Sidestep: 'Tangata Whenua' (from the journals)
The following are excerpts from The Journal of the Polynesian Society from 1880 to about 1955. They document certain aspects of who was really regarded as the Tangata Whenua of this land. Read into it whatever you will. Each new segment is set out either normal or italics.
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Tainui tradition suggests that at the time of the Hawaiki migration and for some time afterwards population was confined to the coast, and particularly to the east coast, the west coast being almost uninhabited between Waikato Heads and Waitara. The interior was uninhabited, but as the Tainui people went inland tangata whenua elements were also moving inland. Names appearing in genealogies suggest that there were pockets of tangata whenua people in fairly close contact with the early inland Tainui groups. One such pocket was probably on the slopes of Pirongia Mountain.
On the southern side of Kawhia Harbour is a cave which contains many human bones. Present day Maoris say that these bones do not belong to their people, which suggests that the bones may be evidence of an earlier occupation.
The marked difference between the traditions of the tangata whenua and those of the Hawaiki people in New Zealand strongly supports the view that the recorded traditions belong specifically to late arrivals in Polynesia.
If we are to believe the foregoing account as related by the Sage, it is obvious that we must somewhat alter our ideas as to the Tangata-whenua (or original people) of New Zealand. Heretofore we have always included in that name Toi-te-huatahi and his descendants, but it is now clear from the Sage's teaching that this is only partly true, and the name in future must be confined to these half-Melanesian, half-Polynesian people, that Toi found on his arrival.
It is explained that these men were some of the unfortunate tangata-whenua, or people found here by Toi—who had by this time all become slaves and vassals of the Hawaiki Maoris. They were some of Te Tini-o-Maruiwi tribe.]
Now the inhabitants of the island who were found at D'Urville Island by the migration from Wai-iti, must have been some of the original tangata-whenua, for, even if they had been descendants of the crew of “Kura-haupo,” some of whom settled at Pelorus Sound near D'Urville Island, as has been shown in Chapter VI., they could not- 6 have increased in numbers to the extent indicated by Te Whetu's narrative, so that they “could not be either opposed or molested.”
Besides the crew of the “Aotea,” it is certain that the crew of the “Kura-haupo” canoe also contributed to the population; and the- 45 strong probability is, that the tangata-whenua, or original inhabitants—te iwi o Toi—formed the basis of the present tribes. One of the principal is called Nga-Paerangi, and it is believed that Paerangi, from whom the people take their name, was one of the tangata-whenua.
Mr. Best has a note to this effect: “Though all the Whanganui people say that Kupe on his arrival here, found only thetiwaiwaka, tiake and kokako birds, with no people, yet when questioned closely the old men admit the existence oftangata-whenua in the valley of Whanganui. These were the descendants of Paerangi-o-te-mounga-roa whose ancestor came from Hawaiki five generations before the arrival of Captain Turi in the ‘Aotea’ canoe. He was brought here by his atua; he had no canoe.
THE TANGATA-WHENUA OF NEW ZEALAND. (Told by Te Matorohanga.)
IT was some time after Kupe's return to Rarotonga, that a different people came here to New Zealand; they were very different people [i.e., from the Eastern Polynesians to which Kupe and the subsequent migrations to New Zealand belonged]. It is not known whence that people came. They were he iwi kokau, (a thin, upright, tall people); a large framed people with big bones and tall; with ateate-rere (thin calves to their legs); he takoto nga turi (their knees were prominent, protuberant). Their faces were flat (paraha); the eyes were kanae (glancing out of thecorners of the eyes like lizards), he tiro pikari (side-long glancing). The nose was patiki (flat in the bridge), andthe ridge of the nose was pongare (narrow, with the nostrils bulging out) and tuporo (blunt) and kaupari. Thehair was torotika (straight), and some had very mahora (lank) hair. Their skins were puwhero-waitutu (reddish black, something like tuta berries, says the Scribe). They were a iwi-kiri-ahi (sticking close to the fire and lazy, sleeping constantly. They lived in wharaus (lean-to-sheds), and it was from them the Hawaiki people learned to build such sheds, another name for which is tawharau; but the latter migration gave this name. On cold days they wore a pakē (kilt) made of toi, kiekie or flax, and on hot days an apron of leaves in front, or went quite naked. According to the account of those people as given by themselves they came from the tonga-maura (south-west) to Aotea-roa (New Zealand). It was related by them that their canoes were out fishing when a westerly gale sprang up, blowing away from their island, which drove them away to sea, and they made this land.
