Polynesian Mythology: The Legend of Rata

The Legend of Rata

His Adventures with the Enchanted Tree and Revenge of his Father's Murder

BEFORE Tawhaki ascended up into the heavens, a son named Wahieroa had been born to him by his first wife. As soon as Wahieroa grew to man's estate, he took Kura for a wife, and she bore him a son whom they called Rata. Wahieroa was slain treacherously by a chief named Matukutakotako, but his son Rata was born some time before his death. It therefore became his duty to revenge the death of his father Wahieroa, and Rata having grown up, at last devised a plan for doing this: he therefore gave the necessary orders to his dependants, at the same time saying to them: 'I am about to go in search of the man who slew my father.'

He then started upon a journey for this purpose, and at length arrived at the entrance to the place of Matukutakotako; be found there a man who was left in charge of it, sitting at the entrance to the court-yard, and he asked him, saying: 'Where is the man who killed my father? The man who was left in charge of the place answered him: 'He lives beneath in the earth there, and I am left here by him, to call to him and warn him when the new moon appears; at that season he rises and comes forth upon the earth, and devours men as his food.'

Rata then said to him: 'All that you say is true, but how can he know when the proper time comes for him to rise up from the earth? The man replied: 'I call aloud to him.'

1 he then saw that there were some priests upon the other side of the same bushes, serving at the sacred place, and, to assist themselves in their magical arts, they were making use of the bones of Wahieroa, knocking them together to beat time while they were repeating a powerful incantation, known only to themselves, the name of which was Titikura. Rata listened attentively to this incantation, until he learnt it by heart, and when he was quite sure that he knew it, he rushed suddenly upon the priests; they, surprised and ignorant of the numbers of their enemy, or whence they came, made little resistance, and were in a moment smitten and slain. The bones of his father Wahieroa were then eagerly snatched up by him; he hastened with them back to the canoe, embarked on board it, and his warriors at once paddled away, striving to reach his fortified village.

In the morning some of the Ponaturi repaired to their sacred place, and found their priests lying dead there, just as they were slain by Rata. So, without delay, they pursued him. A thousand warriors of their tribe followed after Rata. At length this army reached the fortress of Rata, and an engagement at once took place, in which the tribe of Rata was worsted, and sixty of its warriors slam; at this moment Rata bethought him of the spell he had learnt from the priests, and, immediately repeating the potent incantation, Titikura, his slain warriors were by its power once more restored to life; then they rushed again to the combat, and the Ponaturi were slaughtered by Rata and his tribe, a thousand of them--the whole thousand were slam.

Te Rata's task of avenging his father's death being thus ended, his tribe hauled up his large canoe on the shore, and roofed it over with thatch to protect it from the sun and weather. Rata now

Just before nightfall, Whakatau drew near the great house, called Te Tihi-o-Manono, and as the people of Whitinakonako, a great chief, were collecting firewood at the edge of a forest, he stealthily

Footnotes

84:1 New Zealand flax.