IN SEARCH OF THE NORTH ISLAND

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 47, 26 February 1936, Page 3

IN SEARCH OF THE NORTH ISLAND

Six Hundred Years of

History Lost

(LIX)

(Copyright).

In an effort to offer some sliglit understanding of the Maori of the past we have stepped aside from the things of to-day in search of some footing upon the filmy borderland of the year 1950 when the Great Migration from Hawaiki claimed Te Ika a Maui or, as it is better known to-day, Aotea Koa. Much happened before and after that historical date and little that has been given has been based upon the results of. painstaking research . by Tregear, Smith, Best, Travers, White, Crawford, Colenso, Buffer Newman, Cowan and many others who employed both time and talents towards endeavouring to solve some of the problems relating to tho peopling of these Islands. Their devoted study of a subject that is winning increasing interest, both here and abroad, has provided the material for tho conception of a colourful canvas of the Maori of the past which, viewed with understanding eyes, reveals an enchanting appreciation of the daily lives of these sons and daughters of Polynesia. No tinge of Western culture disturbed their lives. They were of but one age—the neolithic, or new stone age, and remained so until Cook won their understanding and introduced them to the things of Western civilisation. The years before 950 found them relying upon stone implements and weapons and for fully six hundred years thereafter they were still using axes, adzes etc., made of stone and of greenstone. They warred among themselves. It was their principal past time next to that agricultural pursuits and the provision of food against the winter months. Tho country was theirs either by rights of occupation or by right of conquest through the elimination or absorption of the tangata whenua. Down tho six hundred years till the time of Cook’s discovery of tho country and subsequent intercourse with the Maori, the full history of the happenings has been lost and little is authentically known outside of what has been established from the genealogical trees, or whakapapa, of the old Maori. Many names of localities are delinite keys for unlocking tho past but not all are sure guides since many have been anglicised and otherwise mangled to destroy for ever any liklihood of unravelling their true meaning. Wo lament the loss of that history but are consoled with what investigators have given us in the direction of being able to draw satisfying mind-pictures of the nature-loving Polynesians and their home life of the days before Tasmans and Cook. Pictures cf their domestic life, of their cultural training in their several schools, of their beliefs and of their understanding of nature, have been.- skilfully drawn/ but tho task of gathering together the fragments of story and legend, of separating the mythical from tho real, to produce a living study of the adventures, the wars, the conquests and defeats, that must have made that six hundred years a veritable Arabian Nights of sensation, is to-day beyond the realm of practical politics. ,We have brought Turi to these shores, as we hope to bring tho other famous navigators of the Pacific, and we have given him his place in our story and must leave him to step across those six hundred years or more, to continue our search of the North Island.

The tribes that grew out o£ Turi’s people explored the forests, experienced new sensations, suffered adventures with the elements, and during that six hundred years before Tasman made his unsuccessful effort to court their understanding, engaged in many conflicts with other tribes who likewise wandered over the trackless bush covered laud of Maui. They were warriors at the outset not ferocious canalistie savages as some who wrote of them claimed — and grew to bo greater warriors, not wanting in chivalry or chivalrous conduct, whose wars, flights and skirmishes grew out of some real or fancied insult which called for satisfaction. Many engagements occupied their time and interest and we read of them making war at Kai Iwi, at Waitatara and up and down the cost north and south of Patea-yes, along and on the ground and highway we are now pursuing our way. There is little new to be discovered in recounting these engagements — they were definitely inter-tribal conflicts and while they no doubt had a subsequent bearing on the ultimate adjustment of the Maori to the country of his adoption, we cannot point to any important disturbance which could claim a reference in this compilation. It is convenient, therefore, to leave the almost unfathomable past temporarily, in order to tell of those days immediately prior to Pakeha occupation and settlement along the Taranaki coast. Both Tasman and Cook noted the coast since its prominent mountain, the conical shaped Egmont, could not be missed and then came Captain Marion de Presne, in charge of a French exploring expedition consisting of two ships, the Mascarine and the Marquis de Castries. He sighted the mountain on March 24 1772 and named it “Le Pie de Mascarine" after the ship he was in.

. John Eutherford, an English sailor, appears to be the next European of whom we have any authentic account who visited Taranaki in the early days. Undoubtedly whalers called at different points along the coast sineo they were about Cook Strait at the beginning of the 19th century and in their voyages to and from Sydney musl have at some time come into contaci with rhe Taranaki tribes. However, the ‘‘White Chief," as Eutherford became known when ho returned to the world and gavo out his remarkable story of his experiences with the Maoris, appears to have been taken by his captives to Taranaki in the year 1817. Some few years prior to that episode in his life Eutherford, arrived at Poverty Bay in the American, brig Agnes where intercourse between Maori and Pakeha had been going on for some time. The atmosphere in that locality was thoroughly tainted with

almost indescribable brutality. The licentious conduct of the Pakeha whose numbers included escaped convicts from the penal settlements in Tasmania and New South Wales, had done much to destroy the initial confidence the Maori had in his white visitor with the result that the slightest affront produced bloodshed. The crew of the Agnes were among those to suffer and according to Rutherford’s story he was the only member of the ship’s complement of fifteen souls to escape. He says that he was taken in hand by the chief Aimy, married two of his daughters and travelled the country with the tribe who made their PakeMj, tapu. His experiences have been made the subject of a separate publication and in the course of his stay he records his visit to the Taranaki district in company with Aimy and his people." I took my Ebecka with me, and we were attended by about twenty slave women to carry our provisions, everyone of whom bore on her back, besides a supply for her own consumption, about thirty pounds of potatoes, and drove before her, at the same time, a pig which she held by a piece of flax to its foreleg. The men travel without being armed. Our.journey was made sometimes by water and sometimes by land. Proceeding in this manner we arrived, in about a month, at a place called Taranaki on the coast of Cook’s Strait where we were received by Otago, a great chief, who had come from near the South Cape. On meeting we saluted each other in the customary manner by touching noses, and there was a great dealfof, crying as usual." ’ (To be Continued.),.