[This statement—that the canoes came to New Zealand from the south-west—can only be explained by supposing this to have been their course during the latter part of their voyage when they made the coast (as mentioned later on) at Nga-motu, or the Sugar-loaves Islands, close to the present town of New Plymouth. If, as so many things seem to indicate, they came from Western Polynesia, their course must have been to the westward of south at first. They may have been forced by contrary winds, etc., to the south, and finally taking a north-east course, have landed on the coast of New Zealand “from the south-west,” as they say. They were a Polynesian people, with a strong mixture of the Melanesian in them, probably much like the Niuē Islanders and the Moriori of the Chatham Islands, but probably with more of the Melanesian in them. The language they spoke was evidently Polynesian, as the names of people and of places show. It is unfortunate we have so little information about this people, for the Sage's narrative often leaves much to be desired. What land could they have come from that is larger than New Zealand? How did they manage to survive, if blown off the land while out fishing, and when they would not have been provided with stores for a long voyage?] They were called Pakiwhara (or went naked), or Kiri-whakapapa (black skins); but these descriptive names were given them by the migration from Hawaiki. But the true name of that people was Maru-iwi, Rua-tamore, Pana-nehu, Tai-tawaro, Ngati-mamoe, Ngati-koau-pari and Ngati-kopu-wai, and others. The canoes in which those peoplecame here were ‘Kahutara’ and ‘Tai-koria.’ These are all the canoes that have been heard of. Maru-iwi had one of these canoes, Rua-tamore another; but the name of the canoe of Tai-tawaro was not known to the learned men ofthe Whare-wānanga (or house of learning). But I [the Sage who recites this matter] did hear somewhat more from Tu-raukawa, 3 who was a priest of theWhare-maire—i.e., of one of those houses in which witchcraft was taught in Taranaki—when we- 191 met at an assembly when Tu-te-pakihi-rangi came from Nuku-taurua to Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Port Nicholson) to make peace with Te Ati-Awa, Ngati-Tama, Ngati-Tawhiri-kura, Manu-korihi, Puke-tapu, and also with Ngati-Toa. That old man told me that ‘Okoki’ was the canoe of Tai-tawaro, and he said the name was given to a pa this [south] side of Pari-ninihi [the White Cliffs. Okoki pa is just north of the Urenui river, twenty-three miles north of New Plymouth], and it was here that the Tai-Tawaro people first lived, whilst they owned many pas in that district evenfrom Waitara to Mokau. Maruiwi himself died in those parts; he was a great chief of those people. Otaka was another pa of Te Tini-o-Tai-tawaro [? if this is the pa at the Freezing Works, New Plymouth]. Tai-tawaro had a brother named Pohokura, whose name was applied by his people to the pa in which they lived [which is an isolated fortified hill on the north bank of the Ure-nui river]. Maruiwi [the people, not the man] lived also at Tamaki [Auckland Isthmus] whilst the Rua-tamore dwelt at Muri-whenua [The North Cape] and as far south as Tamaki [Auckland Isthmus, or perhaps Tamaki in theSeventy-mile bush]. When these people increased greatly in numbers, they came to be called Te Tini-o-Maruiwi, Te Tini-o-Rua-tamore, Te Tini-o-Pana-nehu and Te Tini-o-Tai-tawaro. The whole of the country from the North Cape to Tamaki and even on to Tauranga was covered by them. Again, all the country from Mokau to Oakura [eight miles south of New Plymouth] was occupied by them; but they did not extend beyond.
None of these people ever got so far as the South Island [i.e., until they were afterwards driven there by the Hawaiki migrants]. I asked the same old man [Tu-raukawa] whether he knew from what island all these peoplecame, including their hapus of Ngati-Mamoe and others. He replied that he was not at all clear about that; but he knew that the following weapons originated with them: the huata [or twenty to thirty feet long spear], thehoeroa [or whale-bone halbert], the kurutai [a stone weapon attached to a string, which was thrown], and thepere, by which manuka spears were thrown [also called a kotaha and a whiwhiu, the end of the spear being stuck in the ground, with a whip-lash wound round it. A short handle to the whip gave such a purchase that a spear thrown thus would fly two hundred to three hundred yards]. 4 Their houses were lean-to sheds; they wore little or no clothing, only a pakē [or kilt] for both men and women. Their food was the wild fruits of the forest, and both salt and fresh water fish.
