KAPITI ISLAND

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1832, 17 April 1907, Page 53

KAPITI ISLAND

X NATIVE BIRD SANCTUARY. the fortress isle of te RAUPARAHA. (Contributed.) Part 11. FROM TITEREMOANA. In point of scenery Kapiti is an island of surprises. Though of small extent the island is so broken up into defiles and steep ridges, and so beautifully wooded, that it offers a great diversity of landscape, with countless fine sea-scapes. The outlook from the trig-station on Titeremoana (literally “Ocean View,” the old-time look-out point of the Maoris) is particularly fine. Take potfc here on a summer morning when the sea-mists are rolling away before the sun, and the green forests open out and then blue ocean and the mainland, and few sights in Nature are more beautiful. On the one side the eye ranges down over wooded valleys, ablaze with flowering rata and waving with tree-ferns, to the inner sea, with the white beaches and sand-fumes of Waikanae glittering like chalk in the distance. On the other there is a complete contrast. Sheer at one’s feet the land drops away, in high precipitous cliffs to the boulder banks of the western coast. In some places these cliffs—that just below Titeremoana, feathered here and there with bush, has a height of 1600 or 1700 feein-are almost perpendicular, and the magnificent coast scenery for several miles closely resembles that of the boldest part of the Great Barrier Island, where the steamer Wairarapa was wrecked in 1894. Far below, the western swell thunders and hisses on the shinglehanks, and a long line of surf curves from northern to southern headlands. Fine, too, is a storm-picture from these high places of Kapiti. The tremendous assault of a- nor’-west gale on tifo© weather side of the island seems to shake the solid land, and the spindrift and spray are borne far up the cliffs. - Looking to leeward, the maim land is fringed with the white pr a great surf. Black clouds gather on the long forested summit of Kapakapanui, the outlier of the Tararuas overlooking Waikanae, and presently, perhaps, from the dun vapours a stroke of lightning flashes downwards on the sacree. peak, the ancient “omenmountain” of the coast-tribes. “Kai-tangata”-—“men-dievouring” —they call these lightning strokes darting straight downwards—a fateful omen for the tribal owners of the Pteak of Portent. Then- seawards again—a solitary ship may be seen on the white waste of waters, a little coastal steamer,-brave-ly plugging away into the teeth of the gale, away from the crashing surf that pounds: the boulders of Kurukohatu into pebbles, or running before the wind , and sea, Wellington-bound, with her smoke-blackened sails driving her along almost as fast as her labouring screw. ■ IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF TE RAUPARAHA. Every yard almost of the eastern and. northern shores of Kapiti is historic ground. - Memories of Te Rauparaha and his wild warriors of Nga4atoa and Ngatiawa are everywhere. Memories, too, of those, daring men the whalers, for Kapiti jyas from about 1836 to 1850 one, of the most importamt - of the r -shore, whaling-stations . in New Zealand, Rauparaha and ms followow from Kawliia and TarShaki captured Kapiti from. tl» EoagrtaM

and Ngatikahungunu tribes _ about 1820, and from that time till his death in 1849 the great war-leader of the West Coast spent most of his time on Kapiti. Here, with his savage lieutenant Rangihaeata, the sage old chief Te Pehi Kupe, and the young warrior To Hiko, he planned his periodical forays against the much-hunted Muaupoko of the mainland and the green-stone-owning tribes of the South, whose outlying highlands around Queen Charlotte and Pelorus Sounds he could see from his cliff eyries on Kapiti. Here were his stockaded pas (some of the sites are still to be seen) on the beach terraces at Kahu-o-be-Rangi (‘The Hawk of Heaven”), Taepiro (a coastpa surrendered by the Ngatikahungunu to Te Pehi), Rangitira and Whare-Kohu (“Mitsy Dwelling”). Very beautiful was the situation of the oldtime villages—very beautiful are some of these spots to-day with the lovely forest-growth clothing the steep hills almost to the rt eky beach-side, and little brooks cascading down through the wooded defiles. Here the loud call of the village sentinel was heard, in the midnight hours—and that time most feared by the Maori, the still dead hour just before the dawn—the defiant song of the “Whakaara-pa,” brought by Ngatitoa from their far away Northern birth-lands. The re-cently-deceased old chief of Waikanae, Wi Parata, heard it many a time as a boy in the great palisaded pa at the Waikanae river-mouth*. — “E ara! E ara! E tenei pa! E tenei pa! Kei apitia koe kite toto. Whakapuru tonu, Whakapuru tonu, Te tai ki Harihari. Ka tangi tiere Te tai ki Mokau. Kaore ko au E kimi ana, E hahau ana I nga pari ra Piri nga hakoakoa, E kau-oma tera. Ka toa atu tere Kia tua E-i-a ha-ha!” [“Arise! Arise! O soldiers of the fort! Lest ye go down to death. High. up, high up,' the thundering surf On Harikari’s cliffs resounds, And loud the wailing sea Beats on the Mokau Coast. And her© am I, on guard, Seeking, searching, peering As on those rocky crags The sea-hawk sits And watches for his prey, Or restless flies from ledge to ledge. O dauntless be, And outward flings the foe! Ah—ha —ha!”] The Maori was a toiler as well as a warrior in those days. The Kurukohatu flat, just north of Waiorua,, is remarkable in that it is covered with hundreds of cleared rectangular plots —the old kumara gardens—from which tons and tons of stones and boulders have been carefully gathered and piled up in regular rows and low walls. This was the work of many hundreds of hands, in fine days of Rauparaha’s occupancy ortho island, and also of his conquered predecessors —a notable reminder of the ancient energy and industry of the Maori communes. A BATTLE ROYAL. Te Rauparaha was always on the Alert even in his island-hold. Indeed, he and his people had to withstand a most fierce invasion here in 1822 —• an armada of war-canoes, manned by nearly 2000 warriors of the confederated tribes of Wthanganui, Ngatiapa, Ngatikahungunu, Rangitane, Ngafciktiia, and in faot every tribe from Wanganui southwards, with a contin-

