Footprints Of History Tribal Lands Of The Ngati Kahungunu

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 152, 24 March 1937, Page 13

Footprints Of History Tribal Lands Of The Ngati Kahungunu

A TALE OF TWO CITIES

Settlement Of The Ahuriri Plain

(By Stephen Gerard.)

IV. They should be seen as I first saw them, the twin cities of the Ahuriri Plain, from Te Mata peak of the Havelock hills, on a morning of shimmering sunshine. Almost at my feet stretched Hastings - , a multitude of clustered roofs, red and orange and green, with light glinting yellow on the windows of the houses. Northward a dozen miles away, by the margin of the burnished shield of the sea, rose the strange hummock called the Bluff, or Seinde Island, with its gay pattern of houses and gardens and streets obscured by the haze of distance, and with Napier grouped about its base. From the bay the plain swept green and beautiful, with orchards and vineyards and cornfields interrupted only by the villages of Taradale and Meanee, Clive and Havelock. Beyond the plain, terraced foothills rose to the remote blue serrate mountain wall of the Ruahines, mantled with autumn snow. Driving through the twin towns, I was at once impressed by their extreme modernity, their wide, straight streets, their uniform twentieth-century buildings, their fresh and cheerful air. Theirs was an atmosphere of. youth and optimism I had not encountered elsewhere, even in this young Dominion. But, of course, every New Zealander knows the reason—knows how in the past six years Napier and Hastings have been, like the Phoenix, reborn out of the ashes of their former selves.

. How the Maori Took Possession. Now iu the eyes of the Maori that rebirth erased a grievous stain on the white man’s honour, for it gave him a genuine claim to lands he had obtained by guile. For six hundred years ago, when Seinde Island was a real island, and the plain a desolate swamp, haunted by the pukeko and the solitary moa, came Tamatea the Pathfinder, and Ruawharo the Magician, and all the illustrious company of Polynesian adventurers who sailed from far Hawaiki in the Takitimu canoe. Of all the keels of the migration, none was like Takitimu. hewed from sacred trees by skilled artificers, hallowed by potent invocations, and launched over the bound bodies of slaves. Hers was a long and terrible voyage, when provisions ran short, and wbmen and children were slain to appease the pangs of starvation. She brought to Ao Tea Roa all the legendary lore of Hawaiki. Where the Esk River falls into the sea near Bay View, she was dragged inland over lofty mountain passes, to float on the lake waters of Taupo. From the crest of the Ruahines, Tamatea’s son, Kahungunu the Greedy, looked back at the gulls circling and crying over Ahuriri. “I shall, return,” he said, “to dwell by these harbours of shellfish, to fish in these waters of abundance.” And so in due course he did. His children, under the warrior Taraia, ousted the aboriginal inhabitants. By force of arms they held their conquered fields against Urewera and Waikato, Nga Puhi and Ngatiawa invaders. Thereon was based their claim to the land.

Captain Cook Sails Hawke’s Bay.

Omaranui Maoris tell of an old man, Mapu, who lived to the age of 130 years. He claimed to have seen the barque Endeavour sail between Scinde Island and the plains, where no European ship sailed since. Mapu, then a lad. boarded the great ship, and stole a cake of soap which' he cooked in the Maori oven, and to his subsequent disgust devoured. I scanned Cook’s journal, but could find there no support for Mapu's tale. Cook told how he cruised the bay, and saw the dry reeds on the edges of the swamp, yellow as standing corn. He would have landed, but the Maoris came off 90 strong in their canoes, and danced a haka so warlike and defiant that Cook bade the islander Tupia tell them how the white man’s weapons could, like thunder, destroy them in a trice; and in proof a cannon was shot off, the grapeshot skipping along the water wide of the canoes. At this some were for peace and some for war; but while they were still arguing a little wind ruffled the sea, and, heeling slightly as the great sails filled, the Endeavour stood away toward Cape Kidnappers. Ah, people of the Ngati Kahungunu, little you thought as you saw her dwindle that her advent spelt the loss of the tribal lands given you by your ancestor

Kahungunu! You had been wise had you greeted later-comers with like hostility and defiance. Cavalcade of Settlement. The coming of the white man was Insidious and slow, almost indeed imperceptible. The Maoris lacked the vision to discern the trend events were taking. Sixty years after Cook’s visit a deserter from the 99th Regiment, James Brown, was dwelling with the natives at Ahuriri. In 1839 William Morris established shore whaling stations at Tangoio and Kidnappers. In the last week of 1844 the brig Nimrod, groping in past the island, leadsman calling the depths while the captain In the dinghy prospected ahead, deposited on the beach the missionary William Colenso, and his wife and baby boy. Pig-trading brigs, flax-cutters, whaling schooners, disturbed the quiet of the bay. In 1846 a man named Alexander opened a store at West Spit, though he had more brown customers than white. Three years later the trader Anketel came. By 1851 there were eight public-houses and a couple of hundred whites, and they no longer camped as guests by the tolerance of the Maoris, but settled there as by right.

