Wakefield, Edward (1889) New Zealand After Fifty Years, Cassell & Company, pp. 72-73
In the absence of any more real animals, two mythical ones may be briefly mentioned. These are the taniwha and the kaurehe . Both are aquatic or amphibious in their habits, the taniwha being apparently confined to the North Island and the kaurehe to the Middle Island. The taniwha is a powerful and bloodthirsty monster, frequenting tapu or sacred pools or rivers but sometimes met with in the sea, and devouring persons who profanely violate the sanctity of its haunts or who have otherwise offended the gods. Some years ago, a Maori clergyman of the Church of England on the East Coast reported to the Government that a beautiful and beloved young woman, a member of his flock, had rashly gone to bathe in a tapu pool against his and her friends' entreaties; that she had been missing for some days; and that her body had been found on a rock beside the pool, badly mangled by a taniwha . There is no English name for the taniwha , but it may safely be classed under the generic term of B...