Pre-European supposition lacks evidence

Press, 1 June 1989, Page 17

Pre-European supposition lacks evidence

"The Press” printed, on May 15, a photograph of a kune kune pig, along with a statement in the caption: “They are believed to have been brought to New Zealand in pre-European times.” Now, I am not sure how many people believe that; presumably the owners and breeders of kune kune do, and because a number of similar statements have been printed over recent years, probably a percentage of the reading public as well. Nor am I aware of just where the suggestion of a pre-European pig in New Zealand originated; certainly it has arisen only quite recently.

. No-one, however, has produced any evidence that it existed in New Zealand in prehistoric times, and more importantly, all the evidence suggests that it mostly certainly did not. In the Polynesian islands of the Pacific, from which the ancestors of the Maori people came, there were a number of domestic or semi-domestic animals: the rat, the dog, the pig

and the fowl; we know that two of these, the rat (kiore) and the dog (kuri) were brought to New Zealand by the early Polynesian colonisers and that the other two did not arrive at all — or if they did, did not survive. There are two lines of evidence for that. During the 800 years or so that the Maori people lived in New Zealand before the first European contact, they left evidence of their activities on archaeologi-

cal sites all over the country. That evidence includes millions of midden bones belonging to the fish, reptiles, birds and mammals that they ate. Among them, in considerable quantities, are the bones of rats and dogs, both used extensively for food. But although great numbers of midden sites have been investigated and analysed by archaeologists, as well as the remains of creatures which died naturally, not a single pig bone has been found on any site relating to the pre-European period. On this evidence, or lack of it, alone, it is against all reason to suppose that the pig could have been in New Zealand at that time. Nor were any pigs reported by early European visitors such as Cook, De Surville, and Marion du Fresne (although both Cook and De Surville liberated pigs in the North and South Islands, which quickly bred and spread throughout the country). Sir Joseph Banks, probably the most observant naturalist to come to New Zealand in that very early period, and who questioned the Maori people exhaustively about their animals, stated quite clearly that there were no quadrupeds in the country other than dogs and rats brought in by man. This is supported by the observations of all other early visitors. The fact that the pig in question has a Polynesian name (kune kune means plump or rounded) is not in any way evidence of a Maori origin. So whence the kune kune? If it is a distinct breed, as it appears to be, it is possible that it was introduced to New Zealand in the early European

period (although just why it remained in obscurity for nearly 200 years is something of a mystery to me). It is often not realised just how much informal trade went on between New Zealand and other countries from within a very short time of Cook’s visits. Governor King of New South Wales, for example, presented six pigs to the Maoris of the Bay of Islands in 1793. There has been also a suggestion that it was introduced by the Chinese during the gold-mining era of last century. Pig bones abound in their rubbish heaps, although I know of no study comparing them with those of the kune kune. But if it is indeed a Polynesian pig, then the most likely explanation of its presence is that it arrived in this country in the late eighteenth, or early nineteenth century, when a great deal of contact and trade took place between New Zealand and the Pacific Islands. We know for example, that several types of kumara were brought in from the Islands at this time — so why not pigs? There will undoubtedly be those who read this article who will resist the ideas put forward — who will want to continue to believe in the notion of a prehistoric pig. Some may even trot out the truism that “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.” Nevertheless, the whole weight of evidence, scientific and historic, at present indicates, quite clearly, that the kune kune, while possibly Polynesian, is not of pre-European origin in New Zealand. -

By

BEVERLEY McCULLOCH