"WHERE THE SEA DASHES UP"

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 66, 19 March 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

"WHERE THE SEA DASHES UP"

I 8y... j: James Cowan

THE OLD-TIME CANOE -> „ LIFE OF WELLINGTON

GREAT passenger liners pass in and out of Wellington Heads daily, safely navigating a narrow waterway that was once a place of great anxiety for "the sailor of the Bail' and for the Maori canoeman, too. The fogs of Cook Strait still impress on the mariner the need for caution. With a little imagination we may picture this rock-fringed entrance into the harbour that the Maoris called the Great Bay of Tara in the period before lighthouses and pilots eased the troubles of the navigator. The first British ships that brought their immigrants to Xew Zealand found the coast a great dark land, with never a light to ill*mine the port gates. They had to grope their way cautiously in between threatening cliffs and mazes of shark's-teeth rocks, often to beat in against head winds. Rae-akiaki, vrhich means "Headland Where the Sea Dashes Up," is the appropriate name of Pencarrow Head, the eastern gatepost of the harbour, -where more than one large vessel has been wrecked. It is the Maori canoe life in the Poneke waters, particularly in association with the Rae-akiaki, that I shall describe to-day. The Maoris usually timed their outward canoe trips for fair weather. But sometimes they were caught, perhaps out hapuka fishing, or returning, maybe, across the Sea of Eankawa, as they called Cook Strait, from the Wairau or from Tory Channel. Running in past the Rae-akiaki was always the critical moment. Here the entrance began to narrow in and the southerly seas driven before the gale surged in one on top of the other in quick and bewildering fashion. On one side were the jagged rocks of the Tangihanga-a-Kupe— Barrett's Reef—sometimes only dimly showing through their veils of salt spray, sometimes hidden from sight as the rollers poured over them. The most dangerous rocks were removed hy blasting them away in later times. On the opposite side of the channel, the right hand, were the cliffs of the Rae-akiaki, where the breakers smashed themselves against the grey-black rocks. Offerings to the Gods. Here was the place where it was wiee to make offerings to the Atua, the gods, should one have the mischance to be caught out in bad weather. Anything would do, appar-

| ently, as an offering, provided it I were cast into the waves with the appropriate pious incantation to the deities of wind and sea —a fish from the hapuka catch, a hair from one's head, a greenstone or a shark's tooth car pendant were recommended. Bv this time, supposing your steersman had not permitted the long dug-out to broach to. you would be nearing safety, borne in on the quick roll of the seas. Dexterously guided, the big canoe would edge to the port side of the entrance and run in under the shelter of the Pae-whenua, making the shingly beach on the western side of the entrance, just inside the heads, where Seatoun now stands. The practice grew of throwing overboard the choicest fish of the catch to the spirits of the place, the taniwhas that dwelt in the surges and sea caves of the Rae-akiaki, by way of propitiation. Picture a scene off Pencarrow a little over 80 years ago as described to me hy old Rangi te Puni. an aristocratic dame of the Ngati-Awa, the most venerable inhabitant of her native kainga at Petone; she has long since passed to her ancestors. Three large canoes, each fitted with high topsides, or washboards, and adorned bow and stern with carved work, are heading in for Port Nicholson from Fitzroy Bay, which lies some miles outside the "entrance

on the eastern or Turakirae side. 'J hey are substantial craft, with good beam, cut out of huge totara trees that once grew on the banks of the Hutt River. One is the "Riwaru," another is the "Kawau-a-Toru" ("Toru's Cormorant"), the third —in which Rangi herself is squatting with nearly a score of her hapu—is the "Heretaunga ' (the Maori name of the Hutt River). They are loaded with ba<rs of wheat, a rather curious cargo for Maori war canoes, but it was upon the Maoris that the earliest settlers of Wellington depended for their grain supplies. The canoes have come from the native village of Para-ngarehu in Fitzroy Bay, between Pencarrow Head and Baring Head. There they loaded the wheat, which was grown in the large clearings of rich black soil some five miles np the Wainui-o-mata stream, in the heart of the wooded ranges. The "witi," after being threshed out in the old style with flails, was bagged, and carried over the hills to Para-ngarehu, and thence brought into port by canoe. All Serene! Well, here the three canoes are, sailing pleasantly along before a gentle south-west breeze. A man in the stern of each canoe is steering with a long paddle. Th© rest are taking it easy, for the three-cornered sails of raupo reeds or finely-plaited

flax, set on a mast stepped well forward, are doing the work of bringing the wheat to town. Rae-akiaki is close at hand on the starboard bow. Its rooky foot is peaceful enough this summer day; hardly a ripple disturbs the gentlybreathing sea. The blue waters wash the strip of shingle beach at the base of the cliff with scarce a murmur and never a dash of spray. There is no need to propitiate the taniwhas today! Inward the sweet and gentle breeze carries the wheat flotilla, wafting the slender craft caressingly along. Rae-akiaki is abeam. And now, all of a sudden, comes an affrighting change! Without a moment's warning the wind shifts to the west in a quick gust. It freshens and the sea begins to rise. Then, in a gun of a squall, the wind is round to the north-west. "Down the sails!" is the order, but the Heretaunga'pi crew are over-confi-dent and hang on. In a few moments down comes another gust of wind and in a flash the canoe heels over and swamps. As she goes, however, the crew have sufficient presence of mind to heave over some of the bags of wheat. When she capsizes the rest of the cargo slides out and down to the sea bottom. This saves the canoe from sinking, and her people set to work to right her as best they can. They are like ducks in the water, and they splash away tremendously, striving to free the canoe of water. But the choppy seas fill her again, and the Maoris desist and content themselves with hanging on to the gunwale, which is just awash. In this fashion they presently drift ashore in a little rough shingly bay close under Rae-akiaki. There, drenched and shivering, they make the best of a bad job by their wrecked craft up as far as they can get her above the newly-risen •=urf. That night it blows a gale from the north, and it is a cold and comfortless camp on the beach-side. Tn the morning they are off again flnd rejoin the more fortunate voyagers, and so there is nothing more serious than the loss of a canoe-load of wheat. "But see!" said old Rangi. "We neglected our respects to the Atua of the Rae-akiaki; we forgot our offering, because it was gentle and calm, and punishment fell upon us. We should have had an offering ready. It served us right." °