gent from the South Island. The great flotilla, in two lines, started from Waikanae and Otaki simultaneously ; “the sea was covered with canoes.” Te Ratu, a Muaupoko chief who had been enslaved by the Ngatitoa, but who had escaped and organised this attack, was one of the leading warriors. The invaders landed at Waiorua, where the brave old chief Te Rangi Hiroa (Te Pehi’s younger brother, and grandfather of Wi Parata), with a small force of Ngatitoa, bore the brunt of the fight, but was driven by force of numbers to the extreme north end of the island, near the lagoon Okupe. Te Rauparaha and his hapu, Ngati-kimihia, were away at Wharekohu, at the south end, at the time, and he himself did not take part in the fight. His men, however, arrived in time to change the current of the battle, and fell upon the enemy with the utmost fury, utterly defeating them and killing, it is said, 170. Many of the bodies were thrown, into Okupe Lake (human bones are to be seen to this day around the shores of this half-mile lagoon). Many others, including that of Te Ratu, the exslave, were thrown into a huge oven or hangi, dug on the flat near Waiorua, and the victors feasted mightily on tho flesh of the slain. So many were there that they could not all be eaten, and the hangi was their tomb. To this day an old song of triumph, composed by the chieftaines3 Oriwia, in memory of this episode, is current amongst the people of the Ngatitoa and Ngatiawa tribes. A fragment runs: — “Tera ano ra „ Taku umu —paka—roa Kei Waiorua, E tuwbera ana. E taku nei ra Te Ahi —a —Tamatea ! E—i!” [“Yonder see you My great scorching red-glowing oven, At Waiorua, Gaping open for you! Blazing yonder Are tiie Fires of Tamatea!”] This was a popular “jeering-song” amongst the bumptious Ngatitoa in past years, and even now it is not exactly polite to quote it to a descendant of any of the conquered tribes. A SWIM FOR A HUSBAND. A hitherto unrecorded incident of this battle of Waiorua is noteworthy as illustrative of the “masterful” nature of the Maori wahine. A woman named Hine-wairoro. who had fought valiantly side by side with her tribespeople of Ngatitoa, swam out to sea after a fugitive chief, one Pitihono, who took to the water* when the fight was lost. She captured him in the sea, towed him back to the Kurukohatu flat, and triumphantly claimed him as her slave-husband. (The ladies bunted for husbands even in those primitive days!). Some hungry warrior, however, marked out for the oven the lady’s “mokai” mate. He tied a piece of flax round one of the legs of the captive, in accordance with the pleasant custom of the Maori, to signify that that was the tit-bit he wished to eat. That evening poor Pitihono was knocked on the head, cooked and eaten, and Hine-wairoro lost the tame husband She had been at so much trouble to catch. THE STORIED 00AST. Travelling along the beach track from Waiorua to the southern end of the island, and clambering along the rocky cliffs, one passes many spots with legendary and mythological associations. One of these, just to the south of the Maraetakaroro stream, is an isolated rook called “Kai-tangata,” a sacred place in Maori eyes. ( It was the abode of the tutelary spirit of the district, the shrine (“uru-uru-wkehua), of