After the migrants from Hawaiki had become numerous, troubles arose through the tangata-whenua, who commenced murdering the migrants, stealing the food from the whatas [store houses] and other evils. So it was decided by the migrations, under Hoturoa, Tamatea, Toroa, Tama-te-kapua together with Whatonga ma, and Manaia ma, to exterminate those branches of the tangata-whenua, who were not connected with the migrants by marriage. [The wars commenced with] Te Tini-o-Maru-iwi, whence arises the expression ‘te heke o Maru-iwi,’ thedisappearance of Maru-iwi into a chasm about which there is a long story]. They were first smitten at Te Wairoa, at Mohaka [both in Hawkes Bay], then at Taupo, at Rotorua, at Tauranga, at Tamaki [Aucklānd], at Hauraki, at Hokianga, at Mokau, in fact wherever they lived; all were killed except those who were living amongst and had become part of the migrations, who were then said to be the same people as the latter.
The reason they spread to the Chatham Islands was on account of the expedition of Tama-ahua and Tongahuruhuru, who went to search for the jadeite. This was a very large migration [of the tangata-whenua], who went fromTaranaki and Te Whanganui-a-Tara [Port Nicholson], and when they arrived [crossed Cooks Straits] they were smitten [by Tama-ahua and his friends], the remainder fleeing to Rangitoto [D'Urvilles Island, north end of theMiddle Island] to find a refuge. But it was not to be. They were sought out there and again smitten, and their women taken. Some of them escaped and were afterwards seen on the sea; it is said there were six canoes full, and they were then making their way towards the south.
There can be little doubt that the north was inhabited long ere the fleet of canoes came from Hawaiki1 from twenty to twenty-one generations ago. Possibly these early people were part of the migration which preceded Toi; what the names of the early canoes were, or the names of the earliest immigrants, are lost in the darkness of the past. We have the names of several canoes which came to the northern peninsula, but they arrived a few generations before the fleet, or at about the same time. It will be as well to enumerate these, and give such particulars as I have been able to learn of them and their crews.
It must be remembered that S. Percy Smith regarded the tangata-whenua with whom Toi-kai-rakau and his crew intermarried (to found Te Tini-o-Awa and related hapu) as the earliest inhabitants of New Zealand. These people were, in the present writer's view, equivalent to the Ngati-Mamoe (of Rev. R. Taylor and others), who were preceded in the North Island (also in the South Island) by the ancient Waitaha. The last named, as a very early people, should therefore be included among the possible builders of the Palliser Bay stone walls.
EVIDENCE OF MAORI TRADITION.
Maori traditions regarding the earliest inhabitants of New Zealand are contradictory. It is generally stated that the first discoverers of New Zealand were two Polynesian voyagers, Kupe and Ngahue, who arrived here about A.D. 900. They explored a large portion of the coast-line of both islands, finding no inhabitants, but discovering greenstone in the Arahura River on the west coast of the South Island. Ngahue also killed a moa. They returned to Hawaiki and reported their discovery and gave sailing directions how to reach this country.
According to a single tradition, written down by T. K. Whatahoro and accepted by the late Elsdon Best and the late Percy Smith, the next visitors to New Zealand were a dark race of low culture. To this group Mr. Best had given the name Maruiwi, and though Mr. Percy Smith strongly protested against this usage, it has now won fairly general acceptance. As these people are claimed by Elsdon Best and Percy Smith to be the first settlers in New Zealand and to be the actual ancestors of the Moriori of the Chatham Islands and the Katimamoe (Ngati-Mamoe), originally of Hawkes Bay and later of Murihiku, it is essential that they should be closely studied by students of the moa-hunters. First as to their bodily characteristics. One authority, quoting Whatahoro material, says, “They were a very dark-skinned folk of repulsive appearance, having flat noses with upturned nostrils. They had flat faces and overhanging eyebrows. They were a big-boned people and they had curious eyes like those of a lizard. An idle folk and a chilly, who felt the cold much and slept anyhow; they were of a treacherous disposition. They did not preserve their traditions as we do. On account of their peculiarities our ancestors called them in contempt Kiriwhakapapa and Pakiwhara.”
