IN SEARCH OF THE NORTH ISLAND

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 3, 5 January 1937, Page 3

IN SEARCH OF THE NORTH ISLAND

Division Among the Tribes

(Part 3-31) (Copyright)

Some of the tribes of the north claim a ‘‘heavenly descent, 77 or in other words, through the god-man, Tawhaki, and this fact has resulted in much confusion in endeavouring to penetrate the mystic background of Maori nomenclature. Generally speaking the several tribes take pride in being able to recite genealogies commencing with one or the other of the principal canoes of the migration but there are others who go baek further, some even to the beginning of time as measured in Maori, or Polynesian, cosmogony. * And again others introduce aborigine or tangatawhenua ancestors or claim descent from Toi, or Kupe, thus increasing the difficulty of arriving at any very conclusive period of time when the settlement of New Zealand really commenced. Polynesian history is full of the practice of localising legends and we find in tho north a story concerning Tawhaki who had been scouring the seas in search of his wife. Finding her last dwelling place he made a close search but discovered that she had departed heavenward so he ascended after her. “Tribal pride 77 suggests Smith, “has here cloth-

ed a local hero with the attributes of a national god and surrounded him with that halo of romance so dear to all Polynesians. 77

Returning to the Mamari canoe her two leaders, Nuku-tawhiti and Rua-nui, built two houses-whare-kura-near Hokianga heads and generations later their sons carried tho dreaded name of Nga Puhi to all parts of Te Ika-a-Maui. Old Nuku-tawhiti lived to see strife grow up between his many grandsons and to settle this trouble over tho land he divided the country between his sons and grandsons. They subsequently mixed with the tangata-whenua and Te-tini-e-Toi, “The multitude of Toi, 77 and through Puhi-moana-ariki, ultimately became known as Nga Puhi. The great Nga Puhi chiefs Patu-one, Waka Nene, Muriwai trace descent from the grandson of Puhi-moana-ariki, named Pahiri, who flourished about the time when the Ngati-Awa departed from the north for Taranaki. One of Rahiri’s sons married Kai-awhi, a direct descendent of the Ngati-whatua ancestor, Tumutumuwhenua, who was an aboriginal. This son,. Kaharau, was a great warrior in his time and lived at a pa called KoJfo-pari-tehe, at Pakanae, Kokianga. In addition to the mingling with the people who came in the Mamari canoe it is found that the northern tribes also mixed with some of tho people who came in the Arawa canoe which landed at Maketu, Bay of Plenty in 1350. To summarise it would appear that northern peninsula was definitely occupied by a tangata-whenua at a period long before the arrival of Toi who first settled at round about Whakat-ane. Subsequently Kupe (Kupe 2nd?) came and then arrived the Mahuhu canoe with the ancestors of the Nagti Whatua, either just before or immeditely after the visit of Tu-moana. The canoes containing the ancestors of the Nga Puhi people were next to arrive. Many other canoes, no doubt, arrived between the time of tho arrival of the Mahuhu and those vessels on which the Nga Puhi ancestors came and the population became welded into two distinct units, Ngati Whatua and Nga Puhi. The next major tribe in the district was the Nagti Awa but they subsequently departed, one section going to the east coast and the other to Taranaki, leaving the country known as the northern peninsula in tho hands of the two principal tribes indicated. The Ngati Awa tribe was of a wandering and restless disposition, who claim descent from Te Awa-nui-a-rangi. Who was this ancestor? Was he the son of Toi, tho celebrated aboriginal ancestor of so many tribes? Ngai-Tahu tribes of the south Island have knowledge of an ancestor of the same name who lived in Hawaiki about twentynine generations ago and Percy {Smith concludes that the tribe was known as Ngati Awa before it migrated to Aotea Roa in 1350. The headquarters of the Ngati Awa during their occupation of the north was about* Kaitaia. They were a powerful tribe and were for a period successful against bottli Nga Puhi and Ngati Whatua. White says: “Having by force of numbe;s taken all the land on the west coast north of Kaipara and all on the east coast north of Whangarei, they claimed it as their own, not only by the law of might, but because of having buried their dead in the sacred places of tho tribes of the land; for they had, according to native law, proved the power of their own heathen customs relative to the dead, to be superior to that of the tribes into whose districts they had come. I may. mention that tho laws relative to the burial of tho dead are strict. It is supposed that to bury the dead of an inferior tribe in the same place where superior chiefs are interred, without the consent of the relatives of tho superior chiefs, would cause the gods of the superior chiefs to destroy the tribe of the relatives of the inferior chiefs so buried; hence the circumstance of the Ngati Awa having buried their dead in utter disregard of such custom, proved an indisputed right to the district, not only by the law of force, but by that of superior rank. 77 Some of the burial grounds remain sacred. Ngati Awa sojourn in the north was marked by continual war between Ngati Whatua and Nga Puhi. Near Kaitaia was an old pa of Ngati Awa and on the land in front took place a battle which was followed by the de- > parture of Ngati Awa who suffered defeat a£ the hands of Nga Puhi and

