Matakerepō, in a Māori story of the Arawa tribe of Rotorua, is a female ancestor of the hero Tāwhaki.
She is an example of the 'female helper', a recurrent element in Polynesian myth and legend, who assists Tāwhaki to attain his quest of finding his wife and daughter, from whom he is estranged.
Tāwhaki takes some of the cooked food, mixes it with his saliva, and rubs it on the eyes of the old blind woman.
When he reaches the heavens, Tāwhaki disguises himself as an old slave and assists his brothers-in-law to build a canoe.
For instance, in a Ngāti Porou legend of Tāwhaki, the guardian of Whaitiri's house is Te Ruahine-mata-morari, whose name means 'The old blind woman'.
Despite the fact that the source is plainly identified in the original manuscript as 'Hohepa Paraone, Te Ngae, Rotorua, March 7, 1850', White unaccountably attributes the story to the Ngāi Tahu tribe of the South Island; he also has 'Pihanga' instead of 'Puanga' for the name of Tāwhaki's daughter).