Legends about White Island - Whakaari

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White Island is the only still active volcanic island of New Zealand. It is 48 km offshore from Whakatane in the South Pacific Ocean and its name in Maori is `Te Puia o Whakaari´. The short form, Whakaari, means `The dramatic volcano´. There are different legends about how White Island became a fire-spitting island.

Here is one of the legends:

Ngatoroirangi, a great Tohunga (spiritual leader), decided to to travel  inland to explore the area.  While he and his travel companions had a rest on the eastern side of Lake Taupo, he spotted a very beautiful mountain to the south. Ngatoroirangi decided he wanted to climb that mountain for a better view of the region. When they reached the foot of the mountain, Ngatoroirangi told his companions to stay put and wait for his return. They were asked to fast until he came back because this would give Ngatoroirangi the strength to succeed in this adventure.  Ngatoroirangi promised them a big feast on his return and that he would teach them everything that he was going to learn during his travel. So it happened that he and his slave Aruhoe started their dangerous journey. The higher they climbed, the colder it got, and the cold froze their breath and made their fingers and feet stiff.  Aruhoe stumbled very often but  Ngatoroirangi urged him to move on.

Meanwhile his companions who were waiting for his return became very hungry and grew tired of waiting. So they suggested that Ngatoroirangi might have died and they were waiting and suffering for nothing. Somebody mentioned how impatient hunger can be. So they decided to light a fire for cooking and they started to eat again.

Their deeds caused Ngatoroirangi to feel icy cold fingers stabing into his heart which made him double over in agony, and he prayed to his sisters in Hawaiki to send him fire to warm him:  `Oh Kuiwai, Ih Haungaroa, come quickly. Ka riro au I te tonga. (I am carried away by the cold south wind). Do not delay or I will surely perish."

His sisters heard him praying and instantly sent the fire demons Te Pupu and Te Hoata to their brother who was fighting with death. The two demons swam as fast as possible through the pacific to Whakaari (White Island). When they lifted their heads, the earth around them became a fiery pit. And this is what you can still find today on White Island.

But here the fire demons realised that they were still far away from Ngatoroirangi. So they dived back into the sea and moved on. When they reached the land they went on underground. Each time the demons broke through the soil for orientation they left a steaming, bubbling track of thermal activity.
The tunnel which they were `digging´ on their way built a connection between White Island and Mount Ngaruahoe which lasted forever.

With all their might, the fire demons broke through the crust of the massive cone of Tongariro where Ngatoroirangi was dying.

Aruhoe had already succumbed to death. But Ngatoroirangi was rescued by the heat which was produced by this volcano. He called it Tongariro to remind us of the icy south wind which nearly had killed him.

By this adventure the Arawa tribe became the guardians of the thermal activities in the area of Rotorua.
(Source: 'Te Whakarewarewa' von Don Stafford )





There are some variations in the legend e.g. Ngatoroirangi sacrified Aruhoe  (obviously still alive) to the volcano.

Somewhere else you can read that it was not Aruhoe who accompanied Ngatoroirangi but the chief Tama Te Kapua.

There is also (at least one) other completely different legend about White Island which I am going to tell next time.
And of course there are tour operators who can bring you via boat or helicopter to White Island which  I will report about as well.


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