Hatupatu and the bird woman Kurangaituku By Ela-Huia

Once there was a man called Hatupatu and he was from Rotorua. He had three older brothers that were mean to him.

Hatupatu’s mean brothers One day Hatupatus brothers went out to hunt birds and hatupatu was left at home to clean and cook the birds when his brothers get back. They didn’t give him any birds to eat.

Hatupatu has a feast So one day Hatupatu decided to have a feast and eat the birds when his brothers were gone hunting again. So he put blood on his face and slept on the floor so his brothers didn’t know that he ate the birds and instead they think the enemy ate the food and hurt Hatupatu.

Hatupatu lies and runs away When his brothers came back they saw Hatupatu with blood on his face and they saw the food eaten so they went to hunt the enemy. They saw no sign of the enemy so they came back and knew Hatupatu put fake blood on And lied. They beat him up and Hatupatu ran away.

Hatupatu runs to find food in the forest He ran into the forest. He went hunting for birds to eat.

He meets Kurangaituku One day he was spearing a bird then another spear got the bird. He went to see and found the bird woman. Kurangaituku.

Hatupatu is a prisoner She was white and scary and very tall. She thought hatupatu was another bird so she captured him to her house in the forest. In her house there were lots of different birds they were her pets. Now Hatupatu is her pet.

Finding the magic words He was there for four years and she looked after him but she wouldn’t let him free. She locked the door whenever she went out with her magic words. One day he learnt the magic words to open up the door and escaped while kurangaituku went far away finding new birds.

Escaping He shut the door and filled the holles up with sticks so the birds don’t fly out and tell kurangituku that hatupatu has gone but one little bird squeezed though a hole.

She finds out The little bird was a fantail. It flew to Kurangaituku and told her that Hatupatu ran away.

Hiding in a rock Angry she chased after him. Hatupatu came to a rock and said a karakia to open the rock. It opened and he hid inside the rock and closed it up. Kurangaituku scratched the rock because she knew he was in there.

Coming back home He slept in the rock and the next day he woke and Kurangaituku was gone. So he ran again back to his home in Whakarewarewa.

Chasing Hatupatu Kurangaituku sees him and flies behind him. Hatupatu jumps over the mud pools and geysers just before they go off.

Kurangaituku dies She flies over a hot pool and a geyser blows up. It splashes her and she falls into the hot pool and dies.

Hatupatu is a warrior! Hatupatu becomes a warrior of the village and is better than his bigger brothers.

I hope you like my story ela-huia