# Te Tohunga/Ngawai. The Burial of Te Heu-heu on Tongariro

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Dreamily is Ngawai staring into the embers, whilst the pale new morning is crawling through the spaces between the fem-stems which form the walls of the mountain-whare (hut).
Cold and pale at first appear the long stripes painted over the floor, till they change slowly into warmer and more glowing colours, lighting up the calabashes, the nets, the paddles, and the mats, which bang on the walls smoke-blackened under the raupo roof. The stripes of daylight are able, too, to light up Ngawai's eyes, which stare into the nearly burnt-out embers. More fiery glow the stripes, and suddenly they flood the whare with wonderful golden light: it is pure gold, through which, like music, the blue smoke ascends to the roof. Now the Sunshine pours in at the door, and with it the wonderful picture of the mountain-lake, reflecting the mountain giants, to the astonished eye. And in all the beautiful world life commences again with laughter and happiness—the laughter and happiness of the parting day.
Slowly is the sun wandering his way in the skies; up to the height of midday he wanders; the shades grow longer, and Rangi-o-mohio, a very old woman, the daughter of the famous Rangatira Te Heu-heu, is still relating:
"Listen: A great procession is ascending with much noise and shouting and frolic the ​barren wilderness around the stone-body of Tongariro—a great procession of Tohungas, warriors, women, and children.
Ah, Iwikau the Rangatira is leader, and they carry the bones of Te Heu-heu, my father.—Ah, Te Heu-heu, he was my father! Ah, with his bones we wander and crawl and climb over the lonely wilderness. Ah, he was the Rangatira over the lands—but, my son, look upon the greatest Rangatira of all the lands: look upon the Tongariro-tapu!"
Ngawai listens to the narrative of the old Rangi-o-mohio whilst her eyes are gazing upon the sacred Tongariro. The moon has risen over the lake, and a fine silvery gleam is glittering upon the snow of the mountain, which is sending its beautiful column of silver high up into the skies. Then once more Ngawai looks sorrowfully back, and goes on her way to her people in the distant pa.
THE BURIAL OF TE HEU-HEU ON TONGARIRO
This is Rangi-a-mohio's story:
Iwikau, the brother of the dead Rangatira Te Heu-heu, and chief now over the tribe of the Ngati-tu-wharetoa, is the leader of a large procession of sorrowing, weeping people of the tribe. The four greatest warriors of the tribe carried the carved box which contained the bones of Te Heu-heu; it was painted red, and adorned with white albatross-feathers.
The whole tribe had decided to gfive their dead Rangatira the mightiest burial-ground in all Ao-tea-roa—the crater of Tongariro-tapu!
Truly, the mountain Tongariro shall swallow the bones of the Rangatira, that they never may fall in the hands of man—perhaps enemies.
The sharp-edged coke-rocks cut the feet of the bearers, and the sulphur in the air is the deadliest foe to frolic—and what can be properly done without frolic in Maoriland? The feet of the bearers begin to bleed, the incantations of the Tohungas grow weaker; less overbearing, too, become the songs of defiance which Iwikau is shouting to the gods: silence and ghostly fright fall upon the multitude.
Deeper now are the precipices, steeper the rocks, and hellish the sulphurous fumes; but high above still towers the crater, the summit of Tongariro, the mighty grave of the Rangatira! The sacred mountain shall swallow the bones of the sacred chief—as the base of the mountain, in a frightful landslip, has swallowed his life!
Great is the conception, and bravely they try to carry it into effect beneath the mighty ​column of steam and sulphur which Tongariro is streaming out and which the heaven is pressing down again upon the people, in wrathful defiance of its sanctity.
Distant thunder rolls, shaking the ground, and the sulphur-fumes press fiercely beneath the broadening steam-column. Hard and heavy breathe the bearers; terror at the temerity of the undertaking, which violates the sacredness of the mountain, grows in the heart of their leader.
The vast world stretches all around, and the people who surround the dead Rangatira seem tiny and powerless as the mountain defends his sacred crater with mighty bursts of steam and smoke and rolling thunder and suffocating fumes. Overawed by terror the strength of the bearers fails: they let fall their burden upon a rock; the hearts of the bravest are trembling.
The sanctity of Tongariro-tapu cannot be violated; no, not even by the sacred bones of the Rangatira; and fear grows overpowering beneath the still high-towering, angry crater-summit.
None dares touch the remains of Te Heu-heu again; one and alt let them be where they are, upon the rock, overtowered and defended by the majestic summit, with its rolling, thundering, steaming crater—and down they tumble, down, down, helter skelter, in wild and fearful fright they run, a shouting, shrieking body of men, possessed by overpowering terror of the sacred giant. Down, down.
But high up in the sacred regions of Tongariro lie bleaching the bones of the greatest Rangatira of the mountain people——
Maui Pomare, M.D., the grandson of a famous chief, gave me, at parting, this lament composed by the wife of his ancestor:
"Behold! far off, the bright evening star
Rises—our guardian in the dark,
A gleam of light across my lonely way.
Belov'd, wer't thou the Evening Star,
Thou wouldst not, fixed, so far from me remain.
Let once again thy spirit wander back,
To soothe my slumbers on my restless couch,
And whisper in my dreams sweet words of love.
Oh! cruel Death, to damp that beauteous brow
With Nihht's cold softly falling dews.
Rau-i-ru, Keeper of Celestial Gates, There comes to thee a lovely bride
Borne from me on Death's swollen tide.
Belov'd, thy wandering spirit now hath passed
By pendant roots of clinging vine
To Spirit Land, where never foot of man
Hath trod—whence none can e'er return— Paths to the Gods which I not yet have seen.
Belov'd, if any of that host of Heaven
Dare ask of thee thy birth or rank, Say thou art of that great tribe
Who, sacred, sprang from loins of Gods.
As stands lone Kapiti, a sea-girt isle,
And Tararua's solitary range, So I to-day stand lonely midst my grief.
My bird with sacred wings hath flown away
Far from my ken, to Spirit Land.
I would I were a Kawau, resolute
To dive into the inmost depths of time,
To reappear at my beloved’s side
Amidst the throng upon the further shore.
Belov’d, I soon will join thee there! I come! Await me at the gates! My spirit frets; how slow is time.”
THE END