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The Pouakani Report 1993

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The Pouakani Report 1993

3 Perspectives of Land and People

3.3 Maori Settlement on Pouakani Block

The Pouakani landscape viewed through Maori eyes in the evidence recorded in the minute books of the Native Land Court reveals a land known and named in considerable detail by its occupants (map 3.2). The following extract from the evidence of Waraki Kapu describing the kainga around Titiraupenga illustrates this:

Kaiwha: [named 15 adults] and many children
We have plantations and bird snaring places, Ruahinetapuwae is a tutu [bird snaring tree], Rakautahere (a tree with nooses) called Waitoroto, other snaring places, Pungapunga, Te Waipapa, Te Punaimatawhero, Karangaroa, Waituhi, Te Matau, Haru, Tawapiko, Pukekawa, Te Nihinihi and Te Mahau.

Another kainga - Te Hapainga - This kainga is now deserted. Wakapipi was an ancient kainga, also Whatapo, Te Weraroa, Pakaraka (last named where Ha himself lived). At this place Ha planted a Karaka tree which he brought from Kawhia.

Kainga's continued: Tomotomoariki (where Kerekeha and others live), Te Whata, Ahuatawa (plantation), Maropatate (a plantation), Tarekawa (plantation), Waiwhakauru (a plantation), Te Rangipinana(a karaka tree), Owairenga (a plantation), Te Rauwakataua, Waikotukutuku (a miro tree), Te Whanakeroa (bird snaring place). These are all the kaingas at the Titiraupenga end of the block.{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:22}

The evidence given to the Native Land Court also suggests a good deal of mobility in settlement patterns. Te Waiti Hohaia commented "we had so many kaingas we travelled from place to place".{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:23} The evidence of Werohia Te Hiko is indicative:

I lived at Waimahana first before Kaiwha, the former is a kainga mahinga kumara [a settlement for kumara cultivation]. My father and all Ngati Wairangi planted at the latter before Te Ariki [1851 or 1852]. After that fight all moved to Hapotea and Horaaruhe and Tahataharoa.

Kaiwha was deserted for a time, till after Hinana [1856] when Te Mete, Rangitoheriri te Kawao and Paora went back there. There were two houses there then, a wharepuni [a substantial building for sleeping in, principal house] and a kauta [cooking shelter], the property of Te Mete and Te Kirimate.

I lived at Tahataharoa and Hapotea and Horaaruhe after Potatau was made king [1858]. I was at Orohena [Arohena] at the time of Orakau [1864] and after the fall of that pa returned to Hapotea etc. and was living there when Te Kooti came from Taupo, but was at Kaiwha when the fight took place at Tapapa [1870].

One wharepuni one kauta and one wharau [temporary shelter made of branches] were the only buildings at Kaiwha when Potatau was made King; these were the only houses till N'Apakura came [as refugees after Orakau, 1864].{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:24}

The Waikato river was a food resource but this was not a place for permanent settlement. Werohia Te Hiko described the area between Maraemanuka and Waipapa streams. Along the river bank were:

koura [fresh water crayfish] fisheries and duck snares .... The kainga mahinga manu [bird snaring camps] ... belonged to our matuas and tupunas [parents and ancestors] down to ourselves. No cultivations there along the river bank, the plantations were all near the bush away from the river.{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:25}

Although some claims were made that kumara had been grown at other places than Waimahana, Werohia Te Hiko denied this and said that potatoes were grown at Opahi and Maraemanuka. Perhaps the hot springs at Waimahana provided sufficient warmth, a local micro climate which allowed kumara growing here but not elsewhere. This site is now flooded by Whakamaru hydro lake. There were also "places along the river bank where pohue" was collected. This is a name given to several climbing plants and it is not clear which one is referred to here. "There were no tuturu kainga [permanent settlements] on the Waikato River ... the houses were only temporary, used when fishing and catching birds".{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:26}

