These tourists are looking at a large mataī growing beside Te Ara-o-Hinehopu, a track between Lakes Rotoiti and Rotoehu, in 1950. The path is named after Hinehopu, a woman of high birth who lived in the area around 1620. It is also called Hongi’s Track, after the leader of a Ngāpuhi war party who dragged their canoes between the lakes some 200 years later. The tree is known as Hinehopu’s wishing tree – as a baby, she was hidden there from enemies by her mother. It was at this spot that she later met her future husband Pikiao, the forebear of the Ngāti Pikiao people.
Using this item
Alexander Turnbull Library, Tourist and Publicity Department Collection
Reference:
1/2-019782-F
Photograph by Edward Percival Christensen
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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