GIANTS
THE ORIGINAL NAME of Lake Wakatipu in Central Otago was Whakatipuathe hollow of the giant. "Whaka" is a South Island variant of "Whanga", a harbour or hollow.
The tipua was a giant named Matau, who stole the beautiful girl Manata from her father's home on the plains. Her lover, Matakauri, set out in search of her and found her seated by the bank of a river.
"I have come to take you home," he said as he clasped her in his arms.
"Alas, my lover, I can never escape. Matau has tied me to him with a cord made from the skin of his two-headed dogs. It can never be broken." Matakauri smiled confidently. He began to saw the cord with his l11aipi but the knife made no impression on the tough hide. Manata bent over it and, as her tears dropped on the leather thong, it dissolved and she was free.
Holding hands, the lovers floated downstream until they reached the girl's home.
Knowing. that his bride would never be safe from the giant, Matakauri determined to kill him. He waited until the northwest wind blew across the mountains and then set out on his quest. He soon found the place where Matau was sleeping soundly on a bed of bracken in the vast bowl of the hills.
Creeping quietly round the giant he set fire to the dry fern. Fanned by the wind, the flames licked Matau's sides causing him to draw up his legs. Before he could regain consciousness he was suffocated in the dense smoke.
The flames were fed by the running fat. His body sank deep into the earth until it formed a vast chasm many kilometres in length and several hundred metres in depth. The whole body was consumed and reduced to ashes~all except the heart, which continued to beat strongly in its narrow tomb. The wind died. The rain fell in torrents, pouring into the newly made gulf from many streams.
The heat of the fire had melted the snow on the mountains, which fed the swiftly flowing rivers that poured into the Whaka of Matau. It was filled to the brim and remained a lake that has retained for all time the shape of the giant who drew up his knees when he felt the fierce heat of the burning bracken.
His heart still beats far below the surface of the water-sometimes fiercely, so that the lake is tormented by waves that beat angrily against the shore.
More often the surface is placid as the water slowly rises and ebbs to the gentle heart beat of Matau the tipua. That is the story of the mysterious rise and fall of Lake Wakatipu-a phenomenon for which the Pakeha has no convincing explanation.
Legends of men of great stature vary from enormous beings like Matau to men like Tuhourangi who was six feet to his armpits and nine feet to the top of his head. When he shouted to his slaves from the shore of Rotorua he could be heard six kilometres away on the island of Mokoia.
Tuhourangi was out-matched by Te Pute of Nga-puhi, whose eyes ;Here as big as saucers, and whose sneeze could be heard from Punakitere to Kaikohe, a distance of nearly ten kilometres.
Toangina was another of giant stature. He was the scourge of the lower reaches of the Waikato river. When a canoe came in sight he swung himself from the bank on a long vine, plucked a victim from the canoe and killed him with a single blow from his fist. In this way he had slain the well-known chief Korongoi, cut up his body, and displayed the dismembered limbs as a warning to others.
Korongoi's son Te Horeta, though normally a brave warrior, was too faint-hearted to face up to Toangina until, at the incessant urging of his wife, he assembled a party of fighting men. They attacked the giant in his home until he was fqrced to flee. Te Horeta was in the vanguard of the pursuers.
The giant turned at bay and in the conflict, the young chief's taiaha was broken. The jagged end pierced the puku of Toangina and so ended his reign of terror. '
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