Te Kanohi o te Kaitangata

At the edge of the trades, where the winds blow foul, broods the isle of Rangitoto. Even those hard souls — the smuggler, the slaver and the pirate — cross themselves when saying its cursed name. They will tell you to get on your way.

Maybe after a mug of rum, some confess to having seen those black shores, and wish not to see them again. Why, you may ask? They may say, the tides suck ships to cold embrace off those jagged cliffs, or that the volcano stinks of death and sulfur.

After another mug of rum, they may tell you of the jungle with its twisted hangman vines, or those that disappeared — screaming or silent — but gone just the same. Or tell you of those that would tame that jungle to grow sugar cane, their empty ships sunk offshore.

On the third mug, they'll admit neither cliff nor jungle that feeds their night terrors, but the Kaitangata — the cannibal cult who eat not just the flesh, but the souls and by such dark rites, walk the night between life and death, hungry for the meat of the lost.

But this is not where Rangitoto moutere began; for that, one must go further back...