Wāhanga Tuatoru - The History of Pounamu in Te Ao Maori

 These are origin stories that sought to   explain our relationship to the world around   us; to the providence of the earth and the rivers and the obligations upon us to sustain, protect and ensure the resource. 

"Greenstone Moves in a River Like Fish Swimming Upstream"

In 2015 new geological research into ‘the movement of pounamu’ found that greenstone moves ‘in a river like fish   swimming upstream.’



Extended surveys of West Coast rivers, close analysis of geological maps and novel experiments to  study the movement of rocks in water flow  was carried out by GNS Science in conjunction with South Island owners of pounamu, Te Iwi ō Ngāi Tahu, in an effort to better understand the travelling habits of this enigmatic stone.

Principal geologist Dr Simon Cox said pounamu was unlike any other mineral because it was always on the move. 

Poutini is the Taniwha

He is te kaitiaki o te pounamu, the guardian of the greenstone. He protects his rivers with jealousy, trapped by his desires to the task of guarding a love he cannot have.

His mauri, his life essence, is pounamu but this is only part of what binds him to the western shore where the rivers disgorge.  There is a woman, her name is Waitaiki and Poutini has taken her for his own, and yet she will not yield. The taniwha cannot bear it. He turns her into pounamu and places her in a deep pool near the headwaters of a river whose mouth he guards relentlessly, despairingly, for ever.

Ngāi Tahu tradition holds that Poutini was pursued here to Aotearoa by another taniwha, Waitipū,  who is the guardian of Hinehōaka (called Hine-tū-a-hōanga in other traditions); she whose essence is sandstone, blades of which are used to cut, abrade and score the pounamu that is Poutini.

So you see that they are natural enemies, and the science of geology works its way into legend. 

Poutini also occupies that space in our cultural memory that is inhabited by deities and humans together.

Some accounts tell us he fled first to the shore of nearest  convenience, to Tahanga on the Coromandel Peninsula, where  basalt would be quarried for the making of adzes, and then overland to Taupo and a bay in the great lake called Whangamatā, named for the more common kind of obsidian, matā, which is  known to be plentiful there. These were the razor sharp disposable blades of the day.

Southward  then to Rangitoto (D’Urville Island) just off the north coast of South Island, to Whangamoa, a high  hill range to the east of Whakatū (Nelson). Both of these places would prove a rich source of argillite, or pākohe, a strong, hard stone that could hold an edge but could be worked with granite hammer stones and even fire.

Pākohe is particularly associated with the Nelson/Marlborough area but is known to have been traded to all parts of Aotearoa for its general utility. Over the first few hundred years of settlement, pākohe would prove itself the bedrock of foundation. 

 From the high hills above Nelson, Poutini, with his captive, continued on without delay. Relentless  and deadly pursuit harried him, barely a day away. To Onetāhua - Farewell Spit, where stones of  useful and convenient variety, shape and size are found washed up there, including argillite and serpentine, having begun a  journey countless millennia  ago from the mineral belts in  the mountains surrounding Golden and Tasman Bays. 

From there down the west  coast of the South Island,  pausing briefly at Pāhua near Punakaiki, until a feeling of dread forced Poutini away.

His dread is not unfounded. Embedded in the limestone at Pāhua is the flint that enabled the people to first bore holes through  pounamu.

Tamāhua still follows,  determined and implacable, aided by his magic, driven by his love. And somewhere out there Waitipū, the sandstone Taniwha, grimly anticipates  the grinding of his enemy. Poutini cannot run forever. All the while Waitaiki laments, grieving for her home and her lover.   

But Poutini’s flight is coming to an end. Waitaiki is cold, bereft, tired, withdrawn. In his desperation, the taniwha removes from the sea at the mouth of the Arahura River, heading upstream with his captive to find  some secretive place of concealment.

Tamāhua continues south along  the coast past the point of the taniwha’s diversion and on until he reaches Takiwai at Piopiotahi, the mouth of Milford Sound, where his magic tells  him that Poutini has, for the moment, eluded him.

Tamāhua turns and  heads back up the coast, careful now to attend his magic, which eventually reveals the Arahura River as the site of both his desire and his  retribution. The matter is coming to a head. Poutini knows this. Waitaiki  too, senses an end to her misfortunes. The Taniwha is desperate. Waitaiki  stands, now resolute in her defiance. Tamāhua draws ever nearer.

