Were there giants in the Pacific and New Zealand? We know about the giant eagle, giant penguins, and the moa. What about giant people? To look into that, we have to go back to the beginning. The Bible has some fascinating verses, like this from Genesis, the first book;
“There were giants on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old, men of renown.” Genesis 6:4
The word from the Biblical account of giants is translated as “Nephilim.” “Those days” means before the flood of Noah. And there were also giants “afterward.”
Of course this conflicts with the evolutionary narrative, but there are too many legends of a worldwide flood to easily dismiss Noah and the account of Genesis.
The Maori have their own legends.
Maori: The Flood in World Myth and Folklore, Pacific
Also, see the section ‘Pananehu, Nukutere canoe and the Flood’ on the page relating to the Maruiwi.
As for the giants, New Zealand has it’s share of giant tales. Did a remnant survive? Do we have evidence of giants in New Zealand? I believe if a bone or a skull is found in NZ, it will never see the light of day. We have to rely on historical accounts.
Kiharoa (Tainui)
In his book The Old Frontier, James Cowan recounted the legend of Kiharoa, a giant warrior chief of the Ngāti-Raukawa and Ngāti-Whakatere tribes. According to Cowan, there was a curious landmark near the village of Whenuahou known as the “Giant’s Grave.”
The grave was 12–14 feet long and 4 feet wide. Enquiring about the the grave, Cowan learned the legend behind it from two warriors of the Ngāti-Maniapoto tribe. He wrote: There certainly seems to have been a veritable giant, a man of enormous stature and length of reach with the hand-weapons of those days, six generations ago.
This Kiharoa, or “The Long Gasping Breath,” was a chief of the Ngati-Raukawa and Ngati-Whakatere tribes, who in those times owned the Tokanui hills and the surrounding fruitful slopes. Kirahoa was said to have stood at twice the height of an average-sized man. He wielded an enormous taiaha—a traditional Māori close-quarters staff. His weapon was named “The First rays of Morning Light,” or Rangihaeata in the native tongue.
Author Denver Michaels: A Twelve-Foot Warrior Chief
Matau (Tainui)
There was another giant of these parts long ago, one Matau; like Kiharoa, he was a man of the Ngati-Raukawa tribe, and, too, his favourite weapon was the taiaha. He lived on a hill above the Wairaka River, a few miles beyond Orakau. Maori accounts aver that he was eleven feet high. Source: NZETC There were Giants in the Land
The giant Matau was a cannibal.
His home was in a palisaded hole in a cliff above the cave called Te Ana Kai-tangata (“The Cannibal’s Cave”), which you may see in the rocky face in the gorge towards the head of the Wairaka Stream, a tributary of the Puniu River. The entrance to this cave is still marked with the paint kokowai or red ochre; that is how you will know it. It was an excellent place in which to lie in wait for incautious travellers in the days of old.
Source: NZETC, Chapter XIII. — Kiharoa The Giant. — A Folk-Tale of the Tokanui Hills
Note regarding the cave Te Ana Kai-tangata: there’s also a cave of the same name on Easter Island, also associated with cannabalism.
Tama te Kapua (Arawa)
Tama te Kapua, the captain of the Arawa canoe, was said to be very tall – 2.7 metres (9 ft). Source: Wikipedia
Te Heuheu Tukino II, descendant of Tama te Kapua (Arawa)
TE HEUHEU TUKINO II (Mananui), also known as Te Heuheu the Great (1780–1846) was over seven feet tall and well proportioned – a superb military tactician, a great general and a wise counsellor. Mananui was always respected by his enemies because of the chivalrous way in which he fought.
A man of advanced views (for he forbade his tribe to indulge in cannibalism), Mananui was the most influential chief in the interior of the North Island and one of the most distinguished Maoris of his time.
Source: ‘TE HEUHEU TUKINO II (Mananui),’, from An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, edited by A. H. McLintock, originally published in 1966.
Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand
URL: http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/1966/te-heuheu-tukino-ii
Mananui died in 1846 when a landslide covered his village. In 1910 his body was recovered, buried in a cave on Mount Tongariro and later brought down to Waihi near Tokaanu. A few days after his body was moved, another horo or landslide came down the water-logged steaming valley alongside the landslide of 1846; it was a larger slip which went out a long way into the lake. There was only one person killed by this slip, which took place in the daytime. A curious coincidence, one of several strange occurrences at that time discussed by the Maoris.
The late Te Heuheu Tukino, M.L.C., said the skull of his grandfather, which he viewed and wept over when it was borne down from the sacred mountain, was exceptionally large.
Source: NZETC
Title: Famous New Zealanders: No. 32: The Heuheu Family: The Hereditary Paramount Chiefs Of Taupo (vol 10, issue 8)
Author: Tangiwai
In: The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 10, Issue 8 (November 1, 1935)
Publication details: New Zealand Government Railways Department, Wellington
Giants on the Three Kings Islands?
