The Legend Of Rata

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 had been born sometime before his death.

It, therefore, became Rata’s 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 dependents, at the same time he told 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 Matukutakotaho.

There he found a man who was left in charge of it, sitting at the entrance to the courtyard, and he asked him, saying, “Where is the man who killed my father?”

The man who was left in charge answered him, ”He lives beneath in the earth there, and I am left by him, to call to him and warn him when a new moon appears, at that season he rises and comes forth upon the earth, and devours men as his food”.

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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.”

Rata then said, “When shall be the new moon?”

The man who was left to take care of the place answered him, “In two night hence.” “Do you now return to your own village, but on the morning of the second day from this time, come here again.”

Rata, in compliance with these directions, returned to his own dwelling and waited until the time that had been appointed him.

On the morning of that day, he again journeyed along the road he had previously travelled, and found the man in charge, sitting in the same place.

He asked him, saying, “Do you know any spot where I can conceal myself, and be hidden from the enemy with whom I am about to fight, from Matukutakotako?”

The man replied, “Come with me, I will show you two fountains of clear water”

They went together until they came to the two fountains.

The man then said to Rata, “This is the place where Matuku rises up from the earth, and yonder is the fountain in which he combs and washes his dishevelled hair, but this fountain is the one he uses to reflect his face in whilst he dresses it.”

“You cannot kill him whilst he is at the fountain that he uses to reflect his face in because your shadow would also be reflected in it, and he would see you, but at the fountain where he washes his hair, you may smite him and slay him”.

Rata then asked the man, “Will he make his appearance from the earth this evening?”

The man answered him, “Yes”.

They had not waited long there when evening arrived, and the moon became visible and the man said to Rata, “You go and hide yourself near the brink of the fountain in which he washes his hair”.

Rata went and hid himself near the edge of the fountain, and the man who had been left to watch for that purpose shouted out loud.

“Ho, Ho, the new moon is visible- a moon two days old”.

Matukutakotako heard him, and seizing his two-handed wooden sword, he rose up from the earth and straight away went to the two fountains.

He laid down his two-handed sword on the ground, near the edge of the fountain where he washed his hair, and, kneeling down on both knees beside it, he loosened the strings which bound up his long locks, and shook out his dishevelled hair, and plunged down his head into the cool clear water of the fountain.

Rata, with one hand, seized him by the hair, while with the other, he smote and slew him, thus avenging the death of his father, Wahieroa.

Rata then asked the man who was in charge of the place, “Where shall I find the bones of Wahieroa, my father?”

The keeper of the place answered him, “They are not here, a strange people who live at a distant place came and carried them off”.

Rata returned to his village when told this, and spent many nights reflecting on many designs where he might recover his father's bones.

At length he thought of an excellent plan for this purpose, so he went into the forest, and having found a very tall tree, quite straight throughout its entire length, he felled it, and cut off its noble branching top, intending to fashion the trunk into a canoe.

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All the insects which inhabit trees, and the spirits of the forests, were very angry at this, and as soon as Rata had returned to the village in the evening when his work for the day was ended, they all came to the site.

The insects and the spirits came and took the tree, and raised it up again, and the innumerable multitude of insects, birds, and spirits, [who are called the Offspring of Hakuturi], worked away at replacing each little chip and shaving in its proper place.

They sang aloud incantations as they worked, and this is what the sang, with a confused noise of various voices.

“Fly together, chips and shavings,
Stick ye fast together,
Hold ye fast together,
Stand upright again, O tree”.

Early the next morning Rata came back into the forest, intending to work at hewing the trunk of his tree into a canoe.

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When he got to the place where he had left the trunk lying on the ground, at first he could not find it, and if that fine, tall, straight tree, which he saw standing whole and sound in the forest, was the same as he thought he had cut down, there it was now erect again.

However, he stepped up to it, and manfully hewing away at it again, he felled it to the ground once more, and he cut off its fine branching top off again, and began to hollow out the hold of the canoe, and to slope the prow and stern onto their proper gracefully curved forms, and in the evening, when it became too dark to work, he returned to his village.

