Rangitāne o Tamaki nui a Rua

Incorporated Society

²Te Awa o Manawatū   ²Te Aohuruhuru   ²Okatia

Manawatū River

When the Rangitāne people stepped from prehistory into history in the nineteenth century, their tribal domain comprised almost the entire drainage basin of the Manawatu River, including its tributaries on both sides of the Tararua-Ruahine mountain chain.  The most conspicuous natural feature in this area was the Manawatu Gorge, known to the Rangitāne as Te Apiti (the cleft, or gorge).  The stretch of river plunging through the gorge was known as Te Au-rere-a-te-tonga (the flowing current of the south) and Te Au-nui-a-tonga (the great south current) was the name of the waterfall.  In the middle of the gorge is a great red rock known to Rangitāne as Te Ahu a Turanga, which is also the name of the saddle a little north of the gorge.  The rock was a tapu thing and was said to be visible even in the highest floods.

The spectacle of a river cutting right through a mountain chain must have been as much of a puzzle to the Rangitāne as it was to later people.  The folk-tale evolved by the Rangitāne to explain this phenomenon was no doubt as perfectly satisfactory to their children at bed-time as it would be to ours.

Away in the dim past a huge tōtara tree growing on the slopes of the Puketoi Range in Hawke’s Bay became possessed of a supernatural being called Okatia.  Under the influence of the spirit the tree began to move, gouging out a deep channel towards the north-west.  In time the moving tree encountered the mountain barrier of Tararua and Ruahine, but this obstacle counted for nothing as the tōtara turned to the west and simply forced it’s way right through the mountains, thus creating the gorge.  The tree then meandered across the plains until it entered the sea.  This provided a convenient bed for the Manawatu River. 

The bed of the river was also affected by the exploits of a famous taniwha named Whāngaimokopuna whose home was originally at the mouth of the river.  Unlike most taniwha, Whāngaimokopuna was a pet. His owners, the people of Motuiti, fed him on the choicest portions of eels caught in the area and apparently spoiled him thoroughly.  One day when the elders were away, the children who had been left in charge of the pet saw no reason for coddling a taniwha, so they fed him on the heads of the eels, keeping the best portions for themselves.  Whāngaimokopuna was naturally upset and he seized one of the boys and swallowed him.  When the elders returned the boy was missed, but while they were searching for him, their pet vomited up the boy’s remains.  It was now the turn of the parents to be upset and Whāngaimokopuna fled from their anger.

The taniwha went inland until the sound of the sea was inaudible, hence the name Taikorea (sea blotted out), now known as Taikoria.

Whāngaimokopuna eventually decided to continue up the river and passed through the Manawatu Gorge.  He carried on until he neared the point where the Tamaki River entered the Manawatu (between Tahoraiti and Dannevirke) where the river then took a sharp bend and passed round some high hills.  Whāngaimokopuna saw no point in travelling all that distance, so he simply cut his way straight ahead through the slopes of the hills, leaving a high cliff which later constituted part of the natural defences of the Rangitāne pa, Raikapua.  This straightening of the river-bed left a depression on the south-east side of the river which is now partly occupied by the Mahangaiti Lagoon at Kaitoki.

Whāngaimokopuna continued upstream till he reached the Mangapuaka Stream, which he followed until he reached its source in the hills now known as the Whāngai Range after him.  The Mangapuaka Stream had previously been the home of another taniwha named Te Horearua whose name is perpetuated in a peak, now a trig point, on the Raekatia Range south west of Ormondville.

The taniwha still lives in the mountains and that whenever Rangitāne people from the lower Manawatu visit the Dannevirke area, a mist descends on Raekatia mountain.  This is Whāngaimokopuna weeping for his old friends.