the genius loci. At its foot passers-by were accustomed to cast handfuls of greenleavcs, of the raurekau or some other shrub, and repeat incantatioaa to propitiate the unseen guardians of the land (“he whakaautanga, he whakaaeo te tipua”). Off-shore are three small islands, Tokamapuna, Motungarara (“Lizard Island”), and Tahoramaurea. On the two former were wha- • ling-stations. On Motu-ngarara Te Rauparaha had a pa, and it was from here that he started off in his warcanoe when he saw the battle of the “Kuititamga” fought on the Waikanae beach in 1839 between the Ngatiava and Ngatiraukawa tribes. “Nga Kuri-a-Kuiapoupou” (“The Dogs of Kuia-poupou”) are two remarkable cliff-rooks at the extreme south-west corner of Kapiti. A Maori legend has it that a woman named Kuia-poupou, from Arapawa Island, Queen Charlotte Sound, wdio had been marooned on Kapiti by her husband, threw herself into the sea here and, aided by friendly “taniwhas,” swam across Cook Strait to Arapawa—-a trifle of thirty miles or so. This feat (which the sceptical paketha may be excused for doubting) was rather more than even Hinemoa or Hinewairora would have attempted. Kuia’s two dogs descended the cliff after her, but were afraid to enter the water, and remained howling hear the beach. The gods apparently became weary of the canine lament, for they speedily turned the dogs to stone, and there they remain to this day, one behind the other, gazing seawards, the petrified pets of Kuia-poupou —in testimony Ix> the bona-fides of this tale of the Maori. According to a hitherto imprinted story, Sir George Grey once set his fancy on Kapiti. It was about 1862, during his first term as Governor of New Zealand, and he endeavoured to buy the island, as a home. It is said that he offered £SOOO for it to the Ngatitoa and Ngatiawa tribes, but the offer was refused. In those early days Grey also unsuccessfully endeavoured to purchase Mokoia Island, in Lake Rotorua, from the Atrawa Maoris. Subsequently he bought Kawsu Island, in the Hauraki Gulf, and established his home there. Somewhat reminiscent of the Rauparaha this—the eoldieTstatesman’s craving for a lone little isle of his own. A DARK CHAPTER OF HISTORY. Kapiti Island was ait the height of its ronown in the decade 1835-1845. _R&uparaha and his ever-victorious Ngatitoa lived there in semi-savage state; their war-canoes were drawn up above the shingly beaches, and on the waterside terraces were scores of huts belonging to the European whalers who manned the boat stations of Kapiti and ’ts neighbouring islets •, < and the nightly glare of their txypot furnaces lit up the sky for miles. A dark chapter in New Zealand history, and one which opens at Kapiti, is the story of the notorious brig Elizabeth, and her captain’s share in a cannibal expedition. In the year 1830 RauparaJia made preparations for a raid on the Land of Greenstone. _ As the result of the murder of the highchief Te Pehi Kupe, Rauparaha’s relative, by the Ngaitaliu tribe while on a visit to Kaiajjoi Pa, in the South Island, a .favourable opportunity of carrying out this expedition of revenge soon offered itself. About the end of that year a British trading brig, tho Elizabeth, from Sydney, called at Kapiti, and dropped anchor near Rauparaha’s village. Rauparaha persuaded the captain, a man named Stewart, to convey him and his warriors to the South Island, engaging to give him in return 50 ton 3 of dressed flax, then worth about £I2OO, The Elizabeth was a storngly armed vessel-—as were most traders and south-sea whalers in those days— carrying four guns von each sidt

