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Na Kanaka Nui

Updated: Aug 12




   Our kanaka maoli all over the world have many stories of Kanaka nui or large men in our ancient and recent history. Here are some recorded stories of our warrior people from all throughout our indigenous shores.



Fornander collection of Hawaiian antiquities and folk-lore. Vol. 5

Abraham Fornander Vol 5 part 1

Bishop Museum Press 1916/1917

Legend of Kawelo

pgs. 56-57


This is a lua 'Aiha'a of old. Chant comes from the island of Kauai. Chant tells of the legendary giant warrior, Kauahoa, of Hanalei, Kaua'i. Kauahoa was killed by another large warrior named Kawelo with help from his wahine, Kanewahineikiāoha, who entangled Kauahoa's massive war club with her ikoi (tripping cord), which enabled her husband Kawelo to strike the giant Kauahoa with his laau palau or war club and kill him.

As soon as Kanewahine'ikiaoha heard the order of Kawelo in his chant to throw up the pikoi, she immediately threw it up. Kawelo then looked up, and, saw that the pikoi was tangled around the massive war club, (an uprooted tree), which was then pulled to the ground. 

Kauahoa replied: "This club will never spare you in the day of battle. You have slain our men so that there are none left; how can you then expect my club to spare you? As it has been your deal, you can see the result; and when it will be my deal, I will see the result."

     In this reply by Kauahoa, Kawelo was filled with a great fear. Kawelo jumped back out of Kauahoa's reach and stood behind him. Kauahoa then reached down to pick up his fallen club. As Kauahoa was in a stooping position, Kawelo raised up his war club named Kuika'a, and struck Kauahoa from the back with a blow, cutting him in two and killing him.


Traditional ikoi or throwing cord

Kii: Ku'ialuaopuna


Edits to the original published Hawaiian and English works were made to the published chant below. K.K. Ku'ialuaopuna.




'O Hanalei ʻāina ua,

ʻĀina anuanu, ʻāina ko'eko'e,

ʻĀina a ka pe'a i noho ai,

Noho 'ana e li'u 'ana e,

Ma'ewa 'ana ka 'uki'uki o Honokoa,

I ka pali o Kalehuawehe

Pua ka lama me ka wiliwili,

O ka ua lele ma waho o Māmalahoa,

O Kauahoa o ka me'e u'i o Hanalei,

O ke kanaka a Kamalama i hopo ai o Kauahoa,

He mea, e ka nui‒e‒a!

Eia ka ho'i ua kanaka nui

'O Kaua'i,

'O Kauahoa.    

  

Hanalei, the land of rain,.

The cold land, the damp-land,

The land where the ancient bats dwell

Sitting there, delaying there,

For the anger of Honokoa is reviling.

At the cliff of Kalehuawehe

Where the lama and wiliwili trees bloom,

Where the rain sweeps on the boundaries of Mamalahoa.

Kauahoa, the stalwart youth of Hanalei,

The person of whom Kamalama is afraid, Kauahoa,

For he is indeed large.

He is the largest man

Of Kaua'i,

Kauahoa.





Tangata-Roa 



Published by

Tangata Whenua

Aug 30, 2025

IJ 230:Tangata-roa

© 2016 by Its in plain sight productions inc.



A 'giant'. There are many legends in which giants are mentioned as having lived in New Zealand; some of these relating to historical or semi-historical persons, and others being pure myth.

  • Tama-te-kapua was nine feet high; and he was vanquished in single combat by Ruaeo, who was eleven feet high.

  • Tū-hou-rangi was nine feet in height, and was six feet up to the armpits. The bones of Tū-hou-rangi were used for a long time in priestly ceremonies, being brought out and set up in the high places at the time of the kumara being planted. They were taken away by the Ngā-puhi tribe when they stormed the island of Mokoia, in Lake Rotorua.




Tama-te-kapua

A famous ancestral hero of the Māori people. He was the giant son of Haumai-tāwhiti, of Hawaiki, and is first spoken of as journeying with his brother Whakaturia in search of Pōtaka-tāwhiti, a dog belonging to Haumai-tāwhiti. This dog, it was discovered, had been killed and eaten by Toi-te-huatahi and Ue-nuku. In revenge, the brothers robbed Ue-nuku's fruit (poporo) trees. Whakaturia was caught and hung up in the smoke of Ue-nuku's house to die; but by stratagem and the help of his brother he managed to escape.




