Nurtured by Natures gift

Our Homeland Aotearoa: The Tui in the Kowhai

When the Tui sits in the Kowhai tree
and the sun tips the mountain tops with gold
when the Rata blooms in the forest glade,
and the hills glow with sunny tints untold.
I love to roam through bush and fern
and hear the Bellbird sing
and feel the touch of the wind on my face
while the joy in my heart does ring.

There are some who long for coral sands
and some for wind-swept plains
while others roam the ocean wide
then pine for home again.
But give to me the care-free life
by mountain, lake or shore
of the lovely land of the Long White Cloud,
Our Homeland Aotearoa.

Words A. G. Hall, 1920s. Music "Pretty Caroline", traditional

Iwi-katere - Owner of a wise bird
Tui were often kept in cages an taught words and songs. Long ago, at Te Wairoa on the east coast, a rangatira named Iwi-katere owned a pet tui, called Tane-miti-rangi, which he taught ritual chants of every kind. The bird became so knowledgeable that it recited all the chants at the rituals performed at harvest time.
One year a neighbouring rangatira, Tamatera, sent a messenger to ask if the bird could recite the chants for his kumara-harvesting ceremony. Iwi-katere replied that Tamatera could borrow the tui, but that first it would have to officiate at his own ceremony. Tamatera regarded this as an insult and that night he sent the messenger back to steal the bird.
As the thief approached the house, the tui awoke and called to Iwi-katere, 'I'm being carried off, carried off by a thief, wake up!'
But Iwi-katere slept on, and the thief got away with the bird. Next morning Iwi-katere listened in vain for the accustomed sound of his tui's voice as it spoke to the people. He wept for his bird, and knowing that Tamatera had stolen it, he raised an army.
In the end the thief's people were defeated and migrated from Te Wairoa to Heretaunga (Hawke's Bay). Their descendants are still there and Iwi-katere's descendents are still at Te Wairoa.

The following myth has two variants, in one Tane is the protagonist, the other it is Rupe. It tells of how the tui came to the land of Aotearoa.
Rehua: A great rangatira in the sky
[...] the visitor is shocked when Rehua prepares a meal for him by untying his long hair and shaking into a vessel the birds that haven been feeding on the lice on his head. When these birds - they are tui - are cooked by his attendants, and palced before them, neither Rupe nor Tane will touch them, because they have fed on the lice that have fed on Rehua's tapu head. Tane, however, recieves permission from Rehua to take the birds down to the earth below, and he is told how to snare them. As well he takes the trees with thefruits on which the birds feed: and so we now haves birds and forests.