Turehu Street

Have you ever heard of fairies at the bottom of the garden? Folk in Turehu Street should have. Turehu is often translated as a fairy or a ghost and folklore has it that some Turehu lived in the forest on the hill that sits above Turehu Street.

However we can't be certain they were actually fairies as there is some traditional lore that also talks of the Turehu as a people living in many parts of Aotearoa prior to the heke which distributed descendants of the great waka to many parts of Aotearoa. The Turehu are thought to have been displaced or assimilated by the later tribes.

The Journal of the Polynesian Society of 1907 records in its History and Traditions of the Taranaki Coast mention of a race of people descended from Ngu in Muri-whenua (Northland) who lived amongst Taranaki iwi (JPS 1907, vol 16:134). It is also said that when Kupe called in at Kāwhia on his voyage down the Taranaki coast he saw people he called the Turehu and again at Pātea (JPS 1907 vol 16:150). It is also said that they were a fairer skinned people which might explain the association between Turehu and ghosts or fairies.

In any event, anyone living in Turehu Street should keep a weather eye out for ghostly figures in the bush around their homes. Who knows the Turehu could still be there.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.