Our Why 

Kōpūwai was a giant tipua (ogre or supernatural being) who lived in Central Otago near the Mata-Au/Clutha River. He hunted people with a pack of terrifying two-headed dogs. According to the story, hunting parties travelling inland would mysteriously disappear because of him.

One day, Kōpūwai attacked a group from the Kaitangata area and captured a young woman named Kaiamio, keeping her prisoner in his cave.

Kōpūwai had one weakness: the warm north-west winds made him sleepy. Knowing Kaiamio might try to escape, he tied a flax rope to her arm while he slept. But Kaiamio cleverly untied the rope from herself and tied it to rushes nearby so the movement would fool him. She escaped and ran back to her people on the coast.

When Kōpūwai woke and realised she was gone, he became furious. The legend says he swallowed so much of the Mata-Au River trying to find her that the riverbed temporarily ran dry — which is why his name is often translated as “water swallower.”

Kaiamio later returned with warriors to take revenge. They waited for the hot nor’wester to make Kōpūwai drowsy again, then blocked the entrance of his cave with burning fern and smoke. When he tried to escape through the roof, the warriors killed him.

The story says Kōpūwai eventually became stone — represented by the giant rock formation called the Obelisk on the Old Man Range/Kōpūwai. His two-headed dogs were also turned into stone outcrops scattered through the landscape.