Gilbert Mair shot Rota Waitapu in a cave
under a waterfall near Whakamarama,
inland from Tauranga, 1867.
Rota, known as Aporo, was Hauhau.
From his body Mair took a packet,
                        nineteen sketches, Aporo's dreams.

One dream: points of compass as cross.
To the left, Man (Moses?) holds a staff (with leaves?).
Up that staff climbs (or is the staff turning into?)
      a serpent?

Another dream:
Left margin, a hill turned so the hilltop is to
      the centre of the drawing. From the hilltop
      two sprays of vegetation; I am going to say,
      they are trees. Left and right of the hill
      two hands, as though in supplication
      or as though arms unseen were outspread?
                  The hilltop has been cleared except for the trees,
      in parts which are bared, or perhaps paths.

Right margin, a hill turned so the hilltop is to
      the centre of the drawing, From the hilltop
      a signal mast rises. Emphatically, not a niu
      pole, not a flagstaff. The mast (necessarily?)
      points to the trees opposite.

Bottom margin, a hill.
                                           From the hilltop
Man's head protrudes; this is the head of
the body of the land?
                                   This is the body which is
tenanted by a lizard-like creature. It has
perhaps four sets of legs. The extreme tail curls
round Man's head. Man looks up,
to, diagonal, rising from left low to high right,
      another lizard-like creature with four pairs
      of legs, a fifth pair more arms than legs.
      One pair of eyes, but the head, heavily blacked,
      is in double (beaked?) profile.
      No question about it being a monster.
You might argue that the head is associated
with the demon figure, a Satan or Apollyon figure,
used in another drawing where it stands for
      Sir George Grey
who carries off the poor Maori in a bag.

The drawings are from before Te Kooti/Turuki's time.
The serpent is not of Pai Marire.
The lizards?
                                             aporo was mixed up.
He was dreaming more than Pai Marire.
He dreamt what didn't make enough Te Ua sense
or after him enough Te Kooti sense
but does
               give and take a bit of the kind
which follows not straight from but through
an intermediary
                                    make Papahurihia sense:
one dream      Man holds a staff         branch of tree
                         which is climbed by     turns into Serpent
                         which is nakahi            and Aaron's rod
                                                              or a Tree of Jesse
                         where Hurai is              Teu and Teu is priest
                                                              to compass all

another dream where the top of the drawing is North.
                         Then left is West, hill with spirit hands
                                                                   and grove.
                         Right is East, hill with signal mast.
                         Between them (and not north of) hill
                         with Man who looks above, is South then,
                         south of what?

One mast most famous, at Kororareka.
      This reads the right, the East, margin, and coastal.
Then the left, West margin, land's limit, is
Hokianga South Head once a tree place of power,
spirit place, made common ground (noa)
when it was made over as signal station.

Between Hokianga and the bay flies
lizard-not-lizard, dragon-not-dragon, serpent-not-snake
      or taniwha-Satan,
flies nakahi. Man whom ngarara sickens looks up
      to te nakahi, to Te atua Wera,
looks up from . . . If     atua Wera is God of Wrath
then the heights which fit best are Ngapukehaua
above Waima, Omanaia and Whirinaki,
the Hills of Anger, on Hokianga's south side.

Alternative reading, but still northern:
Aporo's drawing is not from a Papahurihia line,
it's a version of something more likely heard about
      then remembered, a Red Dragon talisman,
"From west to east Satan lies over a sick land."
Leaves too much unaccounted.