The importance of the settlements close to the bush is also borne out in the evidence of Eru Te Rangietu who described Ahirara as:

a kainga [village] and mahinga [cultivation], crops of potatoes, corn and tobacco were here planted. I think the fences are still standing. Bird snaring localities are here. At Poroatemarama which is near Ahirara are the tutus [bird snaring trees] Te Kohi and Te Rimu belonging to Natana and Te Poutunoa respectively.{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:27}

This evidence also indicates how people of each kainga had their own places to go to obtain food. Important places, such as bird snaring trees, were given distinctive names. Hitiri Te Paerata described the kainga on the Pouakani block, beginning with the settlements below Titiraupenga:

Owairenga was a kainga and cultivations ... the principal houses were at Pukerimu a short distance from Owairenga the largest house was Tataurangi ... Tia's grave is at Otuao near Pukerimu ....

Kaiwha was a large kainga ... Kaiwha Komako and Te Puna kaingas were near one another. There is one large wharepuni at Kaiwha besides many smaller ones ....

Te Hapainga was an ancient kainga ... from this settlement people went to catch birds .... Whatapo was another settlement inhabited at the time of our ancestors.{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:28}

He added:
Te Waimahana... is situated on both banks of the Waikato River. I lived there and my father before me. The houses of this settlement were not wharepunis but wharetoetoe [ie not substantial buildings but thatched huts], it was merely a kainga for cultivation purposes .... The cemetery of this kainga is on the Whakamaru Block... at this settlement crops of potatoes were planted and birds were snared ....

Horaaruhe was a kainga and a pa .... At this kainga were two large wharepunis one of which was called Wairangi ....In connection with this settlement were extensive plantations ....The bird snaring places of this kainga were at Waipapa. Ngawhakawhitiwhiti, a Matai tree, was owned by Te Paerata Kaiawha. Ngamataiturua, two Matai trees, belonged to my father. Hamutira a waitahere manu (bird snaring water) belonged to my father. Te Waipopotea belonged to Paora Ngamotu. Since the Hinana feast [1856] no game has been snared at these places ....

There are two burial grounds in connection with this settlement [Waipapa] one at Kanohikorio and the other at the settlement itself. At this kainga was one large house, Kaingaroa, it is my house. There are extensive cultivations. Mine is the only large house of this settlement.{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:29}

The northern margin of the Tuaropaki bush around the present Mokai village was a particularly attractive site. Sheltered from cold southerly winds by the forested slopes to the south, close to swamps which were a source of flax and raupo as well as water fowl, and with several hot springs nearby, this seems to have been an area for permanent settlement. Although several kainga were named in the evidence, the main settlement from the early 1840s was Hapotea. Kainga such as Mokaiteure, Tuhuatahi, Tururu, Te Pa o te Ata and others were small outlying clusters of houses. The kainga were usually unfenced, although fences were constructed around the cultivations to keep out pigs and other livestock. There was a significant fortified site near Hapotea, Te Pa o te Ata, which was periodically occupied. Hitiri Te Paerata stated in his evidence:

Te Pa o te Ata belonged to Te Atainutai, he built it. It is the oldest pa in that part of the block.{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:30}

Te Pa o te Ata was the pa of N'Te Kohera and N'Parekawa ....{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:31}

Te Pa o te Ata is at Hapotea, in it were two large houses ....Formerly the place was wooded. N'Ha and N'Parewhete Wairangi felled it and planted crops. Hapotea was first occupied at the introduction of Christianity [early 1840s]. Tahataharoa was occupied at the same time .... There were two principal houses at Hapotea, three small houses and three kauta ....{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:32}

The evidence given in the minute books in the investigation of the Pouakani block is at times contradictory. This is understandable because it has to be understood in the context of competing claims for ancestral rights to the land and its resources among several hapu whose mana was at stake. However, as the following extracts will indicate, it is clear that there was a lot of interaction between various kainga due to the kin linkages. There was considerable mobility among people moving from one kainga to another, and kainga were periodically abandoned and reconstructed. The evidence of the following people illustrates this.