Abel Tasman described very tall people when he sailed close to the Three Kings Islands near Cape Reinga. He noted that “Upon the highest mountain of the island they saw 35 persons, who were very tall, and had staves or clubs . . . When they walked they took very large strides.”
Isaac Gilsemans, who sailed with Abel Tasman, drew this picture of the Three Kings Islands. The human figures in the background apparently gave rise to a belief amongst Europeans that Māori were giants.
While we’ll never know who these tall people were, here’s a photo I took from my research at Auckland Museum in 2021. This ancient carving was found in 1946, hidden in a cave on Great Island.
BONES OF GIANT MEN FOUND IN CAVE
Article from a Melbourne Newspaper ‘The Argus’, 13th October 1934
A huge cavern which was apparently inhabited by human beings in ancient times has been discovered at Whangaroa. Several of the skeletons had reddish fuzzy hair adhering to the skulls, raising doubts whether they are of the Maoris. The skeletons are huge. That of one man it is estimated, is almost 7ft in height. The inhabitants of the cave apparantly lived in captivity.
https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/10980936
Tareha of Kerikeri (Ngapuhe)
Tāreha was described as a man of extraordinary size and strength and seemed to surpass all his countrymen. He was much looked up to for his bravery and skill in leading warriors to battle. Richard Taylor, who met Tāreha in the late 1830’s recorded that he was one of the largest men the missionary had ever seen. Said to be over 7ft tall and eventually came to weigh more than 600lbs.
Tāreha accompanied Hongi Hika and Rewa on many of the southern war campaigns of which his mere presence was enough to instil confidence of victory.
Source: THE WARLORDS – Te Ahurea
Tāreha was widely known as Hongi’s ‘chief captain’.
As historian Tony Walzl notes, Europeans held Tāreha in awe. He often played on his reputation as a ‘ferocious cannibal’ to keep an edge over the missionaries. When Tāreha first met Taylor, he grabbed the missionary’s arm and in a gruff voice said, ‘You will not do yet.’ According to one missionary, Tāreha lost patience with John King and ‘seized the poor Missionary, who was not a very large person, and putting him under his arm, walked off with him to the Mission-house, where he safely deposited him, shutting the door, and bidding Mrs. King take care and not let him go out again lest he should eat him.’
Source: NZ HISTORY | Tāreha
Otane of Hawkes Bay (Ngati-Kahungunu)
Te-O-Tane of Hawkes Bay was of massive build, extraordinarily tall, framed in proportion and possessed of tremendous strength. It is related of him that on one occasion when his warriors were attacking a pa near Pakowhai, the people of the pa observed with alarm that in crossing the deepest part of the river the water just reached Te-O-Tane’s hips, while the rest of the party were wading with the water up to their armpits. The people of the pa seeing this, abandoned their stronghold and fled.
He had a patu (club) which was so heavy it had to be carried for him and a taiaha (spear) which was double the size of a normal one.
Otane, near the town of Waipawa is named after his pa near Springhill. Beside that one he had two other pas, one near the mouth of the Wairoa river (the Wai-tahora Pa of Te-O-Tane) and one near Frasertown.
Source: NZETC
Title: Takitimu Author: Tiaki Hikawera Mitira
Kawharu the Giant of Kawhia
Kawharu the Giant was said to be 8 to 9 ft tall, “with a face as long as your fingertip to elbow.” Source: Artspace Aotearoa
Now, Kawharu was a man of Herculean stature and strength. A rock fully 12ft high’ on the Aotea beach still bears his name, on the top of which this Goliath is said to have rested his chin while awaiting the approach (at a later date) of a hostile force coming from Kawhia to attack him. Source: Pas of the Past Kawhia Settler and Raglan Advertiser, Volume XXIV, Issue 1290, 16 October 1925, Page 3
Kawharu left Kawhia but eventually came back after helping in battles against Te Arawa with Ngāti Raukawa chief Ngatokowaru.Ngati Whatua had heard of Kawharu’s bravery and strength in battle, and in 1680, asked him north to Kaipara to help fight Te Kawerau. He led a series of raids — known as Te Raupatu Tihore, “The Stripping Conquest” — across the Tamaki isthmus, before being killed at a pa at Waiherunga in South Kaipara. Source: Wikipedia | Ngāti Te Wehi
KAWHARU (myth.), a giant warrior, who was used as a scaling-ladder by his party in the attack on the pa at Moturimu, in the Kaipara. He was four arm-spans (fathoms) tall {i.e. twenty-four feet), and his face one cubit long (the cubit « from end of fingers to the elbow) — G.-8, 30. Source: Tregear, Edward. (1891). Maori-Polynesian Comparative Dictionary. Wellington: Government Printer, p. 141.