and two swivel guns aft, besides a large supply of small arms- Stewart readily entered ' into the Maori plan ; bf cam: jpaign, though. it is only .charitable to doubt whether he would have done so had he been able to foresee the cannibal horrors that followed, and the deeds perpetrated on his deck. The .brig sailed down to Akaroa with Rauparaha and his war-party; Tamaiharenui was treacherously enticed on board in onb of the ship’s boats, and was oonfined in irons in one of the cabins, while his village was attacked and captured and scores of his unfortunate tribespeople killed. Their bodies ■ were brought on board the brig by the cannibal, warriors; -and it is' said - that human flesh was booked in the vessel’s coppers. , - Tamalharanui was taken to Kapiti, thenoe to Otaki, and there hung up, tortured, and ’killed. When. he was hung up, the widows of the chiefs killed at Kaiapoi avenged their woes with all (the savagery of Red Indians. The story handed down amongst the Waikanae Maoris is that these bereaved Amazons heated an iron ramrod (okaoka-pu, .literally “gun-stabber”) in a fire until it was red-hot, and then thrust it into the chief’s neck, and applying their mouths to the wound drank the blood as it gushed out. Tamaiharanui bore his torture with fortitude and bravery. •His body was eaten at Otaki. The bodies of thirty or forty others cf Tamaiharanui’s. tribespeople were cooked, a.' d eaten on Kapiti and on the islets of A'okamapuna and. Motu-ngarara, by Ngatitoa and their relations. MEMORIES OF OLDEN DAYS. , The late Wi Parata, the head-man of Waikanae/ who was born on Kapiti about 1837, well remembered seeing Te Rauparaha and his funeral ceremony. He' described Rauparaha as a man of small stature, but very active,. with a curved hawk-like nose, and a keen ‘ and watchful eye. Wi Parata represented both Ngatitoa and Ngatiawa tribes. His mother was' a chieftainess named Waipunahau, daughter of Te Rangihiroa, the hero of the Waiorua battle in 182*2. Te Rangihiroa, who marched down from ICawhia with Rauparaha, was in the direot line of descent from Hoturoa, the- captain of the Tainui canoe which landed at Kawhia from the South Sea Islands six centuries ago. Wi’s father was one of the whalers who had settled at Kapiti in the “thirties,” one Stubbs. This man was an American and v was noted as a daring whaleman. He was drowned with his boat’s crew about 1838, while fast to a whale which lie had killed near the mainland. The weatner became bad while the crew were endeavouring to tow their catch to.the island, and they were capsized and lost during the night off the Pukerua bluffs. Si-ebbs’ body was afterwards found washed up on the teach at Pukerua and was taken and buried on the Kapiti islets (Tokamapura), where the grave is marked by a huge piece of whale’s-bone. . It was in 1839 that the New Zealand Company’s ship Tory, with the founders of Wellington on board— Colonel Wakefield and his co-pioneers —arrived at Kapiti, and dropped anchor near. Motungarara, where Rauparaha then lived. Some interesting accounts of whaling life and Maori' notables at Kapiti at that time are given in Edward Jerningham Wakefield’s “Adventures in New Zealand.” The Tory’s people found that there had just been a Maori battle on the beach at Waikanae—the fight of the “Kuititanga”—between the Ngatiawa and Ngatiraukawa tribes. Shortly before this there had been a great gathering of the tribes on Mana Island, on the occasion of the funeral of Waitohi, Rauparaha’s sister. At this gathering Rauparaha killed and, with the aid of his Ngatiraukawa “rangatira” friends, ate one of the Rangitane slaves who had brought him tribute from Pelorus Sound (Ohiere). After this event Rauparaha fomented a quarrel between the Ngatiawa and Ngatiraukawa tribes, which culminated in a fierce tribal scrimmage at Waikanae. Here, extendirfg along the sandhills above the surf, near the mouth of the Waikanae River, was the great palisaded

