source:

Maori myths and tribal legends

Antony Alpers

1966

Pages: 133-139