The Story of Tawhaki and Hapai.

“.… And Tawhaki—breast and brow sublime insufferably flashing,

Hid in lightnings, as he looks out from the thunder-cloven portals
Of the sky—stands forth confest—a God and one of the immortals!”

—Alfred Domett (“Ranolf and Amohia”)

Maori-Polynesian mythology, like that of the Old World, has numerous stories of unions
between gods and human beings. In some legends it is a god who descends to this earth,
attracted by a lovely woman; in others the heavenly being who weds a mortal is a goddess,
who nightly visits her terrestrial lover. There is much beauty in some of these stories of the
loves of atua and mortals. One is the Arawa legend of Puhaorangi (Gentle Breath of Heaven)
and Kura-i-monoa (Precious Treasure). Puhaorangi was a celestial being who beheld the
beautiful Kura from his eyrie in the clouds. He descended to her in the guise of a rupé, a dove
or pigeon, just as Jupiter assumed the form of a swan in order to approach the fair Leda in the
stream. The rupé was fondled by the lovely girl, who became a mother. Her son was given the
name of Oho-mai-rangi (Surprise from the Sky, or Heavenly Awakening), and from him many
Maori trace their descent. Many a genealogy begins with the names of Puhaorangi and his
earthly wife and the semi-divine child, Oho-mai-rangi.

One of the panels of the Arawa Maori Soldiers’ Memorial at Rotorua illustrates the legend of
the heavenly rupé that so successfully wooed the maid, “Precious Treasure.”
The descendants of Puhaorangi are called Te Heketanga a Rangi (The Offspring of Heaven).
When the Right Rev. F. A. Bennett, who is a member of the Arawa tribe, became Bishop of
Aotearoa—the first Maori Bishop—he was hailed by his fellow Arawa chiefs as one of the
Heketanga-a-Rangi, for his whakapapa on his mother’s side went back to Puhaorangi of
Hawaiki.
For an example of Maori genealogical trees, through the generations from Oho-mai-rangi, see
Te Heuheu’s whakapapa at the end of this chapter

In the legend of Tawhaki and Hapai the sexes are reversed. It is a celestial woman who loves a
man of this earth, the afterwards deified Tawhaki. The divine Hapai came “floating down on
steady pinions” to the youthful hero of noble appearance, and lifting the covering under which
he slept, lay down by his side. He thought she was a woman of this world. So began a union
which ran happily until Tawhaki made some impatient remark about their infant child, a girl.
Hapai’s mother-love was wounded so deeply that she resolved to leave her earthly husband
and return to her skyey home. With her child in her arms she climbed to the roof of their
house, and, standing on the carved tekoteko above the front of the dwelling, she cried a
farewell to Tawhaki. The quickly repentant lover tried to catch her, but she sailed off into the
sky and vanished from his sorrowing view. In her farewell she told Tawhaki that if ever he
wished to follow her to her far-away home he must seek a secure forestrope (aka) by which to
ascend to the higher regions; he must beware of the loosely swinging creepers.

Long Tawhaki mourned for his lovely wife and child; then he set forth to find a way of ascent
to the land of his divine ones. He entered the great forest and sought a tree-vine by which he
might climb. The venerable guardian of this deep and gloomy wood was his grandmother,
Mata-kere-po. As her name indicated, she was blind. Tawhaki miraculously cured her
blindness, and in her gratitude she showed him the aka he could trust. He grasped it and
shook it, and began his great climb to the upper regions. As he climbed, the aged wise woman
chanted her incantation of encouragement, the chant for his pikitanga by the sacred vine

called the toi-huarewa:

“Piki ake Tawhaki
Ki te rangi tuatahi,
Ki te rangi tuarua”

[Translation.]
“Ascend on high, Tawhaki,
To the first heaven,
To the second heaven.”

And so on the recital went, to the tenth heaven, where Hapai’s home would be. The winds of
the vasts of space buffeted the hero, he was blown and tossed to and fro, but he clung tightly
to the secure aka and steadily climbed aloft. The heights of the cloudy heavens were scaled at
last, and Tawhaki found himself in a region where he hoped he would find his vanished wife.
It resembled the land of earth in some respects, for there was a forest, and as he explored it he
saw a party of workmen engaged in making a canoe out of a great felled tree. He joined them,
and when they were about to leave for home he offered to carry their axes to their village. He
waited until they were out of sight, and he set to work on the half-finished canoe, and chopped
away until he had completed the hollowing out and shaping. Then he followed the men to
their kainga. The villagers did not take much notice of the humble-looking stranger, until they
beheld his glad meeting with the beautiful Hapai, for she dwelt in that village. They were
amazed, for she was a tapu woman and a high chieftainess.

The loving reunion of Tawhaki and his wife and child was a meeting never to part, for he
remained in the celestial home, and the inhabitants of that place knew he had become a god,
for he was of radiant appearance and lightning flashed from his armpits.
Such is the story of Tawhaki as narrated by most of the Maori tribal legend-keepers. There are
some variations. One version of the saga says that Tawhaki climbed to the heavens on a
spider’s web-thread. Another story is that he flew his manu aute, or kite, shaped like a great
bird with outspread wings, and that he grasped the string and chanted his climbing song, “Piki
ake Tawhaki ki te rangi tuatahi,” and so on, as his soaring kite drew him to the heavens.
Some writers see in this legend a myth of great antiquity, and endeavour to trace it back to
Asiatic lands. But, in my opinion, its place of origin was most probably in the mid-Pacific
Islands, and likely enough in Samoa. It is quite probable that it preserves in its highly poetic
and allegorical form the memory of an actual episode in a mountainous island such as Upolu,
the “heaven” of the story being the high inland parts inhabited by tribes different from or at
war with the coast-dwellers. The magical forest-vine was an actual aka or toro, such as are
seen trailing from great forest trees—the aka tapu-a-Tane. A rata vine or liane, hanging down
over a cliff, is often used as a way of ascent in rugged forest country. A common Maori place
name, Aka-tarewa, is descriptive of such hanging rope-like creepers.*