UNFINISHED CANOES

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 205, 31 August 1933, Page 8

UNFINISHED CANOES

JIN THE WAITAKERES. HISTORY RECOUNTED. HOW NAMES WERE GIVEN. Hidden almost completely by undergrowth, and quietly rotting away, there are a number of old half-finished Maori ; canoes in different parts of the Waitakerc Ranges. Someone recently rediscovered one some 50 yards from the '.Huia Koad; but the Maoris, and those ' interested in Maori history, have known • I ' jof it for years, and also of others in • other parts of the ranges, where suit- . [able totara trees, from which tree the canoes were, built, have grown or are 'still growing. • I "They were probably commenced early • lin the 10th century, about 1820," said . jllr, (J. Graham, of the Xc Akarana !Maori Association, this morning. "They I were never finished, probably, I think, [lowing to the raids about that time of j tlie famous old Ngapulu chief, Ilongi, ' who made incursions into the territory , of the Ngat.i-Whar.uas, to whom the forest in the ranges belonged, and so disorganised their life that these canoes j were never completed." Partially finished canoes in the forest • areas near the coastline were not un- . I common, continued Mr. Graham. The Maori custom was partly to hollow out a canoe where the tree had been felled, 'and then finish the work on the after the shell had been hauled through 'the forest. The canoe was never comIpletcly hollowed in the bush, because in tho rough usage it underwent in _ its , passage through the bush it might Icrack, and that was a bad omen, according to the Maoris. Accordingly, a skin some six inches thick was left befoie the journey to the coast was attempted. Other Famous Canoes. The nearest navigable, water to the canoe near Huia is-Little Muddy Creek, and Mr. Graham said that the water- ! ways Big and Little Muddy Creeks were favourite places for the pulling out of canoes. The Maoris used to haul the canoes into tho Nihoputu stream and then into Big Muddy Creek. | Talk of those canoes led Mr. Graham Ito speak of other canoes. There was I one, unfinished, on the beach at the South Kaipara Head, though why it had been j hauled so far and then left, he did not |know. Another unfinished canoe was on the Sandspit, on the way to Thames. | That had been cracked on its way to ' the water's edge, and had been abandoned there, for, as Mr. Graham repeated, it was considered a bad omen should a canoe crack. That vessel was built for the chief Te Kahutoti, and shortly after the incident of the canoe lie died. The Maoris thought that the cracking of the canoe was a sign of his death. _ Canoes wore given names, and oiten these were the names of trees selected to be made into canoes. Often on* "•eneration would name a tree, and though another much later would fell it to build the canoe, the name remained. That was the case with the famous canoe Tainui, which was buut, so it is said, in Hawaiki. The tree was so named because the bojjes. of Maori ancestors were placed in its branches, | and when tho canoe was jnade it took the name, and brought it to Aotearoa. Canoe of Maori King. The canoe that ultimately became the property of the late Maori Tawliiao, was named Tahere-tikitiki, beinf the name of the tree which was felled to make it. That tree was in the property of an ancient Kaipara chief, called Tiki-Tiki. He used to spread his bird nets, or tahere, over the tree; and when his descendants felled the tree about 1850 the name was retained. For a long time the canoe was on the Waitemata, at Orakei. On the death of the chief, Tuhaere, it was presented to Tawliiao, and taken to the Waikato about 1890. On the death of the late "king," Mahuta, the canoe was put out of commission, dismantled, and set on one of the islands in tho Waikato below Tuakau.