THE STORY OF AUCKLAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 173, 24 July 1928, Page 6

THE STORY OF AUCKLAND.

THE FIRST INHABITANTS. BROWN PIONEERS OF THE HAURAKI SHORES. (By JAMES COWAN.) CHAPTER I. Reliable traditions of Auckland's past do not take us to a more remote period than seven or' eight hundred years ago. History supported by tribal genealogies generally acknowledged as authentic really begins with the arrival of the large sailing palii of the Polynesian immigrants from Tahiti and Raiatea, in the Eastern Pacific, twenty-four generations ago, or six hundred years. That is the datum point on which the clan stories agree. All the aristocratic family-trees or whakapapa carry back to the beaching of the Tainui, the Arawa and their contemporary ocean-roving craft on the sands of this Long Bright Land. But man's occupation of these islands stretches into the mists of prehistoric times, far antedating the coming of the Maori pilgrim ships. The successive migrations of Pacific Islands peoples to New Zealand, and successive waves of conquest which swept over such places as the Auckland isthmus, have left us nothing that enables us to fix dates with anything like accuracy. The one enduring monument they left, the great scarped and terraced hill fort, suggests an era of teeming populations, extending over unknown centuries. We have the names of iwi tribes, or nations, as the Americans called the great clan divisions of the Red Indians. Tradition speaks of such races a3 the Iwi-a-Maui, the Maruiwi, Tini-o-Toi, Tini-o-Marangaranga, Turu-ru-Mauku, Raupo-Ngaoheolie, Kahu-Pungapunga, Ngati-Tumutumu-Wlienua, and numerous others, names often poetically descriptive. The last-named iwi (from the Chief Paora Tuhaere, of Orakei, claimed descent on one side) was apparently believed to be a primitive race of people "sprung from the soil." But, despite the theory of that pioneer geologist, Sir Julius Von Haast, that there existed in quaternary times a race of primitive inhabitants in New Zealand, we may take it that even the earliest people that ranged these islands were wanderers from the tropic islands, either deliberately exploring the vast ocean for new lands or driftaway crews blown far out of their course on inter-island voyages. First Sojourners on the Coast. From a learned old man of the Ngati-Tahu tribe, in the South Island, I overheard some, traditional tribe names that may well have been those of some of the first sojourners on the Auckland coast, east and west. Tikao said the word-of-mouth accounts handed down by the wise men stated that Hawea was the name of the first race that inhabited the south of New Zealand. These people came from the northwest; the name of this canoe was Nga-Pakitua. They were a very dark people with curly hair. They were the first people to make umu-ti in New Zealand, that is, they cooked the saccharine roots and stalks of the ti-kouka, or cabbage-tree—the of the Maori—an ar: associated with the ancient rite of fire-walking. (Very likely these people came from New Caledonia., or the New liebrides, or perhaps Fiji; they were no doubt part Melanesian). The next tribe to rovi tiiß South Island were the Rapuwai ("Seekers of water"); they came from the north; their complexion was reddish, like copper—"K.iri whewhero" is the Maori expression—and they had reddishtinged hair; this light alwriginal strain is still to be seen amongst the Maori. Next came the immigration of the tribe called Waitaha, a very numerous people.

Now, these successive waves came from the north, and they were followed by others, and I think it very probable that the Hawea and those who followed them tirst landed on the North Auckland coast, and gradually worked southward, forced into less genial climes by pressure from the north applied by other iwi. The names indicate that they were chiefly Polynesian, probably with a strong Melanesian admixture.

Some j>eople ha\e attempted to give us definite dates of the arrival of the earliest settlers. Not long ago it was stated in the discussion on Mount Eden's past that "there were native records to show that about 9(5 A.U. a people called the Maruiwi arrived from Eastern Polynesia, and occupied Mount Eden and the surrounding isthmus for the following thousand years. 1 should very much like to see such native records. Statements of this kind are of course quite without reliable basis; it is impossible to lix periods even approximately farther back than, say, the beginning of the thirteenth century.

But it was not these very early people, but their Eastern Polynesian successors, who built their fortified towns, on every commanding hill— the most massive systems of earthwork ever devised by a primitive race of fort-builders and military engineers. The Maori device of scarped hillside and deep trench and high pallisade was the early form of defence in Europe, and most probably the early English "tun," or township, was contemporaneous with the "pa" of this country.

When the Tainui Came. The fact that the sailing-canoe Tainui —a whole bookful of history and song could be given about that famous craft—did not remain on the shores of the Hauraki or the Waitemata, but was dragged across the Tamaki-Manukau portage at Otahuhu, and went on to the West Coast, is sufficient indication in itself that there was already at that time a large population on these Auckland plains and around the gulf. It is not at all likely that Hoturoa and his fellow immigrants would have continued their long ocean quest for new homes had this part of the country been unoccupied. But the "tangata-whenua," the people of the country, by whatever tribal name they were known, were numerous and strong, and forcible dispossession was out of the question. Tainui moved on, and later, by "peaceful penetration" sometimes, and sometimes by force of arms—"rau-patu," the blade of the weapon— they gained the upper hand of their predecessors in the land. Diplomatic alliance by intermarriage and open conquest were alternated and combined in the work of making this part of New Zealand a Tainui territory, until the proud tribal "pepeha." or proverbial saying, that has descended to this generation was coined: "Tamaki is the bow-piece, and Mokau is the sternpost of the canoe." Concerning those canoes, the "frail open boats," as they have sometimes been described, it is necessary to explain that they could not have been such very frail craft after all. They made ocean voyages of thousands of miles, and carried their crews and families, numbering perhaps several score of people in eafh vessel, in safety to their new homes in a strange land. The traditions of Tainui state that that vessel was an outrigger craft. Such a vessel would be much stronger than a double canoe; the two canoes fastened by beams on which a deck was constructed would be apt to work apart in a seaway. We know that the Polynesian seamen were skilful navigators also. Though they had no navigating instruments (I do not place much faith in the Hawaiian story of their using a calabash and water for obtaining an artificial horizon for observations of altitude of the sun and stars), they were close observers of the heavenly bodies, and they could find their way to and from islands that are mere pin-points on our charts. As for the speed of those long-distance sailing craft, I am inclined to believe that they were quite as fast as the average schooner which carried on most of our South Sea trade a generation ago. One of the fastest little vessels in the trade between Auckland and Rarotonga 30 years ago, the schooner Totea, took from 14 to •21 days on her fruit-carrying passages from the Cook Islands; three to four weeks was a good average passage from Tahiti. So Tainui and other vessels manned by experienced sailormen would be likely to make the east coast of this island without enduring such terrible privations as are indicated in that •tragic canoe picture by Louis Steele and Goldie in the Auckland Art Gallery. Tainui was a fair average type of the well-equipped vessels, considerably better than mere open boats, which brought the immigrants to the shores of the Hauraki six centuries ago. I (To "be continued.)