Kopuwai and the clever girl summary

Kopuwai and the clever girl
Legend retold by Brian Potiki

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For reading we had to read a retold Maori legend by Brian Potiki.

This legend is called Kopuwai and the clever girl.

My Summary

This story is about a girl called Kaiamio who wanders off from her party

because of boredom from everyone searching for moas eggs.

She gets caught by Kopuwais two-headed dogs

and dragged to Kopuwai's cave. Kopuwai is a monster with the body of a man,

scales of a fish, and the head of a dog.

He sees Kaiamio and decides to keep her as his Mokai and she can do all his chores. Kaiamo is tied up and wishes to escape, so whenever she had spare time she would work on a boat to help her escape. The monsters weakness is the North-West wind, it makes him sleepy!

One day when Kopuwai was sleeping (because of the wind), Kaiamio escaped with the boat down the river. Kopuwai woke and tugged on the rope that Kaiamio had tied to a weed. As he and his dogs ran to the river, it was too late, she’d managed to escape.

Kopuwai and his two-headed stayed at the river’s edge where years later a huge stone still stands, this is believed to be Kopuwai.

link to photo source

What I thought about the story

I found this story very interesting, as well as the belief that Kopuwai’s body is still here, as stone which is found in Otago.Something I found important is that Kaiamio never gave up and managed to escape.