Love stories
Posted 13 February 2008 // Jock Phillips
The perfumed garden of Ngāti Raukawa
Do Pākehā New Zealanders have any great love stories? That is the question that kept bugging me as I searched Te Ara for stories for Valentine’s Day.
There’s no question that for Māori, love really does make the world go round. The love between Papatūānuku and Ranginui explains the creation of the world itself. The geographical positioning of the North Island mountains are explained by the competing love of Tongariro and Taranaki for the beautiful mountain maiden Pīhanga. Similarly Mauao stands at the entrance to Tauranga Harbour because he lost out in his love for the beautiful Pūwhenua. He asked to be dragged to the ocean to drown his sorrows, but just as he reached the sea the dawn rose and he was caught there transfixed.
Many iwi also mark their origins by a great love story. These include:
- Ngāti Raukawa. The tribe got its name because Māhinaarangi successfully courted Tūrongo by using the attraction of a perfume made from the raukawa plant. So they called their first son, Raukawa.
- Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāti Rongomaiwahine tell of the epic courting of Rongomaiwahine and Kahungunu. The tale involves champion pāua catching, surreptitious farting, and murder in the surf.
- Te Arawa have long told in oratory and song about the night swim of Hinemoa to her lover Tūtānekai on Mokoia Island, attracted there by the melodious sound of his flute. Without doubt this story became for Pākehā as well as Māori the country’s greatest Valentine tale. There were some eight film versions of the story made in the early 20th century.
So Māori have love stories in abundance. And it did not take me long to find stories about other ethnic groups in Te Ara. We record the wedding of the Lebanese couple Gabriel Farry and Jamelie Coory, and there are no less than four Indian weddings.
Even the natural world has its epic love stories. Take the romance of the paddle crab. Apparently male paddle crabs need to mate with a female who has recently moulted. So when they come across a female they pick her up and carry her around for days until eventually she moults. He then mates with her – for up to four days!
So Māori and Indians and paddle crabs have the Valentine spirit, but what of the Pākehā? Are we too buttoned down by our Anglo-Saxon heritage to get romantic? Where are our great love stories? It took me a long time to find one, and I spied it in the most unlikely of places – in the entry on the Wairarapa, not perhaps a place which most of us would associate with the throbbing of hearts. But the story is a good one.
The store in the story
It concerns Sarah Masters, daughter of the founder of Masterton, Joseph Masters, and the owner of the town’s first store. Sarah’s first husband died, and the widow went travelling to Wellington. On the way back over the Rimutaka track she was spotted by a labourer working on the road, Henry Bannister. For him it was love at first sight. He followed Sarah to Masterton, where he discovered another suitor on the scene. There was a fight, Henry’s leg was broken, and Sarah nursed Henry back to health. She was smitten, they married and eventually had 14 children. ‘Sarah and Henry’ may not quite have the ring of ‘Hinemoa and Tūtānekai’, but it’s the best we can do for a Pākehā Valentine’s tale.
