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Tradition of the Arai Te Uru My informant made a correction or two to what I wrote on this canoe and added further information. The sandbank at the mouth of the Waitaki river known as O-te-heni is not called after one of the crew of Arai-te-uru, but after a woman of comparatively modern times. A rock there, however, is called “Moko-tere-a-tarehu,” after one of the passengers on the Arai-te-uru, who was washed off and drowned there. One of the old men said this Moko was a son of the chief Hekurn, but another said Moko was a sister of Mauka-atua and Rau-taniwha, who were also on board. One said, “The real captain was Pohu. He never left the canoe, and can be seen in stone sitting in the canoe to this day. This Arai-te-uru was the first canoe from Hawaiki to New Zealand. There were no people here then. The name of the South Island was then “Te-Waka-a-Maui.” The Arai-te-uru brought Te Rapuwai people here. Tapuae-nuku was on board, and the high mountain in the Kaikoura range is named after him. 1 Puketapu was caught by the daylight and turned into a hill. - 76 She was carrying a bundle of wood by two straps, one of flax and one of toetoe, and you can see the marks of those two straps down her back yet as denoted by two gullies—one growing nothing but flax, and the other nothing but toetoe.” Another said, “Hipo was the skipper of Arai-te-uru, and he can be seen as a rock in the stern of the petrified canoe. Others on board were Tarahaua and Hua-te-kirikiri (now the names of mountains at Rakitata river), Ruataniwha (a mountain at Ohou), Maukatere (a mountain at Rakaia river). Kakiroa, a man on board, is now the name of a mountain near Aoraki (Mt. Cook). There is also a mountain at Wanaka called Kakiroa, but it is named after a woman. Kaitakata, one of the men on board, was a painter 2 and settled near Lake Kaitangata and left a lot of maukoroa (paint) in the hills near there. Aonui was a cook and was turned into a rock in the sea and there is a kelp bag on each side of him. Aroaro-kaihe was a woman on board, but Aoraki and Kiri-kiri-katata were men. A strange thing about all those people on that canoe is that there is no trace of their having left any descendants as no whaka-papa (or genealogical table) is in existence from them. Roko-i-tua, who caused the Arai-te-uri to sail here, came on a rainbow himself, and there are two or three genealogies from him.”
The story of Roko-i-tua can be seen in extended form in the “Transactions of the New Zealand Institute,” Vol. XII., page 160. My informants say that the name of the people Roko-i-tua brought the kumara to in the South Island was Kahui-roko, and one said these people originated from those who came with Rakai-hautu. The statement that the Rapuwai people came in the Arai-te-uru lacks support. Another of the old men said:—“Te Rapuwai was a tribe that came from the North Island in the canoe Tairea under Tukete, and landed where Nelson is now, and from there spread over the South Island.” The fact that there are no genealogies from the crew of the Arai-te-uru to the present is passing strange seeing their names are so well-known.
The Arai Te Uru tradition is important to Otago because this coast (Te Tai o Arai Te Uru) was named after the ancestral waka atua (canoe of the gods) that foundered here in a storm on its return voyage from Hawaiiki. The legend begins with Rokoitua, an ancestor of southern Kai Tahu, who met the Kähui Tipua people in the Wairarapa. They gave him mamaku (tree fern) to eat but he preferred the dried kumara he carried in his belt, which he took out and soaked in a bowl of water. When the Kähui Tipua tasted it they decided to build a canoe to try and obtain this new food from “across the sea”. When the canoe returned with the kumara the crop was planted but it failed. However, Rokoitua sailed to Hawaiiki on a second canoe, Arai Te Uru, and had learned the correct karakia (incantations) and tikanga (customs) connected with growing this plant. The Arai Te Uru returned under the command of Pakihiwitahi and Hapekituaraki (Hipo and Te Kohi in some versions) and eventually became waterlogged. Some of its food baskets (kaihinaki) and water calabashes were washed overboard at Te Kaihinaki (Hampden Beach), where they were preserved in stone as the famous Moeraki boulders. More of its precious cargo of gourds, kumara and taro seed was lost on Katiki Beach and the canoe was eventually wrecked at Matakaea (Shag Point). The hull of the great waka has been preserved as a reef just off the Waihemo (Shag) River mouth. The highest part of the reef (said to represent the sternpost) is known as Hipo, who was navigator and helmsman. There are many versions of this legend but the essence of the story preserves an oral tradition of the arrival of kumara (sweet potato) in Aotearoa. The names of passengers and crew – including Matakaea, Puketapu, Pakihiwitahi and Hikaroroa – have been preserved in the names of hills and ranges inland all the way to Ka Tiritiri o te Moana (the Southern Alps). Such traditions represent a link between the world of the gods and the present day, reinforcing tribal identity and continuity between generations.