Te Rerenga Wairua - Cape Reinga, North Island
S 34° 25.230 E 172° 40.776
59H E 654347 N 6189939
This is the point where Maori believe souls enter the underworld and return to their traditional homeland of Hawaiiki-a-nui.
Waymark Code: WM8R2D
Location: North Island, New Zealand
Date Posted: 05/05/2010
Views: 24
Cape Reinga - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Cape Reinga (Te Reinga or Te Rerenga Wairua in Maori) is the northwesternmost tip of the Aupouri Peninsula, at the northern end of the North Island of New Zealand. Cape Reinga is located over 100 km north of the nearest small town of Kaitaia. State Highway 1 extends all the way to the Cape, but until 2010 was unsealed gravel road for the last 19km. Suitable vehicles can also travel much of the way via Ninety Mile Beach and Te Paki stream bed.
The name of the cape comes from the Maori word 'Reinga', meaning the 'Underworld'. Another Maori name is 'Te Rerenga Wairua', meaning the leaping-off place of spirits. Both refer to the Maori belief that the cape is the point where the spirits of the dead enter the underworld.
Maori mythology
According to mythology, the spirits of the dead travel to Cape Reinga on their journey to the afterlife to leap off the headland and climb the roots of the 800 year old tree and descend to the underworld to return to their traditional homeland of Hawaiiki-a-nui, using the Te Ara Wairua, the 'Spirits' pathway'. At Cape Reinga they depart the mainland. They turn briefly at the Three Kings Islands for one last look back towards the land, then continue on their journey.
A spring in the hillside, Te Waiora-a-Tane (the 'Living waters of Tane'), also played an important role in Maori ceremonial burials, representing a spiritual cleansing of the spirits, with water of the same name used in burial rites all over New Zealand. This significance lasted until the local population mostly converted to Christianity, and the spring was capped with a reservoir, with little protest from the mostly converted population of the area. However, the spring soon disappeared and only reappeared at the bottom of the cliff, making the reservoir useless
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