Sophia Hinerangi
A tour guide and temperance preacher, Sophia Hinerangi, also known as Te Paea, was the daughter of a Maori woman and a Scotsman of Clan Gray. In the winter of 1886, she was the tour guide on duty when her boat full of British tourists encountered a ghostly war canoe coming out of the mists on Lake Tarawera, a large lake in the caldera of a volcanic complex on the North Island of New Zealand. The war canoe contained ghostly warriors who wore the ceremonial feathers with which decorated warriors are buried. The occupants of the ghost canoe looked at the tourists, but otherwise did not answer their hails. The canoe vanished into the morning mist as quickly as it had appeared.
When Te Paea told her local tohunga (a master of an art; in this case, a master shaman) what she and the tourists had seen, he warned her that it was an omen of doom. At over 100 years old, he had the stories of his people memorized. Shortly after the Maori had arrived in Aotearoa and established villages on the slopes of Mt. Tarawera, the mountain let them know it was very displeased with their presence. 500 years later, the tohunga knew history was about to repeat itself. He blamed the commercialization of Maori culture and of the mountain's volcanic features, such as the famous hot springs called the Pink and White Terraces. The ghost canoe was a dire warning of what was to come.
A few days later, the tohunga was proven right. Tarawera erupted with the same strength as Mt. St. Helens in 1980. Every village on its flanks was buried in pyroclastic flows or lahars. A lahar rushed into Te Paea's village. 60 people took shelter in her house with her family, as hers was the sturdiest structure in the village. They all survived. But only a handful of people in the rest of the village lived long enough to tell rescuers what they had witnessed. Te Paea went on to teach tourists and settlers about her culture and speak against the dangers of alcoholism. Over the course of her life, she was married twice and had 17 children altogether.
Te Paea's story would make an amazing natural disaster movie, and it's also the type of story that's right up Peter Jackson's alley. Why he hasn't done it yet is a mystery for the ages.
