Rock Warriors

Thursday August 2 2012.
The Rock Warriors
Retold by Danielle Azaria Mailata

Many many years ago, there lived two tribes on Ngongotaha Mountain. There were handsome and beautiful woman, gentlemen and children, but the other tribe were giants called Tipua people and they were smelly and yucky.

One day the Tipua warriors were planning to take over the Patupaiarehe people’s village. The people of the Patupaiarehe could feel thumping and so one of the people ran up to see what all the noise was and they  saw that it was the giant warriors. The people ran to their leader so that he could help them because their leader knew how to use magic spells and he was very good at it.

The chief had a plan. He went to the top of the Ngongotaha mountain and made a fire and started to chant an old spell that he learnt when he was a kid. He did not know if this would work but he tried his hardest.  When the Tipua Warriors stopped to have a rest they stood there too long and became stuck and their skin started to get stiff and hard and they soon realised that the spell had worked and they turned into rocks.

Some people say that on a sunny and cold day, they can hear the rock warriors moaning, probably because they are so uncomfortable from standing in the same spot for a very long time..