Early Whaling Days On Banks Peninsula

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31362, 6 May 1967, Page 5

Early Whaling Days On Banks Peninsula

(Contributed by the Canterbury Museum) Six thousand years ago a stone-age artist in Norway drew on the walls of a cave man’s earliest record of one of his oldest activities. His drawings of men in tiny skin covered boats skimming the ocean in pursuit of whales were so accurate that it has been possible to distinguish the species of whale hunted.

To primitive man in the world’s more desolate regions the capture of a whale or the finding of a stranded carcase must have been as exciting as winning the Golden Kiwi to a modern New Zealander. Evidence of the value of the whale to early man in Denmark was discovered during drainage operations in Jutland when beneath the skull of a Rorqual whale eight stone adzes, two stone axes and a number of flint flakes were discovered. Small bones and waste made excellent fuel, the oil gave heat and ' light and the flesh provided . a bountiful supply of food. - Whale skin had many uses i and could be stitched with thread made from the sinews I in needles of whalebone. In ’ treeless areas the ribs were I used for house rafters and i often for boats.

Whales continued to be important to men and the hunt went on through the ages,

extending to all the oceans of the world and eventually brought European whalers to New Zealand where the Maori people had for long been aware of its value. Following the whale to New Zealand waters came master whalers from Britain, Norway, France, Germany and New England. Two of them, Jean Langlois from France and George Hempelman from Germany, for many years claimed to have bought the same area of land from its Maori owners. Although Hempelman, who died in Akaroa in 1880, was never able to substantiate his claim to the land, we are indebted to him for the earliest written record of European settlement in Canterbury. The two volumes, now known as “The Piraki Log,” are on display in the Canterbury Museum’s Hall of Colonial Settlement and consist of the log of the Brig Bee on a whaling voyage from December, 1835, to August, 1836, and a diary of the activities of Hempelman’s shore whaling station near Akaroa from March, 1837, to February, 1844. Even routine entries in the slop accounts are interesting today and the names mentioned bear witness to the international nature of this earliest phase of our colonial history. Simeon Crawley,, William Kelly, Jacky Walkabout (an Australian aboriginal), William Feilder, Benjamin Bing, Charles Bruce, Wee Leveck, La Marb, Manuel and, of course Hempelman himself, are typical examples. These were stirring times when Te Rauparaha (described in the log as “Roubuler”) was storming

the land and the coming and going of war parties was a frequent occurrence. Taiaroa (Tryroar in the log) left two of his men at the whaling station for its protection and although the European settlers remained safe their slight uneasiness during the presence of visiting war parties seems justified by the following entry in October, 1839.

“Thursday 31st. Fine weather throughout. At 10 a.m. the boat’s crew heard the report of guns up the river and found it to be 2 Mowries from Bloody Jack, who was In Oashore Bay with fifteen boats. At 11 a.m. walk’d up the hill to Mowry Harbour, (Lake Forsyth) where the boat was haul’d up, when were greatly surprised at seeing about one hundred natives, who came with the intention of killing the boy Jacky which they did in a most barbarous manner. When having got to Mowry Harbour, they refused us our boat; we then walk’d over the hill to the next Bay, where they kept us as prisoners. Carpenters employ’d as yesterday.” The last available entry (the final pages having been tom away) paints a much more peaceful picture: “March 13 (1844). Fine weather. Mr Price’s vessel came in again. Mr Hort, Mr Price and the Captain all paid me a visit, and gave me three bottles of wine.”—M.J.D. The illustration is a photograph of the Diorama of a whaling acene in the Hall of Colonial Settlement, Canterbury Museum.