The Maruiwi are stated to have been attacked and slaughtered by the ancestors of the Maori till the survivors fled to D'Urville Island, where they were again attacked. The last that was seen of them was six canoes, which were observed passing through Cook Strait on their way to Chatham Island.
This account of the first inhabitants of New Zealand is attacked uncompromisingly by Mr. H. D. Skinner, who says, “A comparison of physical characteristics shows that the mythical Maruiwi are the direct antithesis of the Moriori. Maruiwi were tall and thin, while their alleged- 90 descendants are short and bulky. The Maruiwi nose was said to be flat even to non-existence, while the Moriori are distinguished by unusual prominence in that organ. Maruiwi skin colour was like that of ripe tutu berries, while that of the Moriori is the normal Polynesian brown. Maruiwi hair was straight while that of the Moriori was often waved and sometimes frizzy. Maruiwi physical characteristics are not our sole check in this matter for Ngatimamoe are stated to be of Maruiwi stock. Half the natives of Otago and Southland are of Ngatimamoe descent but they adhere more closely to the normal Polynesian type than perhaps any other tribe in New Zealand.”
Having thus shown the account of the bodily features of the Maruiwi to be unacceptable, it remains to examine their culture. These people are supposed to have arrived here in three canoes from a much larger and warmer country lying to the north-west of New Zealand. Drifting before a storm, they reached the North Taranaki coast. They increased rapidly after their arrival and spreading over a large portion of the North Island are stated to have been undisturbed for over two hundred years. The account of their low culture does not fit in with their being able to build canoes fit for a long voyage and their being said to have lived in fortified villages or pa. They are stated to have spoken a kindred dialect to the Maori, who, apparently had little difficulty in conversing with them. In Elsdon Best's book “The Maori, ” 5 he suggests two places the Maruiwi may have come from, the New Hebrides or Fiji.
These Whatahoro traditions stand alone. What do all the rest of the historical traditions of the South Island say? In the first place they say nothing about racial characteristics or bodily features and nothing about culture. It is, I think, reasonable to suppose that this means that the Maoris who recounted the traditions were unaware of any racial or cultural differences. In the second place the traditions come from scores of different sources and consequently are of all values from nil to one hundred per cent. There is a fairly strong suspicion that most of them- 91 approach the lower rather than the higher of these two standards. Just to illustrate the difficulties that arise in attempting to reconstruct history from these traditions, it may be mentioned that two accounts of the arrival of the Waitaha tribe differ by five hundred years in the date they gave it.
Although the Waitaha are usually said to have been the first inhabitants of Murihiku, there are some vague traditions of tribes known as the Rapuwai and Hawea, who seem to have been absorbed by the Waitaha. White considered these to be names of different hapus of the Waitaha people. In any case to these early inhabitants, under the name of Waitaha, South Island tradition attributes the extermination of the moa. They are also credited with the rock-paintings so common in the cave shelters of Canterbury and North Otago. One of these shows three large birds, another evidently depicts a moa-hunt and a third seems to be an unfinished figure of a moa.
That these early hunters had communication with the North Island is shown by the presence of obsidian in all moa-hunter middens. Probably their homes were in the northern parts of the South Island and the hunters made yearly excursions, similar to the later mutton-birding trips, to secure their supplies of moa meat. Bishop Selwyn, who visited Murihiku in 1844, states that only three of the Canterbury rivers, Rakaia, Wanganui, and Waitaki, have open mouths. It is worth noting that two of these rivers, Rakaia and Waitaki, have large moa-hunter camps near their mouths where there is facility for sea-borne traffic. I have been unable to get any information about the Wanganui River, which, probably, is the Wakanui River near Ashburton.
Judge McKay states that the Waitaha sent a large present of potted birds and other delicacies to the Katimamoe of North Island 6 who relished the food so much that they decided to seize the country for themselves, which proved a comparatively easy task as the Waitaha were all unused to warfare.
It is possible that a portion of these delicacies consisted of moa meat, and the story points to a rude system of- 92 trading or barter, for Maori custom expected one present to be acknowledged by another, which in this case would probably be in the form of cloaks, kumara, and obsidian. This last substance is not found native in the South Island and kumara did not grow freely south of Banks Peninsula. It was grown, but with difficulty, at Temuka, as the pits from which gravel for the fields was drawn are still to be seen there. These pits, which are probably of a much later date than the moa-hunters, are now being filled in in making improvements to the Temuka domain.