The image above is of this hero depicted in a carving at Tamatekapua meeting house in Ohinemutu, Rotorua in 1880.


War ensued; and it was found that an emigration was the only possible way of preserving the lives of some of the weaker tribes. Canoes were built, and the Arawa, Tainui, Matatūa, and other canoes set out for New Zealand.

Tama-te-kapua was in command of the Arawa, and enticed Ngātoro-i-rangi, the priest of the Tainui on board his own vessel. He also carried off Ngātoro's wife (Kea) and Whakaoti-rangi, the wife of Ruaeo. On account of Tama taking liberties with the wife of Ngātoro, and thus arousing the anger of the great priest, the Arawa was nearly lost in the whirlpool of Te Parata.

The Arawa at last reached Whangaparaoa, in the North Island, and her crew found that the Tainui had arrived there before them, and claimed the prior right of possession. Through the cunning of Tama, this claim was disproven. The Arawa went on to Tauranga, and to Maketu. Here Ruaeo (whose wife had been carried off) found Tama, and engaged in a fierce duel, in which Tama, gigantic as he was, was overmatched, beaten down, and insulted. Tama went on with Ngātoro to Tangiaro, and died there; but when dying, he ordered his children to return to Maketu.

Tama had two sons, Tuhoro and Kahu-mata-momoe. These men buried their father on the summit of Moehau (Cape Colville). The parting words (poroporoaki) which Tama spoke to his sons were:

"E papa nga rakau i runga i a koe Mau ake te Whakaaro ake. Ae, Ae.E haere nga taua i te ao nei,Mau e patu, Ae, ae."


Ruaeo

A chief of Hawaiki, a giant of eleven feet in height. At the time of the Migration of the Māori people to New Zealand, Whakaoti-rangi, the wife of Ruaeo, was decoyed on board the Arawa canoe by Tama-te-kapua, and carried away. Ruaeo arrived in his canoe Pukā-tea-wai-nui, and obtained access secretly to his wife, who was living with Tama at Maketu. Ruaeo brought one hundred and forty of his men, and challenged Tama to single combat. Tama, himself a giant of nine feet stature, accepted the challenge, but was overthrown, beaten, and insulted beyond expression. Ruaeo and his people then left the place, and chose a home for themselves.



Tu-hou-rangi

A chief noted for his tall stature, he having reached the unusual height of nine feet, and six feet up to the armpits. His bones were used by later generations at religious ceremonials, they being brought out by the priests and set up in the sacred places at the time when root-crops were dug up, when the fishing season commenced, and when an enemy was to be attacked. The bones were eventually carried off by the Ngā-puhi and never seen again.




Legends of the Maori

There were Giants in the Land


Publication details: Southern Reprints, 1987



There were Giants in the Land.

A Story came by cable not long since of the discovery of gigantic human footprints in ancient rock at Limpopo, in South Africa. The narrative recalled certain Maori traditions of uncommonly tall warriors of Old New Zealand. The legends do not mention the dimensions of the Maori feet, but it is probable that they would compare passing well with those of the huge rovers of the African stone age. What our New Zealand traditions do lay stress on is the great reach with a weapon, especially the taiaha, or the hani, a kind of two-handed sword, which made the big chieftains of old such formidable foes in battle. The numerous stories, though obviously exaggerated in some particulars, all go to show that a marvellous physical development was attained by some of the ancestors of the present Maori.

There is the story of Kiharoa, a giant of the Ngati-Raukawa and Ngati-Whakatere tribes, who met his death about a hundred and fifty years ago. His stronghold was Tokanui Pa, on the middle hill of the “Three Sisters,” the conical hills which are seen close to the present motor road through the King Country a short distance south of the Puniu River. The story has it that he was twice the height of an ordinary man, and he wielded a hard-wood taiaha of unusual length and weight. He was killed at last when he slipped on some karaka leaves as he fought in a battle just outside his pa. His enormous head presently decorated the palisades of Totorewa, a pa of the Ngati-Maniapoto. An excavation for an oven to cook the huge body was made where he fell, and in one’s youth in those parts the “Giant’s Grave,” as it was called, in the fern, was pointed out by the Maori; the spot is close to where the Tokanui Hall now stands at the cross-roads. Two fathoms long and a foot over, is the native word-of-mouth record of Kiha-roa’s height. It may seem slightly exaggerated; but let us be generous and allow that he was at least eight feet.