In 1853 Sir Donald McLean purchased Scinde Island and the Napier flat for the pakehas, paying the chief Tareha te Moananui the sum of £7OOO. That was a fair bargain, in those days. But others which followed were more questionable. Under the law, it was illegal to lease native lands; yet many settlers did so, or payed “grass money" for grazing rights. Philanthropic pakehas lent money to the happy-go-lucky natives, and did not press them for payment, but lent more money, and more money. Only, when the day of reckoning came, and the Maoris said “To-morrow! Tomorrow !’’ their white creditors, suddenly stern, answered, “If you have no money, you must sign away your lands In payment." So the lands where lay their storied dead were reft' from Kalrunjuuu's

children by the subtle processes of the white man. The Maoris, as a tribe, bore little grudge. Only an individual here and there suffered. Only gradually did the white man take possession. Nowhere was there less friction between the newcomers aqd the former owners of New Zealand. When the Hauhau rebels threatened Napier, when Te Kooti from Urewera fastnesses raided the costal settlements and East Coast refugees streamed into Napier, the staunch chiefs of Ngati Porou and Ngati Kahungunu stood at the right hand of Colonel Whitmore and Sir Donald McLean. Renata, Ropata, Tareha, Karaitiana and Tomoana are names held yet in honoured remembrance. For their services, the men of the race they befriended dispossessed them of the ancient territories that were their birthright. “The Acts of the Apostles.” Before ever the task of draining the great swamps at the mouth of the Ngaruroro River was undertaken, two farsighted men, Thomas Tanner and William Rich, leased the Heretaunga block, where Hastings now stands, from Karaitiana Tokomoana and Henare Tomoana. Later they formed a syndicate of 12, including the Hon. J. D, Ormond, later Provincial Superintendent, the Rev. Samuel Williams, to buy the block at 30/- an acre. The chief Tomoaua had no choice but sell, for he had incurred heavy debts in the pursuit of Te Kooti; but Karaitiana strenuously opposed the sale. He was overruled.

But now the public conscience gave a twinge. In a local newspaper appeared the famous article entitled “The Acts of the Apostles,” satirising the syndicate of speculators. Even today men speaking of early Hastings refer to "The Twelve Apostles.”

There was a sequel. A Royal Commission sat in inquiry on the acquisition of native lands by Europeans, and decided to confirm their possession of the lands to which they laid claim. Then Mr. Sheehan moved in the House of Representatives “That this House regrets to hear of the scandalous and dishonest dealings of certain Europeans in the acquisition of native lands in Hawke's Bay, and of the fact that certain high officers of the Government have been either connected therewith or cognisant thereof.” Hard words, but not as hard as the thoughts they were thinking in the whares of Ngati Kahungunu. And Karaitiana Tokomoana stood up in the House, and said that if need be he would carry his appeal to England and lay it before the Queen, but he would have his rights. Ah. the many and valiant brown chiefs who sought to stem the ruthless current of invasion! Hone Heke cutting down the Union Jack while Kororareka went up in flames, Rauparaha and Rangihaeata holding the Wairau Plain by dint of musket and mere, Karaitiana lifting his voice unheard in the bable of Parliament, alike could avail nothing. They kept their feet for an instant, but the flood-tide of civilisation swept them aside. Right or wrong, the pakeha settled the land.

The Wakening of Ruaimoko.

But in this world nothing can be obtained without payment. The pakeha cities rose, the children of Kahungunu forgot their wrongs, a new age and a new era saw the plains of Ahuriri and Heretaunga vastly changed. But the ancient gods neither forgot nor forgave.

According to Maori tradition, Ruaimoko the Unborn slumbers in the centre of the earth. His even breathing marks the passage of the days. When he turns in his sleep, summer gives way to autumn, and so he controls the fruitful sequence of the seasons. When he wakes, the earth trembles. At ten minutes to eleven on the morning of February 3, 1931, Ruaimoko awoke and stretched himself. The dry land heaved and cracked, the hills crumbled and fell, the sea shoaled. The twin cities fell in ruins, and fire followed the earthquake, and Napier and Hastings were no more. Desolation and destruction and sorrow, where not an hour before were two proud young townships astir with the business of trade.

So pakeha dead sleep with the fathers of the Ngati Kahungunu, side by side on the Ahuriri Plain, and the title to the land is beyond dispute. But if ever a great disaster was turned into a blessing, and if ever from black ruin a new and better work was wrought, it has been so at Napier and Hastings. The whole world stood aghast at their misfortune; the whole of New Zealand quaked with the shock of their downfall; but only those who have lately visited them know how wonderfully they have been rebuilt into two of the most beautiful and flourishing country towns in the whole of this Dominion. (Next Saturday: Drama, off Cape Kidnappers.)