Wereta Hoani:

It was when the Rev. Mr Whiteley and Takerei came to bring the Gospel that I saw the first clearing at Hapotea, this was before the death of Te Heuheu [1846] - that was the first clearing made there. There were some small clearings before that for crops to feed bird snares. There was a kainga at Hapotea before the first clearing I have spoken of was made. I did not see the clearings made which existed before the large clearing which I saw being made.

I saw one clearing being made at Te Wairoa before the death of Te Heuheu; there were some other clearings made since.{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:33}

Hitiri Te Paerata:
Te Paerata [Hitiri's father] was the first to occupy Hapotea and make it a kainga, before the building of Wairangi [meeting house] at Horaaruhe. Other kaingas, Tahataharoa, Waitutu, and Matatu, were established also before the building of that whare.

When I say Te Paerata and others were first to occupy Hapotea, I mean that they reoccupied them, they had been old kaingas of the ancestors.{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:34}

Werohia Te Hiko:
Hapotea was a large kainga - whares there for various purposes. One was weather board outside and kakaho [thatched] overhead; it was not a whare puni, but a whare kopai [walled house, cf. house with dug out floor and roof to ground level, a wharepuni]. It was built as a whare karakia [church] ....{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:35}

Hitiri Te Paerata:
I saw the building of the pallisaded pa at Tahataharoa, it was only a break wind and to operate as a bar against pigs. I was young it was since Christianity. It was no pa at all, only a kainga and was not in a defensible position .... Hapotea was fenced in the same manner, no carvings.{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:36}

Poni Peita described bush clearing and settlement at Hapotea:
We were the first to occupy and made bush clearings, from these we moved to Hapotea proper and made a kainga there, this was the first settlement of Hapotea. Te Paerata objected to our first kainga (because it was close to the forest and he objected to women going and cooked food being taken into the bush, as it was tapu and it would not do for food or women to be in the forest in the winter time when birds were being snared etc.) and that is how it was we shifted to Hapotea.{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:37}

Te Rangikaripiripia described Hapotea: "At the time of Hinana [1856] there were three wharepunis, 3 kauta, one house with a chimney, one church and one pataka [food storehouse]". He also stated that "Hapotea took its name from miro tahere", a bird snaring tree which was a miro.{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:38} Hitiri Te Paerata denied the statements of Te Rangikaripiripia and others:

As to Hapotea and the houses: There are two whare punis, two kautas, one wharau, two small whares and one house belonging to Poni - no Pataka.

The owners: One wharepuni belonged to Te Paerata, Ngahiku, Ngakao, Te Awaiti and Wereta.

The second wharepuni to Te Hapimana, Rota, Te Oneroa, Te Awaiti, Karapehi, Poni and Matawaia te Momo.

The wharau was Pita's and Te Wharau's, his father in law.
The house said to have been Poni's belonged to Poni and which is said by the other side to have been a church.

As to the small whares one belonged to Ngahiku and one to Rota. The two kautas belonged to the owners of the wharepunis.

These wharepuni fronted on the same marae, the wharau (Pita's) stood upon a slight rise. The others all stood upon flat land - no hollow or anything of the sort. There is a gully runs round behind the whares.

There was never any pataka at Hapotea nor was there any whare with a chimney. There were no other wharau at Hapotea other than the ones I have mentioned. A plum tree there was planted by Poni.{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:39}

The two wharepuni were built in the period between 1846 (death of Te Heuheu) and 1856 (Hinana), and remained through the 1860s. By 1884 when Hitiri Te Paerata had left Hapotea to live at Waipapa, the house had been removed, most of the timber being taken to Waipapa. Oriwia Ngakao claimed that "Hapotea became unoccupied at the time or shortly after the Orakau fight [1864]; the residents moved to Waipapa".{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:40} The various kainga and mahinga kai were connected by known tracks, and along these routes were named landmarks and other markers. Hitiri Paerata recorded that before 1860 a bridge over the Mangakino river was erected by Te Heuheu Iwikau, Te Paerata and Te Kohika. This was presumably for the mail route started in 1857:

Near this bridge is a holy stone named Poroporo a Raukawa. Another stone [is] named Putaohuatanga after Huatanga the ancestress.{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:41}