There was another giant of these parts long ago, one Matau; like Kiharoa, he was a man of the Ngati-Raukawa tribe, and, too, his favourite weapon was the taiaha. He lived on a hill above the Wairaka River, a few miles beyond Orakau. Maori accounts aver that he was eleven feet high.

In the Rotorua country, too, there are stories, no doubt based on fact, of huge warriors of the past. There was the chief Tuhourangi, for one; he lived three centuries ago. He was nine feet high, according to tradition, and was about six feet up to his armpits. His bones were buried on the east side of Pukurahi Pa, on Mokoia Island, above the present little settle- page 239ment on the flat. The old man Tamati Hapimana told me, at Mokoia in 1896, that Tuhourangi’s bones were still there, deep in the ground, enclosed in stone slabs. His story was that Sir George Grey, during his first Governorship of New Zealand, visited Mokoia and, hearing about the bones of a man of enormous size, obtained the consent of the chiefs to dig for the skeleton. The men whom he employed purposely dug in the wrong place and so the relics were never brought to light. This long-gone warrior’s bones, in olden times, were disinterred at kumara planting time and were set up on the edge of the cultivations on Mokoia, while the priest recited the prayers for a bountiful harvest. The presence of the sacred bones was supposed to promote the fertility of the crop.

They were men who made some noise in the land, those giants. The Maori delighted to embroider such tales with amazing details, such as the story that Tuhourangi used to shout from the mainland to Mokoia Island, three or four miles away, bidding his slaves prepare food for him.

In other parts there are old-time giant tales, and the ancestors of certain families are said to have been of uncommon size—such families as Kaihau of Waikato, Wahanui of the King Country, Haupapa of Rotorua, Tareha of the Bay of Islands. They are big men to-day, some of them. Far away in North Auckland, there was a great fellow named Te Pute, a hero of the Ngapuhi folk. His eyes, they aver, were as large as the largest pawa shell—about the size of a saucer. When he sneezed the thundering sound thereof was heard from Punakitere as far away as Kaikohe, and that is several miles distant.

In the South Island there are somewhat similar legends of gigantic warriors with a mighty reach of weapon. In historic times there is the authentic memory of a strong man who, though not a giant, was famed for his powers as a fighter, and was an adventurous sailor and traveller. This was Tikao, a chief of the Ngati-Irakehu, a section of the Ngai-Tahu tribe, whose homes were at Opukutahi, on Akaroa Harbour. From the description of Tikao given me by his nephew, the old man Hone Taare Tikao, he must have been a splendid figure of a warrior. He was six feet four or five inches in height, or more, and so powerful that he could swing two men, supporting their entire weight, on his outstretched right arm. His commanding height, his long reach with the taiaha and spear, and his great physical strength, made him a most formidable antagonist in battle; and his mental endowments befitted his stalwart nobility of stature. A curious feature of the big man’s appearance was his half-finished tattoo; he was moko’d in the blue spirals and wrinkle-following lines on one cheek only. No one could touch him with the taiaha, and when in 1830 Te Rauparaha captured the Akaroa people and slaughtered many, he spared Tikao be- page 240cause of his warrior bearing, and his skill with the weapon. A few years later Tikao shipped from Kapiti Island as a sailor in a French vessel and made a voyage to Europe. His strength and sailorly courage gained him the high regard of officers and crew. We may well imagine how such a powerful fellow at a capstan bar or tailing on to a rope would be worth half a dozen “Tangata Wiwi.”



Giants in New Zealand


Short walks in the North Island, NZ


Were there giants in the Pacific and New Zealand? We know about the giant eagle, giant penguins, and the moa. What about giant people? To look into that, we have to go back to the beginning. The Bible has some fascinating verses, like this from Genesis, the first book;

“There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.” Genesis 6:4

The word from the Biblical account of giants is translated as “Nephilim.” “Those days” means before the flood of Noah. And there were also giants “afterward.”

