Pekehaua and the Awahou River
Pekehaua: Te tupua tiaki o Te Awahou
Ngāti Rangiwewehi
The local tangata whenua, Ngāti Rangiwewehi, believe that the Awahou river is a place of healing protected by Pekehaua – their kaitiaki or guardian.
Some say that Pekehaua carved the river with his tail, and if you dive down deep enough you can still hear Pekehaua swimming around in the depths. It is believed that when you swim in the river you are cleansed and Pekehaua takes away your taumaha (troubles and worries).
In the old days, it was easy to fish for trout, eel, freshwater crayfish, morihana (karp) and whitebait during the season. The morihana was a delicacy for the elder people; very bony but also sweet. There was plenty to eat back then, like fruit from the many trees which grew nearby. The tamariki (children) also used to gather duck eggs from the riverbank and harvest plentiful watercress, which grew like a green carpet for miles along the river.
Sometimes, the tamariki swimming in the awa could feel Pekehaua close by and if they got tired, they might find a rākau (log) pushing them along and giving them strength to make it back to shore. The people of Ngāti Rangiwewehi believe that it is because he protects the swimmers, that no one has ever drowned there.
Pekehaua made his home in a dark underwater cave called Te Waro-Uri which connected underground channels to other waterways including Hamurana. He would sometimes use these channels to visit Hinerua, a female guardian of Hamurana who lived in Te Puna-a-Hangarua, and the two had tamariki together, which were born in the form of teretere (small fish).
In the 1960s, the land around Te Waro-Uri was taken by the local council and a pump station was built there, which upset the people who thought it would chase away Pekehaua from his home. It was only many years later that the spring was returned to the people of Ngāti Rangiwewehi, some of whom believe that the spirit of Pekehaua and the life-force of Rangiwewehi is now free to return.
Although the river is known mostly as Awahou, it was named Te Wai Mimi o Pekehaua by a Te Arawa ancestor, Īhenga. He dedicated the name of the river after the special kaitiaki of these sacred waters, Pekehaua.
This story comes from the original Great Te Arawa Stories website created by Ngā Pūmanawa e Waru (NPeW) Education Trust in 2018. To ensure consistency, minimal updates were made to the text before it was transferred to this new site.
Did You Know? 
There are other versions of the story of Pekehaua, including one in which he is captured and killed by Pītaka. You can read that version of Pekehaua’s story here.
