It was probably either a tuahu or a burying-place; the tuahu was the spot where the tribal gods, or, rather,…
- 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 25
- Rights
- public_domain
- Language
- English
- Record updated
- 2026-08-25
Record summary
It was probably either a tuahu or a burying-place; the tuahu was the spot where the tribal gods, or, rather, their symbols in wood and stone, were kept, and where the wise men, the tohungas, resorted for incantation and occult ceremonies and the black art of the makutu, by which enemies might be slain though they were …
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 onlyIt was probably either a _tuahu_ or a burying-place; the _tuahu_ was the spot where the tribal gods, or, rather, their symbols in wood and stone, were kept, and where the wise men, the _tohungas_, resorted for incantation and occult ceremonies and the black art of the _makutu_, by which enemies might be slain though they were at a great distance, by thought transmission and the malignant projection of the will. It is not well to camp there even now, should you have Maori blood in your veins. The flax-clumps and the _tauhinu_ bushes still murmur the name of Ngati-Mamoe, and though _pakeha_ sheep have long grazed over the site of Tauhinu-korokio and _pakeha_ voices make lively the mountain side, the soil holds the mysterious spell of the _tapu_. Maoris who have camped on the side of the track which goes over the hills there have spent a night of inexplicable discomfort, inexplicable, that is, but for the presence of the _tapu_ and the unseen spirits of Maoridom. Taare Tikao himself says that many years ago, when he was shearing at Major Hornbrook’s, he was taken suddenly and mysteriously ill, and that the illness was probably the effect of the local _tapu_.
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.
Investigate related details with Anomaly Graph’s account-based search, or read how matching and provenance work.