Kurangaituku

Say it: KOO-rah-nga-ee-TOO-koo

Part woman, part bird, with fingers like talons and a forest full of birds who were her true family. Kurangaituku is what fear looks like from the outside, and what loneliness looks like from within.

Te Kāwai (Line of descent)

Te Kore → Te ira tangata → Kurangaituku

Te Kōrero (the story)

Kurangaituku lived deep in the forest with birds and lizards as her companions and her people, moving among them more easily than among humans. When she found Hatupatu she caught him gently — by his own account, with her lips, not her claws — and kept him as company rather than as a prisoner, teaching him her ways and leaving him to mind her creatures while she foraged. He repaid her by killing her birds and fleeing. She hunted him the length of the country, driven less by cruelty than by grief, and finally died in the boiling mud outside Rotorua, undone by the very land she knew so well. The tellings that frighten children with her talons are the same ones that, told slower, mourn her.

Te Whakapapa (the genealogy)

A tipua of the forest interior, tied by capture and betrayal to Hatupatu of the Te Arawa line; kin, in her own telling, to every bird and creeping thing she raised.

Ngā Mana (domains and influence)

The deep, untouched forestBirds and lizards as family, not resourceGrief that looks like rageBeing feared before you are understood

Kei Kōnei Rātou (they are present here)

The bush suddenly going quiet around you.
The feeling of being watched from the trees.
A person or story judged before it is properly heard.
Birds gathering somewhere thick and untouched.

Ngā Huarahi Hono (ways to connect)

The forest around you goes still

Stop and listen rather than walking faster. Something has noticed you first.

You hear a story that makes someone sound only monstrous

Ask what happened to them before this, not just what they did.

Moving through untouched bush

Move quietly and take nothing that lives there. It was hers before it was a track.

A Common Misunderstanding

This profile holds one telling of Kurangaituku. Pūrākau and whakapapa can differ between iwi and whānau, so it should not be read as the only account.

Ngā Uara (values)

Fierce

A quality carried in the kōrero of Kurangaituku.

Lonely

A quality carried in the kōrero of Kurangaituku.

Devoted to her creatures

A quality carried in the kōrero of Kurangaituku.

Misjudged

A quality carried in the kōrero of Kurangaituku.

Ngā Pūrākau (the traditional stories)

Told in full, the way they would be shared out loud. Versions differ between iwi (tribe), hapū (sub-tribe) and whānau (family).

Te kōtuku me te wahine — the bird-woman and her aviary

Who Kurangaituku was before Hatupatu ever crossed her path, and the forest that raised her.

About 5 min read

Te mokemoke me te pupuri — loneliness and keeping what you love

How Kurangaituku found Hatupatu, and why she kept him close instead of letting him go.

About 4 min read

Te whai i a Hatupatu — the pursuit of Hatupatu

Kurangaituku's chase the length of the country, and what was actually driving it.

About 4 min read

Te mutunga ki Whakarewarewa — her end at Te Whakarewarewa

How Kurangaituku's pursuit ended in the boiling mud, and what her story asks of how we treat those we call monsters.

About 4 min read