ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF MOERAKI

Evening Star, Issue 22526, 19 December 1936, Page 14

ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF MOERAKI

A FORTHCOMING CENTENARY EUROPEAN AND MAORI HISTORY RECALLED Especially written for the * Evening Star.’] . Now to old Port Moeraki No more the captains come. Salt as the junk they fed on. Cured in Jamaica rum. The try-pots now are rusted— Rusted and overturned— And'dark and; damp the charcoal Lies where the red fire burned. The grand old fleet has vanished, All save same rotting bones, Along the coasts that harbour The keels of Johnny Jones. —D. M. Ross. One hundred years! .It is a long time in the history of white settlement in the South Island, though the North has a longer record. Te Awaiti, the old whaling _ settlement on Tory Channel, began in 1827 —lO9 years ago—but Te Awaiti is no more. There was a shore whaling establishment at Preservation Inlet in 1829, but it also has not survived. Otakau Station, at Otago Heads, was formed in 1831, but Otakau did not adevelop into Dunedin. Precisely when the whaling station at Jacob’s River (present Riverton) began is unknown. The centenary that is to be celebrated in a few wbeks from now may be belated. But the pleasant little hamlet of Moeraki shares with Riverton (since the knowledge is lacking for a dispute) the honour of being the oldest South Island settlement that has had a continuous life. Its centenary festivities, postponed from Boxing Day on account of the infantile paralysis epidemic, will be held at Easter. A HARDY PIONEER WILLIAM ISAAC HAIERFIELD It is almost certain that’ Waikouaiti is not older than Moeraki. For our knowledge of the first days of the latter place is peculiarly exact, thanks to that old salt, William Isaac Haberfield, who was one of a party that landed there on Boxing Day, 1836—the first settlement now to be commemorated-—and , who lived on there until 1905, which, conics well within modern history. And he has placed it on record that the whaling station at Waikouaiti was not established till a year later, and then by a Sydney firm which sold-'out, after’ another year, to “Johnny” Jones. Haberfield, when he came to Moeraki, would fie a young man of 21. He was horn a few days before Waterloo. Haberfield was a man of 76 when he told his story, at _ several columns length, in the ‘Evening Star,’ the account which is republished in Jhhob,son’s ‘Tales of Banks Peninsula.’ His father was a naval captain, and William, after being educated in the upper school at Greenwich, spent his early -years at sea. They were adventurous years. He saw slaver-chasing on the Brazil coast, and then served on a ship which brought convicts to Tasmania. Apparently he deserted that ship, and arrived at Otago on St. Patrick’s Day, 1836. which he assisted to celebrate by the killing of two whales in the harbour. A JOLLY LIFE The Wellers had their station then at Otakau, and Haberfield was in their employ. _ He left .them to try his fortunes with one John Hughes, who had a hankering for whaling at Moeraki. “ Everyone could see at once that a better spot could Hot be wished for. There was good shelter, sound anchorage, a nobby landing, and pl«mty of wood, besides which Moeraki was a very pretty place, and above all there wore plenty of fish about.” It is a fishing ground now, but not for whales. The bush, in those days, grew down to the water’s edge. There were three partners in the enterprise—Hughes, a man nam'ed Thompson, and.Sivatt, a cooper. There were three other white men—Richard Burn, John Knox, and Haberfield—in the whaling party, and three Maoris. Th* men got a fixed fraction of the Srofits. _ The birds were so tame at loerniki then that the pigeons would come to alight on men’s heads. There were very tew Maoris, but a party of nine, under Tangatahara, who had fled from Te Rauparaha’s massacre at Qnawe after the fall of Kaiapoi, had a tale of their own to tell. It was a jolly life that was lived at Moeraki. bird season saw the party inci%ased, and Haberfield’ and another man began to run a whale boat with supplies, which they brought from Otakau _ to Waikouaiti and Moeraki. The agricultural settlement ’at Waikouaiti was formed in March, 1840. Haberfield had some later adventures at Akarok and Wellington, but, after some years of seafaring, settled down with u_ Maori wife at. Moeraki, where he diid at the age of 91 years. Both he and Hughes have their graves in the Hampden cemetery. Hughes was a native of Sydney, his father having been a soldier in the forces maintained at the convict settlement. He was with the Wellers at Otakau until not long before the time when he made his independent venture. He was described by Haberfield as “just the man for early colonial life. He could do anything, and had soon everything there was to see this side of the world.” A MAORI HERO STORY OF TAKGATAHARA The career of Tangatahara was a remarkable one. He was at Kaiapoi when Te Rauparaha sent his armed envoys to that famous pa under pretence of friendship, hut more probably to spy out the land for future attaek. A giiest of the pa was Hakitara, a North Island Maori had scores to pay off against Te Rauparaha. Among the envovs was the latter’s uncle Te Pehi, who had been to England and had tremendous mans. Hakitara put his friends on guard against the evil intentions of Te Rauparaha, and when a quarrel broke out in the pa it was lie who grabbed Tc Pehi as he was clambering over the palisade to escape and despatched him with h hatchet.

