A.W. Reed - Favourite Māori Legends

Published by Libro International, an imprint of Oratia Media Ltd, 783 West Coast Road, Oratia, Auckland 0604, New Zealand (www.librointernational.com).

Copyright 1999 The A.W. Reed Estate

Copyright 2013 The A.W. Reed Estate and Ross Calman

Copyright 2013 Oratia Media (published work)

The copyright holders assert their moral rights in the work.

This book is copyright. Except for the purposes of fair reviewing, no part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, whether electronic, digital or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, any digital or computerised format, or any information storage and retrieval system, including by any means via the Internet, without permission in writing from the publisher. Infringers of copyright render themselves liable to prosecution.

ISBN 978-1-877514-56-2

Ebook ISBN 978-1-877514-58-6

Project editor: Carolyn Lagahetau

Designer: Cheryl Rowe, Macarn Design

First published 1965 by A.H & A.W. Reed

This edition 2013 by Libro International

Printed in New Zealand

For hundreds of years these stories have been told to Mori children and adults in the house of amusement at nights, or on the marae, by the storytellers and learned men of the tribes. They would not all be known to a single iwi or hap (tribe or subtribe), for they come from every part of the islands of New Zealand, which were known to the Mori as Aotearoa.

We owe a great deal to the kaumtua, the learned elders, and to early students of Mori lore, for collecting these tales before they were forgotten by later generations. Amongst the notable collectors we may number J. Herries Beattie, Elsdon Best, Rev. William Colenso, James Cowan, A.A. Grace, Sir George Grey, Hare Hongi, J.H. Mitchell, Col. C.B. Porter, Edward Shortland, Rev. Richard Taylor, John White, C.A. Wilson and Rev. J.F.H. Wohlers, who recorded stories at first hand.

The title of the book may need a word of explanation. The more popular Mori legends will be found in Myths and Legends of Maoriland, while shorter legendary tales appear in Maori Fables and Legendary Tales, both by A.W. Reed. Treasury of Maori Folklore by the same compiler contains a vast collection of legends, folktales, and myths. The present compilation is drawn directly from this source. As the more comprehensive work has a limited circulation amongst students of Mori lore, Favourite Maori Legends reaches a wider circle of readers.

The legends were famous in their day. Over the years they have to a large extent been forgotten, but they should not be lost to the present and future people of Aotearoa. As we become more conscious of the contribution that Mori culture should make to our common heritage, we believe that they will again become favourite legends.

A.W. Reed

Wellington, 1965

The stories in the original 1965 edition of this volume are derived from A.W. Reeds classic Treasury of Maori Folklore (1963). As a child growing up I remember this volume, with its distinctive orange-streaked-with-black dust jacket, sitting on our familys bookshelf alongside biographies of All Blacks and pictorial books featuring New Zealand landscapes many also published by A.H. & A.W. Reed.

Of course, as a child I was daunted by the sheer scale of the Treasury and did not appreciate the prodigious feat of research and retelling that that volume represented. In it, A.W. Reed put his unique spin on material compiled from sources such as the Journal of the Polynesian Society and the Transactions of the New Zealand Institute, as well as classic tribal histories such as Takitimu by J.H. Mitchell and Tainui by L.G. Kelly.

The Treasury of Maori Folklore had long been out of print when in 2003 I was asked by Reed Publishing to produce a revised edition, which was published as the Reed Book of Mori Mythology in 2004. Reworking that volume was both enjoyable and rewarding, immersed as I was in Mori mythology and the traditional stories of the tpuna. In creating the new edition I updated the context and interpretation of the stories and added back, where possible, the Mori text of waiata, karakia and whakatauk, corrected various errors that had crept in and added information about Reeds sources where I could.

In turn the Reed Book of Mori Mythology became the source for a further two books Taniwha, Giants and Supernatural Creatures and Earth, Ocean, Sky published by Penguin in 2008 under the Raup imprint.

So I knew what I was in for when I was approached by Peter Dowling, former Publishing Manager of Reed Publishing, to revise Favourite Mori Legends. In doing this work it has always been reassuring to have the support of Ray Richards, who worked closely with A.W. Reed for many years. Ray has continued to safeguard Reeds literary legacy since his death in 1979.

While this current volume largely follows the original A.W. Reed text, I have removed unnecessary archaisms and made corrections to some details such as names and places, as well as following orthographic conventions for modern Mori. My hope is that I have not diminished the value of the narratives as stories, for A.W. Reed had undoubted gifts in storytelling and making traditional narratives widely accessible to a popular audience.

Will the stories presented here conflict in some details with other versions that are out there in written form and in peoples memories? Of course they will. There is no correct version of any of these stories. Each iwi, and in some cases hap within an iwi, will have their own version. Indeed, some of the stories are of such antiquity that versions are preserved in the islands of Polynesia from where the ancestors came in other words, some of the stories have survived for close to a thousand years through telling, listening, remembering and retelling.

Indeed, telling stories and listening to them was perhaps the most popular leisure activity in traditional Mori society. The fall of night signalled the end of the days labours and ushered in communal leisure time. In particular, the inclement weather and long dark evenings of winter gave ample opportunity for storytelling. Listeners would be seated in a dark whare, dimly lit by flickering fires within pits and by torches made from bundles of maire wood. They would have been gripped by tales of taniwha and patupaiarehe, simultaneously covering their ears yet straining to hear each new, gruesome detail.

Pakiwaitara and prkau are general terms for stories and traditions. Krero takurua (winter-time stories) and krero ahiahi (stories told by the fire) are less reliable kinds of stories, more in the nature of jokes, yarns and anecdotes. As the names suggest, they were embroidered with the primary aim of entertainment.

Beyond entertainment, storytelling was an important means of transmitting history, whakapapa and other knowledge. Early missionaries were staggered at the ability of Mori to memorise and retain information, which was due to this oral tradition.

I hope you can accompany me in enjoying the stories within this volume and the window they give on to te ao tawhito, the traditional Mori world.

Mauri ora,

Ross Calman

Karori, Wellington

April 2013

Cape Ringa is the extreme north-west point of the North Island of New Zealand. On the rocky promontory grew an ancient phutukawa tree, the roots or branches of which provided a ladder for the spirits to descend through the swirling waters to the fabulous land below.