Of course this conflicts with the evolutionary narrative, but there are too many legends of a worldwide flood to easily dismiss Noah and the account of Genesis.

The Maori have their own legends.

Also, see the section ‘Pananehu, Nukutere canoe and the Flood’ on the page relating to the Maruiwi.

As for the giants, New Zealand has it’s share of giant tales. Did a remnant survive? Do we have evidence of giants in New Zealand? I believe if a bone or a skull is found in NZ, it will never see the light of day. We have to rely on historical accounts.


Kiharoa (Tainui)


In his book The Old Frontier, James Cowan recounted the legend of Kiharoa, a giant warrior chief of the Ngāti-Raukawa and Ngāti-Whakatere tribes. According to Cowan, there was a curious landmark near the village of Whenuahou known as the “Giant’s Grave.”

The grave was 12–14 feet long and 4 feet wide. Enquiring about the the grave, Cowan learned the legend behind it from two warriors of the Ngāti-Maniapoto tribe. He wrote: There certainly seems to have been a veritable giant, a man of enormous stature and length of reach with the hand-weapons of those days, six generations ago.

This Kiharoa, or “The Long Gasping Breath,” was a chief of the Ngati-Raukawa and Ngati-Whakatere tribes, who in those times owned the Tokanui hills and the surrounding fruitful slopes. Kirahoa was said to have stood at twice the height of an average-sized man. He wielded an enormous taiaha—a traditional Māori close-quarters staff. His weapon was named “The First rays of Morning Light,” or Rangihaeata in the native tongue.

Author Denver Michaels: A Twelve-Foot Warrior Chief

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Matau (Tainui)


There was another giant of these parts long ago, one Matau; like Kiharoa, he was a man of the Ngati-Raukawa tribe, and, too, his favourite weapon was the taiaha. He lived on a hill above the Wairaka River, a few miles beyond Orakau. Maori accounts aver that he was eleven feet high. Source: NZETC There were Giants in the Land

The giant Matau was a cannibal.

His home was in a palisaded hole in a cliff above the cave called Te Ana Kai-tangata (“The Cannibal’s Cave”), which you may see in the rocky face in the gorge towards the head of the Wairaka Stream, a tributary of the Puniu River. The entrance to this cave is still marked with the paint kokowai or red ochre; that is how you will know it. It was an excellent place in which to lie in wait for incautious travellers in the days of old.

Note regarding the cave Te Ana Kai-tangata: there’s also a cave of the same name on Easter Island, also associated with cannabalism.


Tama te Kapua (Arawa)


Tama te Kapua, the captain of the Arawa canoe, was said to be very tall – 2.7 metres (9 ft). Source: Wikipedia


Te Heuheu Tukino II, descendant of Tama te Kapua (Arawa)

TE HEUHEU TUKINO II (Mananui), also known as Te Heuheu the Great (1780–1846) was over seven feet tall and well proportioned – a superb military tactician, a great general and a wise counsellor. Mananui was always respected by his enemies because of the chivalrous way in which he fought.


A man of advanced views (for he forbade his tribe to indulge in cannibalism), Mananui was the most influential chief in the interior of the North Island and one of the most distinguished Maoris of his time.

Source: ‘TE HEUHEU TUKINO II (Mananui),’, from An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock, originally published in 1966.Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand URL: http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/1966/te-heuheu-tukino-ii

Mananui died in 1846 when a landslide covered his village. In 1910 his body was recovered, buried in a cave on Mount Tongariro and later brought down to Waihi near Tokaanu. A few days after his body was moved, another horo or landslide came down the water-logged steaming valley alongside the landslide of 1846; it was a larger slip which went out a long way into the lake. There was only one person killed by this slip, which took place in the daytime. A curious coincidence, one of several strange occurrences at that time discussed by the Maoris.

The late Te Heuheu Tukino, M.L.C., said the skull of his grandfather, which he viewed and wept over when it was borne down from the sacred mountain, was exceptionally large.

