New Zealand landscape oil painting
Toka Toka Moon 4
94 x 129 x 4 cm. Contemporary surrealist style Oils on board. NZ landscape art 312.
This small mountain on the Northern Wairoa River in the North Island of New Zealand is a favourite subject of mine. A mystical kind of view, with the new moon rising and conversing with Toka Toka. Legend has it that there is a 'Tanewha' or water monster lurking in a cave under the mountain.
$5500
94 x 129 x 4 cm. Contemporary surrealist style Oils on board. NZ landscape art 312.
This small mountain on the Northern Wairoa River in the North Island of New Zealand is a favourite subject of mine. A mystical kind of view, with the new moon rising and conversing with Toka Toka. Legend has it that there is a 'Tanewha' or water monster lurking in a cave under the mountain.
$5500
SOLD
By Jim Eagles - NZ Herald
The great Ngati Whatua war chief Taoho was said to have had his home near the top of the great rock. And the historian James Cowan has recorded a Ngati Whatua war chant calling on warriors to stand as firm as "the steadfast rock, the rock of Tokatoka's height."
Later, when settlers arrived on the banks of the Wairoa River and Dargaville became a busy timber port, the river pilot lived at the base of Tokatoka, which he climbed to look out for sailing ships arriving in the huge Kaipara Harbour.
The rock remains important to locals today; it features prominently in many of the landscapes by local artists you find in galleries around the Kaipara area, and on a roadside picnic table just opposite the hotel there's a particularly good mosaic representation created by residents at the nearby Kaurilands Skills Centre for the intellectually disabled.
But I mentioned earlier that as well as the Maori legend of Tokatoka there is also a Pakeha legend, one which was sent to me by Destination Northland, just before I headed north.
This proclaims, "Now be it said that the folk of Dargaville know that when the wind is in the right direction and the sun/moon above then it is the time to take your loved one on a pilgrimage to Tokatoka.
"You leave your transportation at the side of the road below and make your way to the summit. On reaching the top you will find a flattened area of grass and you can see your car below.
"You know it takes about 20 minutes to get to the top so if anybody else turns up you have 20 minutes before you are interrupted in anything you might be inclined to be doing.
"Such is the power of the legend of Tokatoka it is lore that the majority of Dargavillians should in fact be named Tokatokarians."
The great Ngati Whatua war chief Taoho was said to have had his home near the top of the great rock. And the historian James Cowan has recorded a Ngati Whatua war chant calling on warriors to stand as firm as "the steadfast rock, the rock of Tokatoka's height."
Later, when settlers arrived on the banks of the Wairoa River and Dargaville became a busy timber port, the river pilot lived at the base of Tokatoka, which he climbed to look out for sailing ships arriving in the huge Kaipara Harbour.
The rock remains important to locals today; it features prominently in many of the landscapes by local artists you find in galleries around the Kaipara area, and on a roadside picnic table just opposite the hotel there's a particularly good mosaic representation created by residents at the nearby Kaurilands Skills Centre for the intellectually disabled.
But I mentioned earlier that as well as the Maori legend of Tokatoka there is also a Pakeha legend, one which was sent to me by Destination Northland, just before I headed north.
This proclaims, "Now be it said that the folk of Dargaville know that when the wind is in the right direction and the sun/moon above then it is the time to take your loved one on a pilgrimage to Tokatoka.
"You leave your transportation at the side of the road below and make your way to the summit. On reaching the top you will find a flattened area of grass and you can see your car below.
"You know it takes about 20 minutes to get to the top so if anybody else turns up you have 20 minutes before you are interrupted in anything you might be inclined to be doing.
"Such is the power of the legend of Tokatoka it is lore that the majority of Dargavillians should in fact be named Tokatokarians."
