Transit and the taniwha

A taniwha in Hart Domain, Henderson, adjoining a children's playground. Picture / Martin Sykes

By JAN CORBETT

When the BBC ran the story on its website - and it did - the headline said, "Maori swamp creature delays road." The Independent - yes, Britain's quality daily broadsheet reported it as well - said, "Construction on a major highway in New Zealand has been halted because a local Maori tribe says it is infringing on the habitat of a mythical swamp-dwelling monster".

You could hear the sniggering all the way around the globe.

It's a straight three-lane stretch of road straddling the Waikato River near Meremere that has claimed an inordinate number of lives in often inexplicable head-on crashes. White crosses punctuate the fenceline.

Maori have long blamed the taniwha for the high death rate. With some modern roading engineering, Transit New Zealand and the travelling public expect to tame the beast.

Except the beast seemed to have been forgotten until the bulldozers moved in and the local iwi Ngati Naho poked it awake, just as Northland Maori have done to oppose the prison at Ngawha.

Letters to the editor suggested taniwha taunting is merely a cynical ruse by Maori looking for compensation. The taniwha, it is suggested, could be paid to go away.

Equally rose the frustration that a "primitive culture" is being allowed to halt development because politically correct Pakeha are too afraid to tell Maori to get real, get over it or get lost. In any event, construction stopped. Urgent meetings between Transit New Zealand and Ngati Naho were convened this week.

So, do rational, modern-day Maori really believe there is a taniwha at the bend of every river and lurking in the swamp?

"My answer to that is yes, we do," says Remi Herbert, manager of the Ngati Naho Co-operative Society (www.ngatinahohapu.co.nz) which has raised the objection. "It is part of our historical belief that taniwha do exist all along the Waikato River.

"It's a cultural matter here. It's entirely what you believe in. Being Maori, that's part of our history that's been there since day one."

Urban and urbane Maori Cabinet minister John Tamihere agrees "there's no doubt" about the existence of taniwha. Dr Ranginui Walker, former professor in the Maori Studies Department at Auckland University, was raised knowing to never swim at the bend in the river because the taniwha would get him.

"It is cultural, just the same as goblins are part of European culture, it's the same sort of thing," says Walker.