Story of Te Puia
Related Topics
- Te Arawa Cosmology
- The creation of all things according to Maori beliefs.
- Land & Culture
- The overwhelming influence land had on the people and their culture.
- Whakapapa
- The importance of genealogy, land and the people who belong.
The astounding sight of a great fortress rising out of the steam and valley has inspired chants and stories for centuries.
Tirohia ki Te Puia! I Orewa Ki te ara i Puarenga
Behold! Look to Te Puia! Such magnificence On the path of the Puarenga River.
Here is where the goddesses of fire, Te Pupu and Te Hoata, breathed and created geothermal wonders.
From their breath rose Te Puia which means the geyser or volcano but also refers to the entire valley. When geysers play and the land awakens with steam, light and water, the valley is said to be flowering.
Undeniably, Te Puia was a garden of wonder and its’ fortress a guardian of life.
First occupied around 1325, a similar time to medieval castles in Europe, Te Puia was an impenetrable stronghold overlooking the Whakarewarewa Geothermal Valley.
It was built in a very strategic position, on a rise beneath the cliffs of Pohaturoa Mountain and surrounded by a natural moat of lethal hot pools.
“It was the last bastion, the great protector,” says cultural advisor, Te Keepa Marsh.
“When the warning call went out, the people headed for the safety of Te Puia.” Scouts and lookouts signalled the approach of war parties. Children and families were taken inside its protective walls. Warriors readied for battle.
Lines of Defence
The brilliance of Maori warfare was extolled by early European.
Yet perhaps nowhere was strategic security and ingenuity more evident than at Te Puia.
Terraced palisades surrounding the fortress could be erected at a moment’s notice night or day. They were, indeed, the equivalent to kit sets, invented here hundreds of years before modern times.
In battle they were a death trap.
The palisades were raised slightly off the ground with a deep trench on the inner side for defenders.
Enemies trying to breach the walls lost life or limb when guards standing in the trenches sliced weapons through the lower gap.
Attackers who did get through then plummeted into the trenches which had been evacuated. They were trapped and at the mercy of the next line of defence from the palisade terrace above.
Te Puia, therefore, never fell in battle. And it was not the hand of man that nearly destroyed its peoples.
The People
When Te Arawa Canoe arrived from the Pacific, its people settled in Hapu, branches or sub-tribes. The first people of Te Puia were the Hapu of Ngati Tama, known as the dragon slayers.
This was an age when Taniwha ruled the land. Sadly scorned as mythical dragons or monsters, the ancient Taniwha protected their den and woe betide any mere mortal who entered their territory. Stories of old abound of people disappearing from paths, similar to the tracks in the valley today.
“None of this is myth. It is what we believe,” says Te Keepa. “The stories, the history is all there in the land. We cannot lie. The land won’t let us.”
By slaying Taniwha, Ngati Tama ensured safety in the valley.
From 1325 through to the 1700s, different Hapu assumed responsibility of Te Puia. The modern concept of land ownership did not exist. Tribes were simply caretakers for the time they were there.
The 1800s saw changes in the style of warfare with the introduction of guns by the early European. Te Puia, however, remained a haven.
Many survivors of the great Tarawera eruption of 1886, just north of Rotorua, were taken in by the Whakarewarewa peoples and given land to settle.
But it was in 1918 that a series of epidemics proved the deadliest foe. With no defence against such introduced diseases, Maori were decimated nationwide.
In this valley, ancestors were placed on Te Puia, buried upright in the ground where palisades once stood strong, facing outwards, watching over their people. Today descendants, many of them guides, need only look up to see their past and know there is a future.
For Te Puia is still a cultural bastion - preserving arts and crafts within its’ schools, conserving history of the land and encouraging understanding through stories.