Inward in a huge half-cup, open to the south, and down this open side are strewn the disorderly remains of the…
- Date of account
- Published 1923
- Source
- Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand
- Reference
- Maori folk-tales of the Port Hills, Canterbury, New Zealand · selected passage 5
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-25
Record summary
inward in a huge half-cup, open to the south, and down this open side are strewn the disorderly remains of the old lava stream which flowed from the core of the volcano and which ran out into the harbour at Cass Bay in a tumbled black reef
Published source text
Read the available text below. Archive transcriptions may contain OCR errors; later context is labelled separately. A recorded claim is not a finding that it happened.
Source passage
Source text · mention onlyinward in a huge half-cup, open to the south, and down this open side are strewn the disorderly remains of the old lava stream which flowed from the core of the volcano and which ran out into the harbour at Cass Bay in a tumbled black reef. It does not require a great effort of imagination to reconstruct that fire-cup as it must have appeared in the era when the fantastic hills were still in the making and shaping. The Maoris, with a quick eye for such significant topographical features, gave the place a name which blends history with legend, “Wheke’s Sleeping Place.” Indeed, that strange hollow in the hills might have made fit cradle for a Finn MacCoul. Like the crater-topped cones of the Tamaki Isthmus, it is softly grassed; a stray _ngaio_ is the one remnant of the bush that once covered the volcanic detritus; but the hugely ramparted and square-hewn rim of the basin stands indomitable and unchangeable, unmistakable memorial of the active volcanic age.
Historical context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyThis material belongs to a folklore tradition. Story type, collector, community, transmission and literary editing matter when comparing it with other sources.
Modern context
Contextual commentary · mention onlyLattice compares motifs and reported features without assuming that a traditional being is a biological species or that similar stories document one external cause.
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