pa of the Ngatiawa. The outer line of stockade was at least a mile in circumference. Wi Parata lived in this pa in his childhood, and well remembered the massive tukuaru posts and the. huge carved wooden figures that stood around the walls, grinning defiance on all comers. It was, from this pa, in 1848, that he saw Wireihu Kingi take his departure with his tribe, the bulk of Ngatiawa, in warcanoes and boats, for his ancestral home, Taranaki. Three or four hundred warriors were engaged on each side, and the fight first raged round the pa walls, then along the beach and the sand-hills. Many scores were killed and wounded. The three surgeons "from the Tory attended to the wounded. Rauparaha had witnessed the beginning of this fight from Motungurara, and put off to the mainland in his war-canoe. He stood neutral during the fight, but was attacked by the Ngatiawa towards the end of the battle, and only escaped by swimming off to his anchored canoe. PORTRAITS IN MINIATURE. Of the Maori chiefs at Kapiti in 1839, Wakefield describes Rauparaha as “cringing and treacherous.” Te Hiko (son of Te Pehi Ivupe) “struck us forcibly,” he writes, “by his commanding stature, by his noble, inteP ligent physiognomy, and by his truly chieftain-like demeanour.” (Te Hiko’s descendants now live at the little settlement on Porirua Harbour). Te Ramgihiroa (brother of Te Pehi), the hero of Waiorua, was described as a kind-hearted, worthy old chief. It was during the Tory’s stay at Kapiti that Rauparaha, Rangihaeata, Te. Hiko, and others signed a deed of sale of certain lands on both sides of Cook Strait to Colonel Wakefield, each receiving a double-barelled gun and various other goods. Rauparaha afterwards repudiated the bargain. Amongst the vessels -seen by the Tory at Kapiti was an ex-American whaler, a small barque which had been wrecked at the Bay of Islands, bought by New Zealand residents, refitted, and placed under the native New Zealand flag. She was rechristened the Tokerau (“Hundred Rocks”), the Maori name of the Bay of Islands. In the “forties” of last century tliere were five whaling stations on Kapiti, for the capture of the “right” and hump-backed whales which frequented Cook Strait, and often passed between the island and the mainland. In 1884 there were seven whaleboats at the Kapiti station and two on Mana Island. At Waiorua Bay (north-east-end of the island) close to the landing place, is still to be seen one of the whalers’ big trypots, used for boiling down the blubber, still intact, set on its old stone furnace. The trypot is very heavy, and massive, and is some four feet in diameter. Several others stood at Waiorua and in the other bays; and many relics of the whaling days, in the form of great pieces of whalebones, hoops for the oil-casks, etc., are to be seen along the eastern beaches. Wild and ro--rnantic must have been those night scenes after a successful day’s boattrip, at Rangatira and Kahu-o-te-Rangi and Waiorua, the piratical figures of the whale-catchers tending their trypots and moving round their great fires, against the black background of the forested hills. There are sketches in existence, the work of Gilfilian, of Wanganui, in the early ’forties, showing these whaling villages and the oldstyle brigs and schooners in the bays, with sailors boating off the great casks of oil from the shore. WHALERS AND MAORIS. At Kahu-o-te-Rangi Bay the whalers ' had a particularly enticing little nook. The sites of their houses are still to be seen here. One day, exploring in the bush, a little distance back from the beach, by the side of the little nook, we discovered a levelled floor place and an old chimney, the last relics of some whale-fisher’s hut. Tall manuka and small koliekohe trees were growing on the site of the old sailorman’s home. It had been deserted for probably more than half a century. This Kahu-o-te-Rangi beach Bide is a lovely little spot, enclosed by two arms of the steep hills, where the bell-bird and the tui feast on the young leaves of the mahoe and kawakawa and the konini berries. A tiny stream cascades down the wooded valley, and runs through the site of the olden pakeha-Maori village. On the south rfide of thet hay is a remarkable rock, with a cave right through it, like a long, narrow window, some 20ft high and 2ft tor 3ft wide. The rock looks like some gigantic sentry-box guarding the little bay. This cave, once blocked in at either side, was formerly used as a burial place by the Ngatico» tribe. The remains of the dead were lowered into it from the top or the rock, where there is a crevice penetrating to the cave. : lii 1843 Rauparaha and To Rangihaivtta picked; a*, quarrel with “Long George,”/'who a /small two-boat station on the main island of Kapiti, and seized his gear, 'boat, etc., taking all he had away to Rauparaha’s island. This deed/rouaod /the wlialers at T<©

Kahu-o-te-Rangi station. They filled two or three boats with men, armed with lances, harpoons, spades, old muskets, etc., and went to the rescue. Landing in determined array, they thoroughly cowed old Rauparaha, and forced him to give up the boats and send his own men to launch them and replace the gear, and then sailed homo in triumph at having for once bluffed the “Old Sarpint” at his own game. Old “Tommy” Evans was one of the most noted whalers of Kapiti. His boat-station on Tokamapuna islet in 1839 was “a model of discipline,” in contrast with many of the others. “His whaleboat,” writes Wakefield, “might have been taken for a fancy gig from a man-of-war or a yacht. She was painted flesh-colour, with a red nose, bearing the Prince of Wales s Feather, and her name, Saucy Jack, was painted near the stern. The crew were generally in a sort of uniform—red or blue worsted shirts, with white binding on the seams; white trousers, and sou’-westers. When she dashed alongside a vessel at anchor, the oars were shipped and the steer-oar drawn in and received by the after-oarsman as the headsman left the boat.” As an instance of the daring of the 'old whalers, Wakefield mentions having seen a whaleboat leave Wellington for Kailcoura in a gale of wind which kept many small coasters in. “Black Murray,” the chief headsman, thought liis men bad been enjoying drinking enough on their advances, and considered it easier to get them away to the station while they were intoxicated. He got safely across the stormy Straits, as the result of his own skill and daring, and his drunken crew achieved a feat that ivould have been very perilous even to sober men.