Manaii and the Spears

Manaii and the Spears

(A Legend from Chatham Islands)

Manii was a chief in Havaiki. His children were born there, and there in that land, he grew old and bent.

Hard trouble rose between the tribes, therefore Manaii ordered the making of spears. He said to his sons: ‘Go into the bush and cut down an akepiri tree. When you have felled it split it into eighty pieces. Make those pieces into spears.’

Therefore the sons of Manaii felled the akepiri tree and split it into eighty pieces, and of them, each one had a piece; and they adzed those pieces into eighty spears.

But the heart-wood of that tree remained; they could not adze the crooked heart-wood, it was twisted in the grain. They returned to their home and said to Manaii, ‘We cannot chip the heart to make it straight; the wood is crooked in the grain.’

‘Go again to chip the heart of your tree to finish it properly.’ But those sons of Manaii could not chip the heart to make it straight.

‘How many spears then have you?’

‘We have eighty.’

Said Manaii, ‘That is enough, that every one of you may have a spear.’ After this, the sons of Manaii threw away the heart-wood of the tree.

Then Niwa the wife of Manaii spoke to the youngest of her sons, her last-born child, to Kahukaka: ‘Go you and adze the heart of the tree of your elder brothers. Go at early dawn lest they should see you.’ Then Niwa showed her youngest son the way to adze that wood, she gave him the pattern secretly, and said, ‘Go you and chip it quickly, come back soon. Then your elder brothers will not know.’

Kahukaka went, he found the timber of his elder brothers lying and he quickly chipped that wood, he followed carefully the teaching of his mother; he chipped the heart into a well-made spear, most smoothly worked. He left it and returned.

Afterwards, those elder brothers came to the place and saw the work. They were amazed, the adzing was so skilled; it was more beautiful than theirs, and they asked one another. ‘Who has chipped this heart-wood which we could not?’

They took the spear to their home and showed it to Manaii, and all the people gazed at it and asked who worked this wood so well. But that was not discovered. For Niwa concealed the sacred knowledge of her youngest son.

Then the people went about asking, ‘Who has done this?’

One night Manaii heard Niwa make a saying about her youngest son. She said this word:

You are my Kahukaka nui,

Got by me in the kakahi wastes.

Hence you have come forth a man,

Hence you have become great.

Thus Niwa spoke about her son Kahukakanui.

Now Kahukakanui was not the child of Manaii but was begun in the kakahi wastes, when Niwa went there secretly with Porotehiti. And he was full of skill and knowledge, this son of Porotehiti. But the sons of Manaii did not know the adzing of heart-wood.

Now when Manaii heard the word of his wife concerning Kahukaka, he knew that Niwa had done a wrong thing, and his thought was, ‘Who has done this wrong thing with Niwa?’ Therefore he collected seven-score men, and he went to fight with Porotehiti.

When Porotehiti heard that Manaii was coming to fight with him he gathered all his people, more in number than Manaii’s. The two made war.

Manaii rushed forward with his eighty spears, and Porotehiti’s people turned and ran. Then Manaii spiked them all in the holes in their bottoms. Great was the slaughter made by Manaii of Porotehiti’s people.

And Porotehiti himself was wounded in the eye by Manaii’s spear. For that reason he made the chant which healed his eye, the whai konehi; it is the chant our people use when anyone is wounded in the eye, by a spear or by a splinter.

In this fighting between Manaii and Porotehiti in Havaiki, many were lost on both sides. Through this was the cause of man-eating.

It was through Manaii also that war grew with the people of Havaiki, and Manaii’s evil clung to them until they sailed away to this land, to Rekohu.

Rekoho (Chatham Islands)

Source

Legends of the South Seas

Antony Alpers

1970

Pages: 342 - 344

The Offspring of the Sky and Earth

The Offspring of the Sky and Earth

(A Legend from Chatham Islands)

In the beginning were Rangi and Papa, Sky and Earth. Darkness existed. Rangi adhered over Papa his wife. Man was not.

Chatham Islands

A person arose, a spirit who had no origin; his name was Rangitokona, the Heaven-propper. He went to Rangi and Papa, bid them go apart, but they would not.