Source: NZETC

Title: Famous New Zealanders: No. 32: The Heuheu Family: The Hereditary Paramount Chiefs Of Taupo (vol 10, issue 8)Author: TangiwaiIn: The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 8 (November 1, 1935)Publication details: New Zealand Government Railways Department, Wellington


Giants on the Three Kings Islands?


Abel Tasman described very tall people when he sailed close to the Three Kings Islands near Cape Reinga. He noted that “Upon the highest mountain of the island they saw 35 persons, who were very tall, and had staves or clubs . . . When they walked they took very large strides.”

Isaac Gilsemans, who sailed with Abel Tasman, drew this picture of the Three Kings Islands. The human figures in the background apparently gave rise to a belief amongst Europeans that Māori were giants.


While we’ll never know who these tall people were, here’s a photo I took from my research at Auckland Museum in 2021. This ancient carving was found in 1946, hidden in a cave on Great Island.


BONES OF GIANT MEN FOUND IN CAVE

Article from a Melbourne Newspaper ‘The Argus’, 13th October 1934

A huge cavern which was apparently inhabited by human beings in ancient times has been discovered at Whangaroa. Several of the skeletons had reddish fuzzy hair adhering to the skulls, raising doubts whether they are of the Maoris. The skeletons are huge. That of one man it is estimated, is almost 7ft in height. The inhabitants of the cave apparantly lived in captivity.


Tareha of Kerikeri (Ngapuhe)

Tāreha was described as a man of extraordinary size and strength and seemed to surpass all his countrymen. He was much looked up to for his bravery and skill in leading warriors to battle. Richard Taylor, who met Tāreha in the late 1830’s recorded that he was one of the largest men the missionary had ever seen. Said to be over 7ft tall and eventually came to weigh more than 600lbs.

Tāreha accompanied Hongi Hika and Rewa on many of the southern war campaigns of which his mere presence was enough to instil confidence of victory.

Tāreha was widely known as Hongi’s ‘chief captain’.

As historian Tony Walzl notes, Europeans held Tāreha in awe. He often played on his reputation as a ‘ferocious cannibal’ to keep an edge over the missionaries. When Tāreha first met Taylor, he grabbed the missionary’s arm and in a gruff voice said, ‘You will not do yet.’ According to one missionary, Tāreha lost patience with John King and ‘seized the poor Missionary, who was not a very large person, and putting him under his arm, walked off with him to the Mission-house, where he safely deposited him, shutting the door, and bidding Mrs. King take care and not let him go out again lest he should eat him.’Source: NZ HISTORY | Tāreha


Otane of Hawkes Bay (Ngati-Kahungunu)

Te-O-Tane of Hawkes Bay was of massive build, extraordinarily tall, framed in proportion and possessed of tremendous strength. It is related of him that on one occasion when his warriors were attacking a pa near Pakowhai, the people of the pa observed with alarm that in crossing the deepest part of the river the water just reached Te-O-Tane’s hips, while the rest of the party were wading with the water up to their armpits. The people of the pa seeing this, abandoned their stronghold and fled.

He had a patu (club) which was so heavy it had to be carried for him and a taiaha (spear) which was double the size of a normal one.

Otane, near the town of Waipawa is named after his pa near Springhill. Beside that one he had two other pas, one near the mouth of the Wairoa river (the Wai-tahora Pa of Te-O-Tane) and one near Frasertown.

Source: NZETC


Kawharu the Giant of Kawhia

Kawharu the Giant was said to be 8 to 9 ft tall, “with a face as long as your fingertip to elbow.” Source: Artspace Aotearoa

Now, Kawharu was a man of Herculean stature and strength. A rock fully 12ft high’ on the Aotea beach still bears his name, on the top of which this Goliath is said to have rested his chin while awaiting the approach (at a later date) of a hostile force coming from Kawhia to attack him. Source: Pas of the Past Kawhia Settler and Raglan Advertiser, Volume XXIV, Issue 1290, 16 October 1925, Page 3

Kawharu left Kawhia but eventually came back after helping in battles against Te Arawa with Ngāti Raukawa chief Ngatokowaru.Ngati Whatua had heard of Kawharu’s bravery and strength in battle, and in 1680, asked him north to Kaipara to help fight Te Kawerau. He led a series of raids — known as Te Raupatu Tihore, “The Stripping Conquest” — across the Tamaki isthmus, before being killed at a pa at Waiherunga in South Kaipara. Source: Wikipedia | Ngāti Te Wehi

