taipon.

1848 R. Taylor Leaf from Nat. Hist. N.Z. 43 Taipo, female dreamer; a prophetess; an evil spirit.

1880 J. C. Crawford Recoll. Trav. N.Z. & Austral. 107 He said he knew there was a taipo (devil) about.

1883 W. Colenso in E. E. Morris Austral Eng. (1898) 454/2 Taepo means to visit or come by night,—a night visitant,—a spectral thing seen in dreams,—a fancied and feared thing, or hobgoblin.

1886 N.Z. Country Jrnl. 10 262 His wife became seriously affected, declaring that Taipo had entered into her.

1891 E. Tregear Maori-Polynesian Compar. Dict. 440/1 Taepo, a goblin, a spectre. Cf. tae, to arrive; po, night.

1921 H. Guthrie-Smith Tutira xi. 91 This crossing has always been known in my time as the ‘Taipo’—goblin—crossing, a name probably given because of a totara block which used to lie there hewn roughly to the similitude of a man's head.

1946 Jrnl. Polynesian Soc. June 150 Taipo, supernatural being; goblin: used by the Maori believing it to be Pakeha, and by the Pakeha believing it to be Maori; often spelt taepo, which also is not a Maori word: so taipo is a word coined by no one knows whom.

1968 N.Z. Listener 15 Mar 6/5 He hurriedly looked both ways and took to the scrub as if a taipo were after him.

1971 N.Z. Listener 1 Mar. 13/2 As for dreaded taniwhas and taipos, why, I could take you to the home of some.

1928 J. Devanny Dawn Beloved i. vii. 47 The very apogee of excitement would be reached when a ‘typo’ was discovered. Especially if it happened to be a big fat male.

1946 F. Sargeson That Summer 176 But the wetas come out at night... The Maoris call them taipos.

1966 Encycl. N.Z. III. 636/2 The tree or ground wetas and the ‘taipos’ of the West Coast of the South Island, the name of which to the Maori means ‘the devil who comes by night’.