Tuhourangi of Rotorua (Arawa)
Tuhourangi, a chief of the Arawa tribe was a giant who lived three centuries ago. He was nine feet high, according to tradition, and was about six feet up to his armpits. His bones were buried on the east side of Pukurahi Pa, on Mokoia Island.
Mokoia island is on Lake Rotorua, but Pukurahi pā (on the left) is on Lake Rotoiti, near Ōkere Falls. So it’s not clear where the giant Tuhourangi is buried.
The story goes in olden times Tuhourangi’s bones were disinterred at kumara planting time and set up on the edge of the cultivations on Mokoia, while the priest recited the prayers for a bountiful harvest. The presence of the sacred bones was supposed to promote the fertility of the crop.
Sir George Grey, during his first Governorship of New Zealand, visited Mokoia and, hearing about the bones of a man of enormous size, obtained the consent of the chiefs to dig for the skeleton. The men whom he employed purposely dug in the wrong place and so the relics were never brought to light. Source: NZETC
The Giants’ shouts and sneezes
The writer of the article in NZETC stated the Maori delighted to embroider their tales with amazing details, such as the story that Tuhourangi used to shout from the mainland to Mokoia Island, three or four miles away, bidding his slaves prepare food for him.
I learned during a quiz night I went to recently that a lion’s roar can carry eight kms. So who knows, it could be true.
The Ngapuhi tribe in Northland had a giant named Te Pute. “His eyes, they aver, were as large as the largest pawa shell—about the size of a saucer. When he sneezed the thundering sound thereof was heard from Punakitere as far away as Kaikohe, and that is several miles distant.” -Source NZETC
A woman from the Ngai Tu tribe said the nearby Otaua valley had a history of many different people living in the valley co-existing with giants.
A Race of Giants
Maori tradition in Taranaki has it that the Te Kahui Tipua (a race of giants) came out with the Waitaha. Te Kahui Tipua were the ancient people known as the Maeroa. They were described as wild men of the woods, who probably were the remains of some of the original people driven to the forests and mountains by the incoming crews of the heke. Even so late as the fifties of last century, they were supposed to inhabit the great forests in inland Taranaki.
Te Kahui Tipua
In Auckland the Maori tradition of the Mahurangi and Gulf Islands Districts is that the earliest people was “a race of giants”, known as Tipua, or Kahui Tipua, who occupied both sides of Tamaki Isthmus, at Mangere, Waitakere, and the North Shore of the Waitemata.
Did the Auckland branch of the Kahui Tipua die in a volcanic cataclysm? Look at the crater now covered by Lake Pupuke.
The tradition says Mataaho, a deity associated with volcanoes, unleashed his powers, causing the home of the Tipua to sink into a chasm, which filled with water forming what is now known as Lake Pupuke. At the same time, the island of Rangitoto emerged from the sea offshore.
The Tipua fled, but Mahuika, a goddess with “fingers of fire” pursued them and cast them into subterranean regions. The places where they sank are the volcanic craters on the shores of Shoal Bay called respectively Te Kapua-o-Matakamokamo at Awataha, and Te Kapua-o-Matakerepo near Northcote.
The crater, the mould of the burned kauri tree and the lava on the shoreline tell the story.
The Kahui Tipua disappeared into legend after the emergence of the volcanoes.
The Pananehu
The remnant may also not have been able to breed. The Te Kahui Tipua weren’t the only race of giants. The Pananehu in the Opotiki area were also a division of the Maruiwi folk and were referred to as “the giant people.”
“Ngai Tama we have a really important historical narrative about the people who were there previously and were the early settlers. They were called Pananehu. Many of the women at that time were tiny women with small cervixes. When they mated with the Pananehu who were the giant people as we refer to them, many of those children died in pregnancy because the women’s cervixes were too small. The original name of Opape was Opepe. The name commemorated this event. Ngai Tamahaua has a waiata entitled “Me Penei Ana.” The waiata is unique to the hapu. It memorialises the loss of the children. We’re the only ones who sing it on ceremonial occasions and at tangi.” Source: Treaty of Waitangi claim Wai 1750, #C39
Makeo, behind Omarumutu marae, Opape (Opepe) near Opotiki, so named because of the problem at childbirth.
The Maori have a flood tradition relating to this tribe and area.
At Ohope I learned that Opape from our previous walk was given as the landing place for the Nukutere canoe. The Pananehu, the giant people, were the tribe associated with this canoe.
The Nukutere was the canoe of Whiro-nui. It arrived eight months before the Flood, called Te Tai-a-Ruatapu (see Rua-tapu).
Links
See the section ‘Pananehu, Nukutere canoe and the Flood’ on the page relating to the Maruiwi.
Also, the Horowhenua site states the Waitaha themselves were 7′ tall.
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