The Katimamoe invasion took place about A.D. 1577 7 and in the fighting that ensued some of the Waitaha-Rapuwai fled to the Chatham Islands. The rest were absorbed by the Katimamoe, and some few genealogies of Southland Maori families ran back to the Waitaha. Katimamoe probably supplies more than half the blood of the Murihiku Maoris.
About A.D. 1650, the South Island was invaded by the Kaitahu (Ngai-Tahu) tribe, who, after years of desultory fighting had driven the Waitaha-Katimamoe southward and established themselves in the ascendancy, and intermarriage was fast blending the three into one tribe when the Europeans arrived. All three of these tribes, Waitaha, Katimamoe, and Kaitahu claim descent from the Takitumu canoe. In other words, they claim to be Polynesians from Tahiti, and all the evidence supports them except Whatahoro's tradition.
In conclusion I would draw attention to the following statements in Maori tradition.
That the South Island has been inhabited for about one thousand years. 9
The earliest tribes were known as Waitaha also as Rapuwai. They were conquered by the Katimamoe, who, according to Percy Smith, were descended from the earliest inhabitants of the North Island.
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The Chatham Islanders are also said to be descendants of these early people.
Some stories point to the Rapuwai being descendants of Toi, the first Polynesian emigrant to this country.
Other stories state that the Waitaha came to Murihiku with Tamatea about A.D. 1350. It is possible that this is correct and that they quickly established their ascendancy over the “uncouth Rapuwai” and in the amalgamation of the tribes the traditions became mixed.
WAITAHA VERSUS TANGATA-WHENUA.
The writer has gained the impression from a re-reading of Elsdon Best's articles on the Maruiwi, or, as preferred by him, the Mouriuri, that this eminent authority was led into a misunderstanding as to the identity of the earliest inhabitants of New Zealand. By accepting the statements of the sage Te Matorohanga on the matter of the earliesttraditional inhabitants and linking their reputed characteristics, physical and cultural, together with their traditional dwelling-places, with former peoples that occupied known archaeological sites, it would appear that the so-calledtangata-whenua and the ancient Waitaha have been confused and mistakenly regarded as a single race and community. Thirty years ago, the former Waitaha inhabitants of the South Island were generally regarded as semi-mythical, and the barely known Waitaha of the North Island as even less substantial. The enquiries of Chapman established the reality of the South Island Waitaha as former inhabitants of that island, and their material culture has since received confirmation and a knowledge of it has been expanded by the researches of Duff. Beattie, also, has gathered a store of knowledge concerning the lore of the former Waitaha inhabitants of the Murihiku region. More recently, the present writer has made a similar contribution in respect to the identity and culture of the Waitaha of the North Island, giving for the first time their craniological and general physical characteristics.
It is thus only in recent years that the idea of a prior people antedating the misnamed tangata-whenua, or “original inhabitants,” has received due recognition. Best, it seems, readily accepted the tradition of early supposed- 14 Melanesian-culture influences as logically fitting in with a number of non-Polynesian culture traits peculiar to the Fleet-Maori after his advent in New Zealand, and having apparent counterparts in Melanesia. Another pitfall was the further pseudo-traditional statement regarding the racial affinities of the supposed original inhabitants, a declaration since stigmatized as “the Melanesian myth.” Best then went further and tended to ascribe to the Mouriuri such archaic artifacts as, e.g., the so-called “spool” ornament (fig. 7g), now shown by the Wairau Bar burials (Duff, loc. cit.) to be necklace units, and on the evidence of the associated grave-goods attributable to the ancient Waitaha. The failure of New Zealand tradition to correctly designate the actual earliest immigrants to these isles, naming a later people as such, gives support to the contention (Adkin, Horowhenua, p. 113) that the very earliest inhabitants came to this country in times too remote to come within the scope of the memorized traditional records of the Maori of the Fleet of 1350 A.D.
