Story: Waterfalls

Āniwaniwa Falls

Āniwaniwa Falls

This is the lower of the two drops in the Āniwaniwa Falls near Lake Waikaremoana. It is called Te Tangi-o-Hinerau – the weeping of Hinerau, a highborn Tūhoe woman who lived beneath the Huiarau Range and was famed for her beauty. When gathering food from the bush she was trapped between a chasm and a cliff by an earthquake. To summon help she threw a blade of flax with an ornament attached into the river. Losing hope of being rescued, she began to cry. Her tears grew and became a torrent that rushed over the rocks of the chasm, forming a waterfall. Her flax blade eventually floated into Lake Waikaremoana where Te Toru, a Ruapani chief discovered it. Te Toru went upstream, rescued Hinerau and later married her.

Using this item

Alexander Turnbull Library, George Bridges Collection
Reference: 1/1-024133
Photograph by Frank Giles Barker

Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.

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How to cite this page:

Jock Phillips, 'Waterfalls - Māori and waterfalls', Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/photograph/11760/aniwaniwa-falls (accessed 20 April 2024)

Story by Jock Phillips, published 24 Sep 2007