Spite overwhelms Poutini. If he can’t have this beauty from the north, nobody can.

Wielding a magic of his own, he transforms Waitaiki into his own essence - pounamu - and places her in a deep pool near the headwaters  of the river.

Using all of his skills of deception then, he quietly slips away downstream hidden in the turbulence and shadows of the river, unseen  by Tamāhua who is perhaps distracted by his certainty that Waitaiki is  somewhere close at hand.

Soon Poutini is back at sea, where he remains  to this day, according to this tradition, giving his name to that part of the  western shore that is called Te Tai ā Poutini.

Tamāhua will find his beloved  Waitaiki and some say his lament might still be heard in that part of  Aotearoa, echoing through the valleys and hills as a tangi to announce his  grief.

Waitaiki is remembered as the mother lode of pounamu. 

To imagine however that this is the only tradition pertaining to pounamu, regarded as the most valuable material resource in a land where tribal society competes for prominence, space and all other resources, would be to completely misunderstand the place this remarkable stone holds in the heart of the people.

There are more traditions and variations of the story than there are types of pounamu itself

Many more. There are  even mythologies that tie the greenstone to the very separation of  earth and sky, placing it in the hands of Gods at the beginning of the  first lighted day in the guise of the legendary toki, Te Awhiorangi, used by Tāne to slash the vines binding Rangi and Papa together.   

The Stories of Ngahue

The stories surrounding Ngāhue for example, called Ngake in some  places, reveal to us the complexities involved in unravelling the apparent mystery of pounamu. Poutini is once again present although,  his role will vary depending upon whom is telling the story. Some say  the taniwha is under Ngāhue’s charge and travels with him as a companion on his way to Aotearoa.

Others insist that Poutini obeys Ngāhue’s outraged wife who sends the taniwha on a mission to destroy her errant husband. Still other traditions place Hine-tū-a-hōanga of the sandstone as a jealous antagonist of Ngāhue, intent on destroying Ngāhue’s taniwha, again with her own beast, being envious of Poutini’s  qualities.   

Regardless, it is Ngāhue who is widely credited with bringing the stone  to the attention of the people. Tied in many traditions to the exploration  journey of Kupe and his apparent discovery of these islands at the  bottom of the vast Polynesian triangle (although there are other  traditions that beg to differ with the popular version of events), Ngāhue  is a prototypical figure in the evolution of early Maori cultural advancement, and a name to mark the beginnings of settlement and  ongoing occupation.

He is said to have taken the pounamu back to the ancient homeland of Hawaiki (or in some traditions, Rarotonga or  Ra’i’atea) where he carved the first greenstone tiki as well as two adzes - toki - named Tutauru and Hauhauterangi that were used to  carve the waka, Tainui and Te Arawa. Here then begins the tradition of  working pounamu, which in those times was called te ika a Ngāhue -  Ngāhue’s fish. 

The Island of Tūpua is again prominent  in these other versions of the story of  stone as tūpua - the obsidian itself - will  always be important to the people. But Waitaiki and Tamāhua are absent from  these tellings.

Instead it is Ngāhue  attempting to hide Poutini from the  pursuing Hine-tū-a-hōanga and her retinue, first at Tūpua and then, by differing accounts, at  various places down the east coast of North Island such as Waiapu on East Cape, Uawa near  Tolaga Bay, Turanga, Waimata, Nukutaurua, In Hawkes Bay near Heretaunga and further south  along the coast of Wairarapa, each time being thwarted by the presence in those places and  others of sandstone, chert and other progeny of Hine-tū-a-hōanga, the eternal enemy of pounamu. 

Or it is Poutini in pursuit of Ngāhue, to the same effect as far as the purpose of these stories of  stone are concerned, that is, to mark in the memories of generations these trails and places of  value.

That all of these stories, mythologies and traditions, and others not even mentioned here still  lead to Arahura by way of obsidian, basalt, argillite, sandstone and flint suggests that Maori  tradition had come to some of the same broad conclusions that geological science arrived at many  centuries later. The story of stone in Aotearoa is mute if not for pounamu.