'He tarakona'

'He tarakona'

In 1846, Mananui Te Heuheu Tūkino II and his followers were killed by a landslide on Kākaramea mountain, above Waihī. Te Rangikāheke, a Ngāti Rangiwewehi scholar, suggested that the landslide had been caused by a taniwha. He sketched out what it looked like, and noted that this was what Europeans referred to as a ‘tarakona’ (a transliteration of ‘dragon’).