allied tribes. White records that in the wars the time came when Kauri was appointed supreme chief of the Ngati Awa and directed the undertaking of a great work which was planned to ruin the cultivations of the Ngati Whatua. The idea was to dig a big ditch leading from the West Coast to tho swamps which He around lake Tangongo aiid the head of the Awanui river, in order to swamp the fiats near Kaitaia and thus ruin the cultivations of Ngati Whatua with salt water so that the people of Ngati Whatua might starve or be forced to migrate elsewhere. The Ngati Awa set to work on this huge undertaking and continued it for some distance but were ultimately compelled to abandon the task as they broke so many spades.

Constant strife and the. growing power of Nga Puhi and Ngati Whatua ultimately led to the migration to Tauranga and Taranaki of Ngati Awa. They passed by way of the sources of the Kaipara, Manukau and Waikato and the country was left in the hands of Ngati Whatua and Nga puhi and their allied subsidiary tribes or hapus. Coming nearer to our vantage point, Mount Eden, the famous Orakei judgment of Judge Fenton, states that the immediate district northward was originally occupied by a tribe called Nga-oho whose off-shoot, Nga Iwi, were responsible for building the great pa ’s around Auckland. The origination of this tribe is uncertain for traditions are at variance. Some claim that they were descended from the Tainui canoe and others that they trace descent from Toi. They were know’n to Ngati-Whatua who generally referred to them as Wai-o-hua, derived from a chief named Hua.

These people occupied we country round about Kaipara and southwards to the Auckland isthmus but between wo years 1730 and 1740 were routed by Ngati Whatua and compelled to retreat to the large pa’s they built in Auckland. At the time of the conquest of Kaipara the principal chief of the Wai-o-hua was named Kiwi, or KiwiTamaki, and ho lived at MauDga-kie-kie, or One Tree Hill, but the largest pa and one of the largest in Aotea Roa, was on Mount Eden (Maunga Whau)— famous in Maori history as the dwelling place of the fair Puhi Huia who eloped with Ponga. Smith tells the following story concerning the O-wai-raka pa (Mt. Albert). Not long before tho downfall of the Wai-ohua power on the isthmus, some hapus of the tribe were beseiged in the O-wai-raka pa by a party of the Ngati Paoa tribe who resided on the shores of the Hauraki gulf. The water supply of the pa was cut off and the beseiged reduced to great straits by thirst. Ngati Paoa were in daily expectation of the capitulation of the pa but were deprived of the realisation of a canibal feast, because, under the guidance of Taka, chief of the Wai-o-hua, the occupants of the pa abandoned the place one dark night, making for the lava stream below. Here they entered a cave known only to themselves and travelled underground till they came out on the shores of the Waitemata at Te Rehu close to where tho Auckland water-works reservoir stood. They thus escaped their enemies, all but the chief himself, who was too stout to pass a narrow place in the cave. The lino of the lava flow from the old volcano of Mt. Albert ran into the harbour near Te Rehu where if is exposed at low tide as a reef extending towards Kauri point. The legend concerning this reef attributes it to the work of the Patu-pae-arche—the fairies —who carried the rocks from the lava stream with the intention of bridgiug the Waitemata. They worked at night and when daylight dawned they had failed to finish the task and fled. The reef, called Tokaroa, only extends part way across the harbour.

(To be continued.)