As soon as he had gone, back came the innumerable multitudes of insects, birds, and spirits, who raised up the tree on its stump again, and sang their incantations as they restored the tree to its former glory.

The morning dawned, and Rata returned once more to work on his canoe,

When he reached the place he was amazed to see the tree standing up in the forest, untouched, just as he had first seen it.

But he, nothing daunted, hews away at it again, but as soon as he had felled the tree Rata went off as if to go home, and then he turned back and hid himself in the undergrowth, in a spot where he could peep out and see what took place.

He had not been hidden long, when he heard the innumerable multitude of the children of Tane [God of the Forests] approaching the spot, singing their incantations as they came along, to the place where the tree lay felled and upon the ground.

Rata made a rush upon them, and managed to seize some of them, he then shouts out to them saying, “Ha, it is you, who have been exercising your magical powers upon my tree”

Then the children of Tane all cried aloud in reply, “Who gave you the authority to fell the forest god to the ground?”. “You had no right to do so”.

When Rata heard this he was quite overcome with shame at what he had done.

The offspring of Tane again called out aloud to him, “Return to your village, we will make a canoe for you”.

Rata, without delay, obeyed their orders and as soon as he had gone they all fell to work, and they were so numerous that they had no sooner had they started to hew out a canoe than it was done.

When they had done this, Rata and his tribe lost no time in hauling it away from the forest to the water, and the name that they gave the canoe was Riwaru.

When the canoe was afloat upon the sea, 140 warriors embarked on board it, and without delay, they paddled off to seek their foes.

One night, just at nightfall, they reached the fortress of their enemies, who were called Ponaturi.

When they arrived there, Rata alone landed, leaving the canoe afloat, with all the warriors still on board.

As he stole along the shore, he saw a fire burning on the sacred ground, where the Ponaturi consulted their gods and offered sacrificed to them.

Rata, without stopping, crept directly towards the fire and hid himself behind some thick bushes of Harakeke, [flax]

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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 using the bones of Wahieroa, knocking them together to beat time while they were repeating a powerful incantation, the name of which was Tikikura.

Rata listened attentively to this incantation until he learned it by heart, and when he was quite sure that he knew it, he rushed out upon the priests.

They, surprised, and ignorant of the numbers of their enemy, or whence they came, made little resistance, and in a moment were smitten and slain.

The bones of his father, Wahieroa, were then eagerly snatched by him, and he hastened them back to the canoe, embarked on board it, and his warriors at once paddled away, striving to reach their fortified village.

In the morning, some of the Ponaturi went 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, and at length, this army reached the fortress of Rata,

An engagement took place, in which the tribe of Rata was worsted, and sixty of its warriors were slain.

At this moment Rata thought of the spell he had learnt from the priests, and, immediately repeating the potent incantation, Tatakura, his slain warriors, by its power, once more returned to life, then they rushed again into combat.

The Ponaturi were slaughtered by Rata and his tribe, a thousand of them, all were slain.

As 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 a thatch to protect it from the sun and weather.

Rata now took Tongarautawhiri as one of his wives, and she bore him a son, whom he named Tuwhakararo,

When this son came to manhood he took Apakura as one of his wives, and from her sprang a son, named Whakatau,

He was not born in the manner that mortals are, but that is the subject for another tale

Info From Sir George Grey

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-spread-of-the-descendants-of-hoturoa

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/tainui-canoe-travels-from-hawaiki-to-new-zealand

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/myths-and-legends-of-new-zealand-intro

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/how-this-series-began

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-warrior-deeds-of-kaihuma

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/how-kaihamu-killed-his-enemies-at-waiatapu

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/tupahau-goes-fishing-at-marokopa

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/maki-s-battles-in-tamaki

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/karewa-s-fights-with-the-ngapuhi

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-continuing-battles-of-the-tainui-people

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-story-of-maru-tuahu

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/continuing-maru-tuahu-s-story

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/kiki-and-tamure-the-two-sorcerers

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/te-rauparaha

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/some-of-the-stories-of-tawhaki

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/some-more-of-the-stories-of-tawhaki

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/rupe-s-ascent-to-heaven

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/kae-s-theft-of-the-whale

https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-murder-of-tuwhakararo

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