Pania of the Reef. Napier. New Zealand.
S 39° 29.293 E 176° 55.187
60H E 493101 N 5629040
Pania of the Reef is a well-known statue from Maori mythology. She lives on the Napier waterfront.
Waymark Code: WM3QM6
Location: New Zealand
Date Posted: 05/05/2008
Views: 46
The Legend of Pania:
Pania today is a ledge or reef of rock, lying about four miles beyond Hukarere point.
The Napier breakwater was the home of Pania, a beautiful sea maiden who, in ancient times, daily swam shorewards at the setting of the sun and returned to her sea people before the break of day.
While on shore she hid herself in a clump of flax beside a freshwater spring at the foot of Hukarere cliff, close by the sea.
One evening Karitoki, a chief who lived in a nearby Pa, became thirsty, and went for a drink at the spring.
While drinking from his calabash he spied Pania sitting in the middle of the flax bush.
There and then he took her to his home, and they slept as man and wife.
But always, every morning, Pania would return to her sea folk and every evening come back ashore to her husband.
After awhile Pania gave birth to a son who was completely without hair and so was named Moremore, 'the hairless one.'
With the birth of this child, Pania's husband became concerned that he might lose him to the sea people.
So he consulted a tohunga, in the hope of finding how to keep his child and wife with him always.
The tohunga told him to place cooked food upon the mother and child while they slept, and they would never again return to the sea.
Evidently something went amiss. Perhaps the food was not properly cooked; for Pania returned to her people never to return.
The child Moremore was turned to a shark, a taniwha, which lived in the waters around the reef off Hukarere, and at Rangatira, the entrance to the inner harbour at the delta of the river called Ahuriri.
When fishermen of today tell the legend of Pania, they claim that at ebb-tide she may be seen lying outstretched at the bottom of the rocky shelf, with her hair still as black as ever and her arms stretched shoreward.
According to the old people's stories, however, she was turned into a fishing rock, from which various kinds of fish might be caught.
Within the hollow of her left arm-pit only rawaru may be caught, and from her right arm-pit snapper alone, while her thighs yield only the hapuka.
In the days of old these fishing grounds were sacred, but today, being frequented by both Maoris and Pakehas, the place has become common to all and fish are no longer plentiful.
The statue was first formed in clay from a photograph of Mei Robin (now Mei Whaitiri), who was 15 at the time. A mould was made of the clay figure and then was cast in bronze by the Italian Marble Company of Carrera, Italy and brought back here in 1954. It now sits on a limestone base on Napier's Marine Parade.
Name or use 'Unknown' if not known: Pania of the Reef.
Figure Type: Human
Date created or placed or use 'Unknown' if not known: 1954
Materials used: Bronze statue on limestone base.
Location: Marine Parade, Napier.
Artist Name or use 'Unknown' if not known: Not listed
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