THE MAORI FOOD YEAR

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 177, 29 July 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE MAORI FOOD YEAR

THE OLD LIFE OF INDUSTRY AT KAWHIA

flto most Interesting and careful description of the old-time life in ft Maori community, with it-< regular rotation of food-gathering duties, CAino to mi- from K a whin pome years ngu. It »•»* n n;i i-r-n( i\«» spoken In a Maori friend of mine l>y an old rangitira woman <>f Tainui descent, a pleasant, and intellectual lady of i hiflh decree, named Nyarongo. She lived on the hank of the Waiharakcke tidal river on the south side of the main armed Kawhia llarhoiir. Her j kinsniuu wrote down her life -lory in | Maori ami t his is ihe aeeonni I have translated from it. The tale of Kawhia as it was in her day. liefnre the Maori wars, i« a perfect description of a eoinfortahle and abundantly supplied | pie, li\ ing in |>eaee with each other, and a surplus of food for -ale to the pakeha. "When I was a small girl," said Ngarongo, "I li\ «•<! at Te Arapukatea. That was my birthplaee, ami most of my life 1 have lived on this south side of Kawhia Harbour, and all this country and all thece streams and bay* I know, aye. and all the pipi banks in the harbour ami all the fishing places. As I grew up I learned nil the things that made up the work of the Maori woman, and most of all I learned how to help supply our home with food. The waters of Kawhia Harbour were our chief food supply —they were waters of abundance. I shall tell you about the parts where wo obtained our kaimataitai. the food of the salt waters. "The pipi shellfish was one of our most abundant foods; our hapu's ground was Te Taaoro yonder; the kind of pipi found there was the kokota. There was another cockle called the pipi hungangi; thia was very plentiful, and for it we worked the sandbanks and tide-washed flats tit Tuhingara, Toreparu, Otaroi, Hakaha, Te Wharau, Tahunaroa, Te Maire and other places. For the pupu shellfish wo worked Tarapikau and other banks. Another food was the tuna, the eel. Wo had many eel weirs, too, but my food gathering was chiefly on the seashore and in the estuaries. There were many places where, we hauled the nets for fish of the sea; we had landing places for tamuro (snapper) and mango (shark) at To Umuroa, at Te Maire, at Ohau, at Whangamumu and many other beaches, where we brought the hauls ashore and split the fish up and hung them \n long lines to dry in the nun. There was the patiki, too, the flounder.

"It wa« most pleasant work, that iWhini,' of cdd. There were thief places in particular where our luipil hrouyht its catches of sharks and dogfish ashore; they were XgavvhnkauruhaiiiM. Ohau ami I'urakau. We had special places where we fi<*hed for moki (cod) and for the koiro (conger eell, ami there was also a place where the whai (st ingaree) abounded. That was at Kouttlkowhai. There was. too, a small fresh water li-Oi called the mohimohi. ami there was an ap|«>intcd place for taking it. "Our be«l time for catching fish of all kind* was from November to March, when the north and northeast winds blew and the weather was pleasant and warm. That was when the nets were drawn. All the people were encased in this work, and great number-, of fish were sun-dried for winter food.

By --- James Cowan.

".'nil thorp win. too, the spearing ..f flounder liy torchlight nt. night. My son. that 'wit* u delightf"l «ktupa'tion, the niina patiki. There were certain niirlits when those patiki witf plentiful on the sandbank* ami that was when we got great numbers of tlit'in by means of torch ami spear. "Then later in the your we turned to the land for our food. We went into the forests, we climbed the mountains, we minted and speared the birds of the bush. There was that range called l'neroa; that was where we set many wai-tuhi, which were wooden canoe like troughs, or sometimes hollows in prostrate logs, which we tilled with water; over these we arranged Max and cabbage tree noimes in which the pigeon and other birds would be caught as they camp down to drink after feeding on the berries. All along this Paeroa Kange (which is south yonder towards Kinohaku) we had these waituhi. The forest was full of food for the birds; the fruit of the mini, the hinau. the niangeo. was in exceeding abundance. Many of us were btwy in the season of birds in the work of snaring takiri the tui and also the kokomako (bellhird); the best place " for catching those birds was on the poroporo shrubs, which were covered with delicious fruit for the bird*. A woman could often take as many as a hundred birds in a day's work, from morning till dark. "Also we took many titi (the petrel called muttonbird). The best [dace for killing the titi was at Te Rau-o-te-huia. The work was done at night. Fire* were made at the places over which the titi flew, and these* attracted the birds, which came flying

low and were killed with sticks by the people around the lires. There was a season when these birds were abundant and in the right condition for killing. '"Other foods of our people which we gut. at viiiioiis times were fern root, the pith of the mamaku fern tree, and the large lorries of the liinaii and tawa trees; these were dried and treated in various ways. And then, too, we had foods of the pakchu in great abimdanee. Kawhia was a most fruitful place. We had apple*, peaches, ligs, pears and grape*. We sent the best of the fruit iittiiv to Auckland and sold it. We had our own small vessels (schooners and cutters) in those days before the war (isr.o-is»;:i). "I remember tile vessels our people bad in our part of Kawhia. There was the Aotearoa: she was owned and sailed by l'aiaka. There was the Xepukaneha (Xebucliadnezzar), which was Hone te One's vessel. These craft traded to Onehunga, and they carried much produce from Kawhia. We shipped ill them wheat and maize, fruit, pig*, pumpkins, vegetable marrows and dressed flux. .Many hapus were concerned in fhis trade; we all shipjK'd eargc for sale to the pakeha and iill was do.ie agreeably; there were no quarrels among the people o\cr trade. "At Abuahii there was a large settlement and there lived our missionaries, one after the other. Te Want ere (the Kev. John Whiteley, killed at Pukearuhe in ISftO) lived there lie fore he went to Xew Plymonth. Then came Te Tat ana (Rev. Turton) and Henare too. (Henare was the Kev. Nchnackenlierg.) It was there that I was married to liangitawa; that was two years before the war began in Taranaki and Hangi and the other men of Kawhia went away to fight there (ISfiO). ''That was how we lived here in Kawhia in the day* of our youth. We were always employed and there was no trouble; we lived happily thenV. in the midst of abundance and then when the war l>egan our troubles came. "Kewi Maniapoto came out from Kihikihi and Te Kopua on his way to Taranaki with a war party. He came to Aliuahu and the tribes, of Kawhia assembled and joined him and they all marched off for the south by way of Marokopa. Their first battle was at Puke-ta-kauere, on the Waitara; they defeated the Queen's soldiers there. But I need not tell of all the lighting that followed. It stopped our accustomed industry on the shores of Kawhia. All tlie old work in which the whole of the people shared stood still. ''No more wheat or maize was grown, no flax scraping was done, and the trading vessels lay deserted at anchor, for there was no one to man thew. The *oil was not cultivated; the flourmill wheels ceased to turn.

The winds wailed over a deserted Kawliia when the men, young and old, had girded themselves with the belt of war and gripped their guns and other weapons of war and marched away. Only the feeble old men and the women and children were left here. And when those who were left returned after the wars," Xgarongo ended her etory, "it was a different life in Kawhia."