It can be confidently accepted that the material culture of the ancient Waitaha was superior to any other brought to or developed within the New Zealand area. This is shown by the archaeological evidence. Their craftsmanship in the manufacture of artifacts—weapons, tools, and “ornaments”—in stone, wood, and bone, was of the highest order and unsurpassed; in carving, also, their skill exceeded, in conception and technique, even that displayed by the justly famed work of the Fleet tribes. Their successors, the so-called tangata-whenua, but preferably designated (following the Rev. Richard Taylor's information from Horowhenua) the Ngatimamoe, certainly possessed an inferior material culture, but it is doubtful if the physique of this people was as inferior as has been commonly supposed by the acceptance of details from a questionable traditional source.
Earlier attempts to discern possible differences in the native inhabitants of New Zealand and to divide them into separate groups or diverse racial types, were limited to broad generalizations. The first step seems to have been the recognition of Maori and pre-Maori, until, in 1907, Wilson 12 suggested the more precise terms, Maui-Maori and Hawaiki-Maori. These names were based on the circumstance that some of the tribes claimed descent from the ancestor, Maui, whereas others referred their origin to the land or islands known to them as Hawaiki. Despite some opinion to the contrary this two-fold classification has prevailed in a general way against evidence of a much more complex population structure. This has even been carried to the length of an assumption of the evolution of the material culture and the lineal consanguinity of the modern Maori, within this country, from the earliest inhabitants. The scheme formulated by Adkin, 13 on the other hand, postulated three more or less related but distinct cultures (or subcultures) brought in by four separate migrations from Polynesia to the islands of New Zealand (exclusive of the Chathams). He has since recognized the special importance of a fifth migration which led to the development within the country of still another culture variation.
RESULTS OF THE EXCAVATIONS AT THE SHAG RIVER SANDHILLS - By H. D. SKINNER.
THE problems which centre round the earliest human migration into New Zealand are of great interest, and their solution is essential before much progress can be made in working out the history of Maori culture. Data concerning these earliest inhabitants can be drawn only from two sources, one traditional, the other archæological.
THE WAITAHA PEOPLE
Having seen Rakaihautu and his stout-hearted followers settled in the land they called “Waitaha,” after themselves, it is appropriate to ask how long ago this was, so the collector has forwarded to the Polynesian Society six whakapapa(genealogical) lines from Rakaihautu to Tare te Maiharoa, and the average works out as forty-two generations back from the year 1900. This makes the date of Rakaihautu's settlement in the South Island about A.D. 850, and explains the reason why this people had time to increase to such an extent that the traditions of the migrants of A.D. 1350, says, “Waitaha, swarming like ants.” Mr. S. Percy Smith wrote to the collector:—“Our Secretary, Mr. W. W. Smith, tells me of discoveries of immense quantities of Maori ‘artifacts’ in the gorges of the Te Ngawai River, near Albury, found by him many years ago showing that there must have been a very large Maori population there long ago.” The Southern Maoris say this was Waitaha work, and they further agree that the correct name of the Tengawai River is Te Ana-a-wai.
Tare te Maiharoa says these Waitaha people were a branch of the Maoris, and were similar to Toi's people. They spoke a dialect of the- 148 Maori language and many of their words and names are in common use to this day in the South. (For instance, thetui bird was called koko, and this is its name in Murihiku now; the bellbird was koparapara, and is still so called in the South, and so on.) Many of the placenames in the South, about the origin of which the present Natives are very uncertain (such as Whakatipu, etc.) were bestowed by this ancient people. They were an industrious people and great fishers and bird-hunters. Shellfish formed one of their favorite foods, as also did eels and lampreys. It is said that they brought the cabbage-tree (kauru), fern-tree (mamaku), and fern (aruhe) with them in the ‘Uruao’ canoe, and these constituted the principal part of their vegetable dietary. It is also said that this canoe brought birds, like thekakapo, kiwi, weka, etc., as well as the small bush birds. My informant was not sure if the Waitaha had kuri (dogs), adding, “I do not know how the kuri came to this land as the old people never said.”
The country was swarming with birds, and these with fish must have figured largely on Waitaha menus. They could not have known the edible qualities of the Titi (Mutton-birds) on the islands south of Murihiku, as tradition asserts these were discovered by the first Kai-Tahu visitors to Ruapuke Island. The kumara was brought by Rokoitua some four or five generations before A.D. 1350, and did not flourish south of Bank's Peninsula. Flax proved a great boon to those ancient people for clothing, etc., and birds' feathers were made into mats. They did not know greenstone, but used a glassy stone known as takiwai. 11 Their weapons were made of bone and wood, but they were not a people addicted to fighting; indeed it was their peacefulness which made them increase and become numerous. My informant had never heard of these people eating human flesh. One of their chief weapons was the huata (long spear), and they held contests (wero) at which they used a means of propulsion that would send the spears two hundred yards.
