Why have we in these isles no fairy dell, No haunted wood, nor wild enchanted mere?He declared that this lack of faerie glamour must be filled by the imaginative writer—“The poet's art—as yet without avail—must weave the story.” It was unfortunate that a writer with so sympathetic a muse had never heard of the Maori's rich store of fairy legend and wonder-tale, of endless folk-talk about the supernatural, the sprites of the woods, the elusive Patu-paiarehe, the mysterious wild men of the mountains, the strange spirits that haunt great pools at river-sources, and streams and lakes. For all this in endless variety we have in New Zealand. There is not another country, not even Ireland or the fairy-ridden Isle of Man, so full of folk-memories and primitive beliefs of this kind. The only reason that the pakeha does not know of it is that very, very few have gone to the trouble to delve into this class of myth and tradition and preserve while there is yet time the curious and poetic tales which crystallize for us the old Maori belief in unseen presences and the fairy folk that haunted many a lofty mountain and many a shadowy wood.
Fairies, giants, fabulous monsters, marvel-working magicians, strange apparitions of forest and alp, have ever been found in countries of such a mountainous, broken and generously-wooded character as New Zealand, and it would be strange indeed if so imaginative a race as the Maori-Polynesian had not peopled the land with all manner of curious extra-human beings.
Poetic above all the other myths of the strange and supernatural are the many stories which tell of that mystic race the Patu-paiarehe. This name Patu-paiarehe is the term applied by the Maori to the mysterious forest-dwelling people who for want of a more exact term may be described as the fairies of New Zealand. They are spoken of as an iwi-atua, a race of supernatural beings, and they are accredited with some of the marvellous powers attributed to the world of faerie in many other parts of the globe. Some folk-tales of the Maori describe them as little people, but the native fancy does not usually picture them the tiny elves common to the old-world fairydom. Most of the legends I have gathered give them the ordinary stature of mortals, while at the same time investing them with some of the characteristics of the enchanted tribes of other lands.
The Patu-paiarehe were for the most part of much lighter complexion than the Maori; their hair was of the dull golden or reddish hue “uru-kehu,” such as is sometimes seen among the Maoris of to-day. They inhabited the remote parts of the wooded ranges, preferring the highest peaks such as Hihikiwi, on Mount Pirongia, and the summit of Te Aroha. They ventured out only by night and on days of heavy clouds and fog. They lived on forest foods, but sometimes they resorted to the shores of sea and lake for fish.
They had a great aversion to the steam rising from the Maori cooking-ovens, and to the sight and smell of kokowai, the red ochre (hæmatite earth mixed with shark oil) with which the Maori bedaubed his dwelling and himself. They were greatly skilled in all manner of enchantments and magic, and they often employed these arts of gramarie to bewilder and terrify the iwi Maori. Nevertheless we find them at times living on good terms with their Maori neighbours, and indeed (see the Story of Tarapikau in “The Wars of the Fairies”) guarding the interests of their friends of the outer world and resenting any interference by Patu-paiarehe from another district.
The Patu-paiarehe, in a number of these fairy tales, constituted themselves the guardians of sacred places and visited their displeasure on those who neglected the rites for the propitiation of the forest deities.
This class of folk-tales no doubt originated in the actual existence of numerous tribes of aborigines who dwelt for safety in the more inaccessible parts of these islands. Many of them were reddish-haired, with fairer complexions than those of the Maori; the remnants of an immeasurably ancient fair-haired people who have left a strain of uru-kehu in most Maori tribes.... Read More ...