Te Rauparaha took his revenge when (October, 1830) he inveigled Tama-i----nara-nui, the leading chief and high priest of Ngai Tahu, with other members of the tribe, on board the ,brig Elizabeth in Akaroa harbour, and after destruction of his village opposite Akaroa, had him tortured to death at Kapiti. Tangatahara, in telling the story to Wat kin, the Methodist missionary who went to Waiikouaiti 10 years afterwards, represented that it was he, as the slayer of Te Pehi, whom Te Rauparaha really wanted, but he was too astute to obey the cajolements to go aboard. _ , After the siege and fall of Kaiapoi (1832), Tangatahara was given the command of the survivors’ force that held but oh the fortified peninsula of Onawe, in Akaroa Harbour. The defenders were routed, and Tangatahara became the prisoner of To Pehi’s son. To Heki, who. most curiously connived at his escape, apparently to mortify fellow tribesmen. . He had a command in two expeditions—lß33 and 1834 which went north seeking revenge against Te Ruaparaha. First Haberfield and then Watkin found him later settled at Moeraki. , He died at Akaroa in 18-17, and there is a life-size monument, of him at; '| Little River, which shows him .brandishing a tomahawk, and is inscribed with a'long record of his exploits. ; . The . ancestors of the present Mocraki Maoris arrived there from Kaiapoi in 1838. Most' of the whalers took Maori wives, and found no cause to regret their unions. Edward Shortland visited ' Moeraki in 1843, and was entertained by Hughes and his Maori wife. ' He found the Maoris of the place .fiercely divided by religious strife. There was a “ congregation of Wesley ’’ and a “ Church of Pahia,” whose respective followers

“ maintained constant disputes on the subject of religion,” so that division and bad feeling had been introduced into every family. Converted by Native missionaries of the Methodist and, Anglican Churches, they showed in this respect more of the Maori than of the Christian spirit. There were two chapels (for a population of about 200 all told) and “ the rivalry of the two congregations might be noticed even in the loud and obstinate din which issued from two iron pots, the common substitute for a belfry.” As long ago as 1842 a shipment of potatoes, grown by the Maoris at Moeraki, was taken to Wellington, and from that time dates the reputation of North Otago as a potato-growing district. DLD IDENTITIES Mr William A, Taylor, writing in the Christchurch ‘ Star-Sun,’ has given some other particulars of early Mooraki. “ There may be ” (ho has said) “ a few of the older generation who will remember the genial old skipper, Captain William Isaac Haberfield, immaculately dressed, wearing a tall hat, and riding a horse, going off to church with Mrs Haberfield, one of the finest typo of Maori women that the writer has known, walking quietly by his side.” And he goes on: “Maoris who shared with their pakeha, brethren in .the building of old Moeraki .were Mr and, Mrs Sam (Hemidra, Wcka), their son, Wanaka Weka, William Pokuku, Mamarn, the Tipas, Moses, Sam Tipeno, Mantle, Harry Moon, and 4 Scotty ’ and Willie llehu., The visitor to the centenary celebrations ;if fortunately (or otherwise) gifted with second sight is bound to see the shade of 4 One-legged Jack,’ the one-time Native assessor, go stumping, by, and not far away will be the old tohuhga, crippled by a heavy fall, and converted to the Christian faith by Bishop Selwyn—poor old Selwyn Eli. 44 Kindly thoughts are conjured by the memory of 4 Old Eli.’ sitting on the steps of the old hall, dedicated to UoNuku, at the old'Maori Kaik (deserted since 1906 when the Maori population removed nearer to the railway) and reciting old . karakia,. mythology, and history, on the whole, to an unapprecia.tjf'e Maori audience.