On a ridge is a place called Whakatangihanga named after Moe because it was there he played his Pukaea (instrument).{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:42}

The variations in the quality of the land were perceived in terms of potential for food resources. Hitiri Paerata commented, "Nothing will grow in the open country at Taupo (Wahi mania)".{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:43} Werohia Te Hiko commented, "The soil of Pouakani [block] is uniformly of one kind, pumice gravel and rock (stones). The land immediately around the swamps is better".{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:44} With its proximity to forests, swamps, cultivable land and geothermal resources, clearly the Mokai area was an attractive place in the relatively harsh climate and sterile pumice country north and west of Lake Taupo. The other significant group of settlements were those strung out along the bush margins of Titiraupenga.

There are other elements of the Maori landscape whose significance is less obvious to the visitor. There are rocks incised with spirals, bird forms, canoes and other motifs in places known to local people. One of these was recorded in detail by the (then) National Historic Places Trust before the Waikato river was flooded by the hydro lake behind the Waipapa dam.{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:45} Te Rehina (wife of Te Kohika of Ngati Ha) explained in her evidence in the Pouakani block investigation that knowledge of some things about the landscape remain the property and heritage (taonga) of local people resident in that area:

In his time Ngawheo had the keeping of the mauri at Titiraupenga; Ngahiku had that of Tuaropaki. Te Arawaere was also one of the holders of it. This mauri is at Te Tarata. Persons non resident of a district would have nothing to do with the mauri of that district, nor would they see it.{FNREF:0-86472-117-XA:3:46}

The mauri is the life force of a place which is imbued in a stone, rock or other feature which remains tapu because of the presence of the mauri.

References

  1. J C Bidwill Rambles in New Zealand (London 1841 reprint Christchurch 1974) p 40
  2. ibid pp 41-42
  3. F von Hochstetter New Zealand, Its Physical Geography Geology and Natural History (Stuttgart 1867) pp 399-400
  4. L I Grange "The Geology of the Rotorua Taupo Subdivision" New Zealand Geological Survey Bulletin No 37 (Wellington 1937) pp 9-10
  5. ibid p 10
  6. H Meade A Ride Through the Disturbed Districts of New Zealand (London 1870 reprint Christchurch 1984) pp 67-70
  7. J H Kerry-Nicholls The King Country (Christchurch 1974) p 323
  8. N M Taylor (ed) The Journal of Ensign Best 1837-1842 (Wellington 1966) p 299
  9. Meade 1870 pp 115-116
  10. ibid pp 72-73
  11. Kerry-Nicholls 1974 pp 316-317
  12. Taylor 1966 pp 302-304
  13. ibid p 306
  14. E Dieffenbach Travels in New Zealand (Christchurch 1974) volume 1 pp 323-330
  15. Hochstetter 1867 pp 365-366
  16. Kerry-Nicholls 1974 p 305
  17. ibid p 305
  18. ibid pp 319-320
  19. ibid pp 320-321
  20. ibid pp 324-325
  21. Waikato minute book 27 p 165
  22. Waikato minute book 26 p 99
  23. Waikato minute book 27 p 8
  24. ibid pp 24-25
  25. ibid pp 151-152
  26. ibid p 152
  27. Waikato minute book 26 p 90
  28. ibid pp 40-41
  29. ibid pp 44-45
  30. ibid p 52
  31. ibid p 57
  32. ibid p 39
  33. Waikato minute book 27 p 115
  34. ibid p 67
  35. Waikato minute book 26 p 255
  36. ibid pp 263-264
  37. ibid p 265
  38. ibid p 277
  39. ibid pp 279-280
  40. ibid p 250
  41. ibid pp 42-43
  42. ibid p 43
  43. Waikato minute book 27 p 135
  44. ibid p 145
  45. F Davis and W Ambrose "Report on the Maori Rock Paintings at Waipapa", Appendix II of the Annual Report of the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, AJHR 1957 H-27 pp 13-20
  46. Waikato minute book 26 p 134

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