The pouakai or poukai is a monstrous bird in
Māori mythology
Māori mythology and Māori traditions are two major categories into which the remote oral history of New Zealand's Māori may be divided. Māori myths concern fantastic tales relating to the origins of what was the observable world for the pr ...
.
Mythologies
In some of these legends, pouakai kill and eat humans. The myth may refer to the real but now extinct
Haast's eagle
Haast's eagle (''Hieraaetus moorei'') is an extinct species of eagle that once lived in the South Island of New Zealand, commonly accepted to be the pouakai of Māori legend.[moa
Moa are extinct giant flightless birds native to New Zealand.
The term has also come to be used for chicken in many Polynesian cultures and is found in the names of many chicken recipes, such as
Kale moa and Moa Samoa.
Moa or MOA may also refe ...]
weighing up to , and which had the capability to kill even an adult human.
History
Haast's eagles, which only lived in the east and northwest of New Zealand's
South Island
The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...
, did not become extinct until around two hundred years after the arrival of
Māori
Māori or Maori can refer to:
Relating to the Māori people
* Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group
* Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand
* Māori culture
* Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...
. Eagles are depicted in early rock-shelter paintings in
South Canterbury
South Canterbury is the area of the Canterbury Region of the South Island of New Zealand bounded by the Rangitata River in the north and the Waitaki River (the border with the Otago Region) to the south. The Pacific Ocean and ridge of the Souther ...
.
Large amounts of the eagle's lowland habitat had been destroyed by burning by A.D. 1350, and it was driven extinct by overhunting, both directly (Haast's eagle bones have been found in Māori archaeological sites) and indirectly: its main prey species, nine species of moa and other large birds such as
adzebill
The adzebills, genus ''Aptornis'', were two closely related bird species, the North Island adzebill, (''Aptornis otidiformis''), and the South Island adzebill, (''Aptornis defossor''), of the extinct family Aptornithidae. The family was endemic ...
s,
flightless ducks, and
flightless geese, were hunted to extinction at the same time.
See also
*
Hakawai
*
Folk memory Folk memory, also known as folklore or myths, refers to past events that have been passed orally from generation to generation. The events described by the memories may date back hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of years and often hav ...
References
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Mythological birds of prey
Māori legendary creatures