AN EARLIER CANOE.
After having given the Waitaha history, as outlined in the foregoing information, my informant (Tare te Maiharoa) said that though Rakaihautu was the first man to come to the South Island, yet long before his time a canoe came here bringing a number of “giants.” (See ante Mr. Cowan's remarks re former inhabitants). The traditions regarding this canoe have been lost in the mists of antiquity, the name of the canoe not having been authoritatively preserved, although some say it was called “Waka-huruhuru-manu” after the first canoe ever made. Following is what my informant had heard concerning the crew of that canoe, and it should at least provide students of South Island lore with some interesting sidelights on well-known legends. The crew of that canoe were giants and they settled in the South Island. Their names were Kopuwai, Pukutuaro, Komakohua, Te Karara-huarau and Pouakai, and others.
Kopuwai was the giant who, in an oft-told legend, swallows the Mataau (Molyneux River) in an endeavour to catch a Rapuwai woman named Kaiamio. He was afterwards turned into the Old Man Range in Central Otago, and the Maoris call those mountains “Kopuwai” to this day, and a small lake near them is called “Hapua-o-Kaiamio.” When Kopuwai was turned into stone his pack of ten two-headed dogs were dispersed and six of them took refuge in a carved cave on the riverbank in the township of Duntroon, named Ka-waikoukou. (My informant said “carved cave” but he means one covered with ancient rock-paintings, the same as Otakiroa cliff two miles away from Duntroon.) These dogs were turned into stone, and if you go to that cave you can still see their two-headed bodies sticking out of the water.
CONCERNING THE GIANTS.
Kopuwai is the best known of these gigantic beings. Of the others Pouakai is now remembered as a huge bird and the narrator said that “pouakai” was the ancient and correct name of the moa. According to the description given, Komakohua could not be regarded as gigantic, for it was a white bird the size of a domestic fowl, which lived in cliffs and peered down at passers-by. It could fly and had a sharp beak, and it has not been seen for many years. (An old woman present said she had seen them at Matau (Cape Farewell) when she was a girl, but had not heard of anyone seeing them since). Pukutuaro was a harmless monster, as far as the narrator had ever heard, and lived in a pond- 153 at the headwaters of the Rakaia River, but he had never heard any story connected with it or the locality. Te Karara-huarau had his abode at Taupo and Waitata in the Collingwood district and ran away with a woman known as Ruru. She got away from him but was recaptured. Her people built a house the size of Te Karara and sent for him to visit them. Ruru came overland but Karara swam round by sea. He was tired and slept sound that night and the people set fire to the house and burnt him. His cave can still be seen up near Collingwood. (Rev. Mr. Wohlers, with the sexes of Ruru and Te Kararahuarau reversed, tells the story with much detail in Trans. N.Z. Inst. Vol. VIII, pages 115-8.) 13Before leaving the question of that ancient canoe coming to New Zealand, the collector may state that two old men in the South said to him:—“The crew of that canoe were ‘Maeroero’ and a big stone near the Owaka River is called after one of them, but the name is now lost. The crew of that canoe are said to have played on the flat top of the hill known as Tua-te-pere. Near Roger's farm at Owaka some stones stand up and the Maeroero used to come at night and sit on top of those stones and play the putara and the putorino. On Friend's farm at Owaka there is a big flat stone which istapu because one of the Maeroero who came on ‘Te-Waka-huruhuru-manu’ used it. The ghosts would worship there and then go on to Table Hill.” We all know that when the Europeans came to Otago the Tautuku Forest was said by the Maoris to be haunted by fearsome “wild men of the woods” and they would not venture into its depths. Perhaps it originally acquired this reputation because it was the last refuge of a pre-Maori people as indicated by my informants.
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What is clear is that there were a people already here before Maori. In what form we cannot prove. With what stature, it is not yet proven. With what customs, we may never know. We may never know where they came from,, or how long they were here. But they were here before Maori - of that even old Maori tradition attests.