“Mr Felix Mitchell, of Ravensbourne, Dunedin, a companion of the writer,, was on one of these occasions presented by the old to.hunga with his carved taiaha. Moeraki at one time promised to be the port of North Otago, and a branch line of railway was constructed to it from the main line at Hillgrove. For over 40 years only the remains of the old track have been visible. The Moeraki of to-day is a busy fishing village, with over 50 boats daily catching fish for the Dunedin and Oamaru markets, but _ the old-time wharf at which ships tied up is now deckless, and clusters of seagulls find it a haven of rest.” It may bo a future cause of pride that David MacDonald, Ross, an accomplished New Zealand poet and the author of the lines quoted at the head of this article, was born at Moeraki. A mms LANDMARK THE mim\ BOULDERS Slightly north of the village, on Moeraki Beach, are the famous Moerakj boulders. t Scientifically speaking, these are not boulders at all, but specially fine examples of a structure ■ well known to geologists termed “ septarian concretions.” They have formed in the soft mudstone which now makes the cliffs at the back of the beach. Solutions percolating through this mudstone began to deposit carbonate of lime about some centre, a mineral grain or small shell fragment, or some other inconspicuous object within the mudstone, and there tints formed a layer of strongly cemented mudstone about the centre. Naturally, as this covering layer grew thicker, the whole cemented 1 mass or “concretion” assumed the shape of a sphere. But its outer layers were rather porous, and as the limecarbonate crystallised in the pores of this outer layer the small growing crystals forced apart the surrounding grains. As this was going on all over the surface of the concretions, the expansion so produced split up the already cemented material within, and big cracks were formed w'hich have often been filled with crystals of carbonate of lime. As the waves beat against the soft mudstone cliffs, these massive round concretions fall out on to the beach, break up as they smash against one another, and the crystal-lined cracks within them can- thus bo seen. The Maori explanation of the concretions agrees with the'scientist that they are not boulders, hut is more romantic. The Arai-to-ur« canoe, going south, went over on her side, relates Maori lore, and its cargo was cast ashore at Moeraki. The “ waka ” itself found its last resting place at the mouth of the Shag River. The reef there is its petrified hull, and a prominent rock is the body of Hippo, its navigator. The large boulders on Moeraki Roach arc the cel baskets of Hapc-ka-faurako and his slave, Puketupu ; the smaller boulders are the calabashes which hold the water supply of the canoe, and the very small fragments are just the kumeras. Several of the crow got ashore at Shag River, for their names are attached to natural features in North Otago, Puketanu is the hill east of the town of Palmerston South, and represents the slave; Pnko-iwi-taki. (corrupted to Pukowiti), a hill north of Palmerston,, is a one-armed captain of the Arai-te-uni, who is calling for the twin children of Hekura (the Nga tamariki a Hekura). the Sister Hills, who were made such by lingering at their task of gathering firewood until overtaken hv the dawn.