Therefore Rangitokona separated Rangi and Papa, he thrust the Sky above. He thrust him with his pillars ten in number end to end; they reached up to the Fixed-place-of-the-Heavens.

After this separating Rangi lamented for his wife: and his tears are the dew and the rain which ever fall on her. This was the chant that did that work:

Rangitokona, prop up the heaven!

Rangitokona, prop up the morning!

The pillar stands in the empty space,

It stands in the baldness of the sky.

The thought stands in the earth-world-

Thought stands also in the sky.

The kahi stands in the earth-world-

Kahi stands also in the sky.

The pillar stands, the pillar-

It ever stands, the pillar of the sky.

Then for the first time was there light between the Sky and the Earth; the world existed.

When he had finished this work Rangitokona heaped up earth and of it he made man, he created Tu. This was his chant:

Stem heaped up, heaped, heaped up.

Stem gathered together, gathered, gathered together.

Heap it in the stem of the tree,

Heap it in the butt of the tree,

Heap it in the foundation of the tree.

Heap it in the fibrous roots.

Heap it in the thick root of the tree.

Heap it together, it grows;

Heap it together, it lives.

The heaven-stem lives, it is living, E!

Stem heaped up, body heaped up-

Let the heaven stand which lives.

Heap it in the flower of the tree,

Heap it in the leaf of the tree,

Heap it in the swaying of the tree!

Heap it in the spreading branches of the tree,

Heap it in the pattern of the tree.

Heap it in the finishing of the tree!

Heap it, it grows!

Heap it, it lives!

The heaven lives-E!

Stem heaped up, stem heaped up.

Let the heaven stand which lives,

Let Tu remain.

This was the forming of the body of Tu. Then the spirit was gathered in. And this was the chant for that work:

Let the spirit of the man be gathered to the world of being, the world of light.

Then see. Placed in the body is the flying bird, the spirit-breath.

Then breathe!

Sneeze, living spirit, to the world of being, the world of light.

Then see. Placed in the body is the flying bird, the breath.

Be breathing then, great Tu. Now live!

Then man existed, and the progeny of Tu increased: Rongo, Tane, Tangaroa, Rongomai, Kahukura, Tiki, Uru, Ngangana, Io, Iorangi, Waiorangi, Tahu, Moko, Maroro, Wakehau, Tiki, Toi, Rauru, Whatonga - these were the sons.

Ruanuku, Motu ariki, Te Ao marama, Tu mare, Ranganuku, Matariki, Wari, and Ro Tauira the pattern-maid - these were the females. These were Rangitokona’s descendants born of heaven and the earth.

The last, Ro Tauira, being made, the children of Rangi and Papa went forth their ways, they went out to the world of being.

Then Te Ao marama had her son, his name was Rongomai whenua. He was the first man of this land: he was the land.

From this time grew the tribe of men, until the time of Marti-puku and Rongopapa, whose tribe was called Te Hamata.

These people dwelt in this land here, before the coming of the canoe Rangimata, and the rest.

Those ancient ones were hiti, they were giants. The long bones of their thighs lay formerly at Te Awa patiki, showing that giants lived formerly in this land; but the flood of that lagoon swept all away.

Ro Tauira the pattern-maid brought forth her son Tahiri mangate, who took for his wife Rangi maomao, ‘Mackerel Sky'. As children of these two were born the winds.

The East wind was the first-born child, he came from where the dawn is seen. The West wind was the last.

The other sons were Wairehu, the warm month, and Tuhe a Takarore, the month before. These two kept counting and disputing when their season should begin.

It was Wairehu, that is January, who prevented Rehua, heat-of-February, from turning and devouring men by drying all things up.

Mihi torekao and Rongo, they are March and July. They were incited by Tahiri the father of winds to fight against man, and thus they do, with cold rain and the southerly, with sleet.

Tu matauenga, Tu-of-twisted-face, was a son of the rough West wind. It was he who placed strength in fishes and birds and trees to injure man.

Source:

Legends of the South Seas

Antony Alpers

1970

Pages: 47-50