34: The demise of the Kati Mamoe

Before we go into the story, be fully aware that what happened to the Kati Mamoe (who came from Heretaunga (near Hastings in the North Island) was a repeat of what they had previously done to the original Waitaha occupiers of the land. It was therefore, almost a spiritual utu and loss of mana for what they did to a peaceful people, as unfair as the Ngai Tahu slaughter was. Those who make war on peaceful people (such as the Moriori) reap what they plant.

Little recorded detail exists which relates to the conquest and final extinction of the Ngati-Mamoe tribe, in the extreme south of the New Zealand (Murihiku) . We will never know the truth of the Ngai-Tahu Ngati-Mamoe conflicts. Some early Europeans were able to glean a little information of some of the late chiefs - Paitu, Eawiri Te Awha, and others. Of those in Murihiku, the strains of conquerors and conquered are blended. One such early European recorded some information regarding the subjugation and dispersal of the Ngati-Mamoe, chiefly from Tiemi, Kupa Haereroa, and Hone Te Paina, the two best-informed elders of Colac (Oraka) Bay, a small settlement on the shores of Foveaux Strait. Kupa Haereroa claims descent, on his mother's side, from Eakaihaitu, one of the very early Northern chiefs who explored the South Island, Wakatipu, Lake Manapouri, and Te Anau. One was able to point the sites of the ancient villages of Waitaha and Ngati-Mamoe, and narrated the story of the Ngai-Tahu conquests.

Old waka and toki adze

The extinction of Ngati-Mamoe as a tribe took place, as nearly as can be estimated, around 1755 in the time of the noted chief Te Wera. History was but repeating itself, for Ngati-Mamoe had, a few generations previously, extinguished the land-tillers of the Waitaha tribe in the customary manner of the Maori. Defeated in battle after battle in Murihiku, a section of the Ngati-Mamoe retreated to the western side of the Waiau River. One of their ancient rock-shelters is still to be seen at Clifden. The remains of incinerated human bones, together with stone weapons and impliments, have been found there. It was most probably early in the second half of the eighteenth century that they were assailed by the Ngai-Tahu from the south-east, under the Chief Tu-te-kawa. The warriors of Ngai- Tahu slew most of the Ngati-Mamoe, and such of the women and children as were saved were enslaved ; their slaughtered relatives were cooked and eaten. The principal Ngati-Mamoe chief killed was Te Whetuki, who is described as a man of strangely wild aspect, covered all over with long hair. Two of the Ngati-Mamoe men were away eel-fishing at Lake Monowai. Returning they were about to land they saw one of their enemies. The two fugitives escaped and rejoined some of the rest of their much-harassed tribe.

The next slaughter was on the southern shores of Lake Te Anau. It is said that this region was the abode of those peopled by some of the crew of the Takitimu canoe from Hawaiki. About twenty-four generations ago the " Takitimu " immigrants, under their chief Tamatea, settled near the base of Takitimu Mountain. It is said these were the Waitaha, but Waitaha was a name they took for themselves upon finding others there when they arrived. Initially contact was peaceful, but not for long. So the early Waitaha (of the Nation of Waitaha) eventually became a name applying to a conquered and absorbed tribe of Maori with Maori customs. There was no ‘nation’ after that, except for a few who kept the secrets.

Ngai Tahu acknowledge that the form of tattooing on those in Murihiku was very different to their own and more akin, we assume, to the the Tahitian and Marquesan patterns. In 1905 there were still some old Ngai Tahu men at Moeraki tattooed in parallel straight lines across their cheeks, a fashion unknown in the North.

The shores of Te Anau, Manapouri, the Mavora Lakes, and the country round the bases of the Takitimu Mountains, were the last inland retreats of Ngati-Mamoe. After these defeats at Te Ihoka, Clifden, and elsewhere, a considerable body of them fled up the Waiau, and rested awhile at Te Anau. Here their relentless pursuers suddenly came upon them. A number of the Ngati-Mamoe succeeded in crossing to the northern side of South Fiord, and escaped into the forests. The final encounter took place on the western side of the lake, near the southern point of the entrance to the South Fiord. Here most of the Ngati-Mamoe were killed, amongst them their chief, Pukutahi. The leader of the Ngai-Tahu expedition was Te Hau-tapa-nui-o-Tu. The survivors disappeared into the gloomy forests, and were never seen again.

About this time the coast-dwelling remnant of Ngati-Mamoe were defeated and dispersed on the shores of Preservation Inlet. One of the last Ngati-Mamoe pas was that which stood on Matauira Island ; this pa was taken, and nearly all its inhabitants slain. Another spot where the unfortunate tribe were slaughtered was on the beach of the Inlet, near the present township of Oneroa. On the invader's side, one of the most redoubtable of the Ngai-Tahu warriors, a Samson-like chief named Tarewai, was killed. He was of great stature (a descendant of the original tall ones) and it is said his favorite weapon was a club made from the jaw-bone of a sperm-whale. A Ngati-Kuri chief named Maru, dressed in a rough cloak of toi-leaves, acted the part of a seal on the beach, in the early morning, and succeeded in decoying the Ngati-Mamoe down on the sands, armed only with their cutting-knives of obsidian. Their concealed enemies suddenly rushed upon them, cut them off from their fort, and slew nearly all. The few survivors fled in the direction of Dusky Sound. Some of the Ngati-Kuri pursued them even there. On the western side of Resolution Island (Tau-moana), they captured and killed a Ngati-Mamoe woman named Taki-te-kura.

These events apparently occurred shortly before the visit of Captain Cook to Dusky Sound, in the Resolution in 1773, when the navigator spent six weeks in the fiord, repairing his ship and refreshing his crew. The chief Maru, who had so successfully played the seal on the beach at Preservation, pursued the Ngati-Mamoe remnants in his canoe, and was living in Dusky Sound when Cook arrived…or was he? This ‘Maru’ went on board the Resolution and presented Cook with a green-stone axe. When Vancouver visited Dusky in 1791 no natives were seen.

Lithiograph of 'Maru' and his family. This man was one of dignity, and therefore not the usual Kati Mamoe suspect.

From 1773 to about 1842 there is no reliable record of native occupation in Fiordland. Eventually, a sealing schooner commanded by Captain Howell, sailed into Bligh Sound one night and dropped anchor. To the surprise of the crew fires were seen ashore. Early in the morning a boat's crew landed to make investigations. A Maori dwelling was found, and in it some mats, a whalebone club, and other articles, but the occupants fled to the depths of the forest. The tracks of the Maoris were followed for a short distance into the bush but Howell's native sailors did not venture far, fearing to fall into an ambush, and contented themselves with taking away the patu-paraoa and a mat as relics of the phantom tribe.

This is the remnant of the fabled lost tribe attributed to Kati Mamoe but which sustained the lore of the Waitaha…the original nation of occupiers here before Maori arrived, even in the Takitimu.