KAWHARU (myth), a giant warrior, who was used as a scaling-ladder by his party in the attack on the pa at Moturimu, in the Kaipara. He was four arm-spans (fathoms) tall {i.e. twenty-four feet), and his face one cubit long (the cubit « from end of fingers to the elbow) — G.-8, 30. Source: Tregear, Edward. (1891). Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary. Wellington: Government Printer, p. 141


Tuhourangi of Rotorua (Arawa)

Tuhourangi, a chief of the Arawa tribe was a giant who lived three centuries ago. He was nine feet high, according to tradition, and was about six feet up to his armpits. His bones were buried on the east side of Pukurahi Pa, on Mokoia Island.


Mokoia island is on Lake Rotorua, but Pukurahi pā (below) is on Lake Rotoiti, near Ōkere Falls. So it’s not clear where the giant Tuhourangi is buried.




Kii: NZShortWalks Short walks in the North Island, NZ



The story goes in olden times Tuhourangi’s bones were disinterred at kumara planting time and set up on the edge of the cultivations on Mokoia, while the priest recited the prayers for a bountiful harvest. The presence of the sacred bones was supposed to promote the fertility of the crop.

Sir George Grey, during his first Governorship of New Zealand, visited Mokoia and, hearing about the bones of a man of enormous size, obtained the consent of the chiefs to dig for the skeleton. The men whom he employed purposely dug in the wrong place and so the relics were never brought to light. Source: NZETC


Tuhuru of Ngai Tahu

Tūhuru was a powerful warrior chief, of huge stature.

The Ngati Wairangi were the last Kahui tribe to be integrated into Ngai Tahu, the principal tribe of the South Island today.  As I wrote about the Kahui Maunga in Taranaki, Kahui is a name which is only applied to the tangata-whenua people (people of the land).  It is believed that the Ngati Wairangi were a pre-Aotea tribe who migrated from the Taranaki Region to the West Coast in the first Waitaha migration south. [1]


Ngati Wairangi held control over Arahura, a settlement known for its deposits of pounamu (greenstone), which Ngai Tahu coveted when they conquered the South Island in the 1600s and 1700s.

[1] Wikipedia

Tuhuru reached adulthood during a turbulent period in the Maori history of the South Island. In the eighteenth century Ngāi Tahu from Canterbury went to the source of greenstone in the Arahura and Māwhera (Grey) regions of the West Coast, and fought with the local people, Ngāti Wairangi. They destroyed Ngāti Wairangi’s pa at Māwhera (Greymouth) and returned east. Later, several hapū of Ngāi Tahu combined to defeat Ngāti Wairangi. Source: Te Ara, Biography: Tūhuru Kōkare

His tribe Ngai Tahu migrated to the South Island. They descend from Paikea who settled with the people at Whāngārā on the East Coast of the North Island. From this ancestor stem the two tribes of Ngai Tahu and Ngati Porou.

Tuhuru’s grandfather Waewae was a son of Tūrākautahi, the builder of the pa of Kaiapoi Just north of Banks Peninsula. It became the largest fortified village in the South Island. Kaiapoi pa lay on the site of a stronghold of an earlier tribe, Waitaha, whose history and traditions Ngāi Tahu eventually adopted.

According to Maori oral traditions, the earliest peoples to inhabit the South Island were tribal groups known as Hāwea, Rapuwai, and Waitaha, who inhabited the island for centuries before the arrival of more recent tribal migrations of Ngāti Māmoe, Ngāti Wairaki, and Ngāi Tahu.


The Giants’ shouts and sneezes

The writer of the article in NZETC stated the Maori delighted to embroider their tales with amazing details, such as the story that Tuhourangi used to shout from the mainland to Mokoia Island, three or four miles away, bidding his slaves prepare food for him.

I learned during a quiz night I went to recently that a lion’s roar can carry eight kms. So who knows, it could be true.

