Sidestep: Mauku's Ancient Weapon

Is this another Melanesian style oddity? I know we keep on banging on about Melanesia lately, and there is a reason for that, but bear with us.

Back in the 1860’s a farmer (Mr H Wily) removed a large amount of peat from his land that had accumulated under mature forest in the Mauku district. (This is the same district in which a small Chinese figurine was found we produced an article on.)

Read this next line carefully... They had removed some 16 feet (4.8 metres) of soil and clay from the land and discovered a series of drains underneath that caught his interest. This was because a newspaper article had only just surfaced about the drains of Awanui near Kaitaia where the unusual pre-Maori lintel (shown below) had been found buried deep underground.

These old drains at Kaiatia had been filled with water and eventually filled with peat where raupo grew. From the hills, in the early days, you could see long streaks which was raupo that (unbeknown to them) indicated where these ancient drains existed some 6-10 feet below the surface.

These similar drains at Mauku were extensive enough for Mr Wily to remark that it "never seemed possible for the Polynesians to have dug such an extensive series of drains all over the country in the 500 years they were here and in that time include 1. The drains filling, 2. A forest growing over 3. For over 4 metres of peat to form." Not very likely in reality and certainly so in the light of various evidence including Kaitaia, Mauku, and various Taranaki sites.

This information suggests that, whether in existence or not when Polynesians arrived (they were for that is the reason the Kaitaia lintel was hidden in the swamp in the first instance), those drains were dug by many people over an extensive period of time and all with stone or wooden tools. As it would take some five hundred years or more to build up the peat, in layers, (apparently something to do with climatic changes) and forest over these areas, and several hundred years to dig such drains...well, it could be others were here as far back as 300AD or earlier, and that elsewhere much of their occupation levels have been buried by far more (ash fall etc) as in the cut stump found deep underground in Auckland City. This is conjecture of evidence and to be fair, a rusted musket part was found ‘several’ feet below the ground near Mauku in 1965...... Yes, that is what the tale suggests, so we report it as stated to be balanced.

Mauku 1860's

Of special interest to Mr Wily was one peculiar item made of wood. It was about the length of a rapier (small sword of about 3 feet (1m in length). This item was double sided, a weapon and well preserved. Note that this was found somewhere in the 5m of peat in the lower areas around two hills that were villages and were kept as defended pa by Maori in later times. That 5m deep! For the older folks, that's 16' below the surface!

No, it could not be one end of a Taiha as (apart from being 16' below the surface) the record suggests it was a complete item, unbroken, undecorated and with an edge running most of its length. It could also be a paddle, except they are broad, not rapier like and such a paddle would be useless. By rapier the writer meant narrow and pointed, yet the item described also had a double edge. Very curious we think.

There is no record in any NZ Museum of this item that we can find..yet! So far the only thing we can find in a museum that resembles the description comes from Melanesia (once again). Perhaps one of these...

Here is a link to a similar weapon, also Melanesian. You can see it in the middle - shorturl.at/alnR9

In time, once we reveal who is in the cave, we can finally get the government to open up past records. Maybe we can also use LiDAR to accurately point out old sites untouched by Maori or European and excavate to find more of the original people and hopefully find many more unusual artifacts still untouched and unmatched by anything anywhere else in the Pacific.