The Ngapuhi tribe in Northland had a giant named Te Pute. “His eyes, they aver, were as large as the largest pawa shell—about the size of a saucer. When he sneezed the thundering sound thereof was heard from Punakitere as far away as Kaikohe, and that is several miles distant.” -Source NZETC

A woman from the Ngai Tu tribe said the nearby Otaua valley had a history of many different people living in the valley co-existing with giants.


A Race of Giants

Maori tradition in Taranaki has it that the Te Kahui Tipua (a race of giants) came out with the Waitaha. Te Kahui Tipua were the ancient people known as the Maeroa. They were described as wild men of the woods, who probably were the remains of some of the original people driven to the forests and mountains by the incoming crews of the heke. Even so late as the fifties of last century, they were supposed to inhabit the great forests in inland Taranaki.

Te Kahui Tipua

In Auckland the Maori tradition of the Mahurangi and Gulf Islands Districts is that the earliest people was “a race of giants”, known as Tipua, or Kahui Tipua, who occupied both sides of Tamaki Isthmus, at Mangere, Waitakere, and the North Shore of the Waitemata.

Did the Auckland branch of the Kahui Tipua die in a volcanic cataclysm? Look at the crater now covered by Lake Pupuke.

The tradition says Mataaho, a deity associated with volcanoes, unleashed his powers, causing the home of the Tipua to sink into a chasm, which filled with water forming what is now known as Lake Pupuke. At the same time, the island of Rangitoto emerged from the sea offshore.

The Tipua fled, but Mahuika, a goddess with “fingers of fire” pursued them and cast them into subterranean regions. The places where they sank are the volcanic craters on the shores of Shoal Bay called respectively Te Kapua-o-Matakamokamo at Awataha, and Te Kapua-o-Matakerepo near Northcote.



The crater, the mould of the burned kauri tree and the lava on the shoreline tell the story.

The Kahui Tipua disappeared into legend after the emergence of the volcanoes.

The Pananehu

The remnant may also not have been able to breed. The Te Kahui Tipua weren’t the only race of giants. The Pananehu in the Opotiki area were also a division of the Maruiwi folk and were referred to as “the giant people.”

“Ngai Tama we have a really important historical narrative about the people who were there previously and were the early settlers. They were called Pananehu. Many of the women at that time were tiny women with small cervixes. When they mated with the Pananehu who were the giant people as we refer to them, many of those children died in pregnancy because the women’s cervixes were too small. The original name of Opape was Opepe. The name commemorated this event. Ngai Tamahaua has a waiata entitled “Me Penei Ana.” The waiata is unique to the hapu. It memorialises the loss of the children. We’re the only ones who sing it on ceremonial occasions and at tangi.” Source: Treaty of Waitangi claim Wai 1750, #C39


Makeo, behind Omarumutu marae, Opape (Opepe) near Opotiki, so named because of the problem at childbirth.

The Maori have a flood tradition relating to this tribe and area.

At Ohope I learned that Opape from our previous walk was given as the landing place for the Nukutere canoe. The Pananehu, the giant people, were the tribe associated with this canoe.

The Nukutere was the canoe of Whiro-nui. It arrived eight months before the Flood, called Te Tai-a-Ruatapu (see Rua-tapu). There are accounts which portray Ruatapu as having invoked a great flood which destroyed Hawaiki.


Links


See the section ‘Pananehu, Nukutere canoe and the Flood’ on the page relating to the Maruiwi.



Also, the Horowhenua site states the Waitaha themselves were 7′ tall.


Scott Bainbridge: Yokai Talks

Bigfoot, the Abominable Snowman, the Yeti are monsters known all over the world, but for many years there have been stories of giant hominid cryptid living wild in New Zealand Forests. The most infamous is the Moehau Men who have inhabited the Coromandel Ranges since the 1870s. Truth or myth? Join true crime author Scott Bainbridge who covered the intriguing story in his book New Zealand Mysteries, as he covers the origins, the history and the sightings of the Moehau Man and the evidence unearthed to debate his existence. About the speaker: Scott Bainbridge is one of New Zealand’s foremost true crime authors.

Yokai Talks is part of the Yokai Parade Exhibition events 29 September – 6 November 2022. This talk was recorded on 7 October 2022 at Central City Library.


 
 
 

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