THE TREE IS FELLED

Te Ao Hou, December 1956, Page 12

THE TREE IS FELLED It was somewhere in the early 1700's, while Clive was cavorting about in India, that Konohe took Tataingaoterangi back to Whangara and wedded her to his son. From that union was born Hinematioro, in whose blood converged the lines of greatness of all the East Coast chiefs, and she was so distinguished in her lineage that her fame spread far and wide as the great Queen of the East Coast. The rise of Hinematioro was the cause of the fall of our tree. In the person of Hinematioro there occurred one of the fusings of the leading lines of exalted descent which made her the outstanding chief-tainess of her time. She became known throughout the country as the great Queen of the East Coast, though, because her mother had been given to Konohe, there are some who claim her greatness was modified by that circumstance. However, it may be expected that there were few who were game to make such a statement at that time, or they might have come to a grim end. To so great a person there came, in those ancient Maori times, a constant flow of gifts. Food was here by right of mere being, and tributes of birds, fish, roots, rats and berries flowed in from all who desired to show their loyalty. There would be gifts too of toys, kites, jumping jacks, and other trifles beloved of Maori children, and their elders too. As far as can be gathered Hinematioro was

The handing over of Rakau Tamatea Reke was done with some formality. Mr Hira Paenga (right), on behalf of the Whangara Tribal Committee, handed the relic over to Mr Rongo Halbert (centre), chairman of the Maori Museum Committee. Left is Mr Leo Fowler, secretary of the museum committee and author of this articlie. Mr Fowler is manager of 2XG radio station. born about the year 1745. That was the year when the Young Pretender failed in his attempt to win back the crown of England. And while the infant Hinematioro was cooing in her kit of flax-fibres, and Bonny Prince Charlie's defeated followers were being butchered by the red-coats or hung-drawn and quartered on Tower Hill, a young lad named James Cook was changing his occupation from apprentice in a haberdasher's shop to apprentice on a coastal collier in Yorkshire. Meanwhile it became necessary to have a food store whereby the gifts of food which continued to pour in in honour of Hinematioro could be suitably stored and displayed. And so our tree, which had been tapu'd and set aside for just such a purpose, was selected to become the storehouse of Hinematioro. The tohungas came and performed their karakia to take the tapu off the tree that it might be cut. The leader of the working party, himself a chief of high rank, would approach the tree and make the first chip in its bark with his toki-pou-tangata, the greenstone adze, set in a richly carved haft, which was carried only by chiefs of high rank. The resultant chip would be offered to Tane, god of forests and birds. Then the men would move in and the felling of the tree would begin. They would chip away with their heavy stone adzes until they had gouged out a double ring around the tree, and the wood between those rings would be laboriously removed with a long handled, very heavy stone adze called a ‘poki’, hafted horizontal to the handle, like a chisel, instead of at right angles like an adze. In due course the long arduous felling would be completed and our tree, with its smaller branches removed entirely, and the larger branches trimmed back near to the trunk would be dragged away, with many incantations and chants, to its resting place close to where the town of Tolaga Bay now stands. It must have taken a hole at least six feet deep and at least two feet in diameter to have accommodated the ponderous butt of that mighty puriri log. Digging this hole with the stone and wooden implements then in use was no joke, but slaves were plenty and time mattered little, so finally the hole would be dug, and the last hand

ful of soil removed by the diggers. The front of the hole would have sloped outward at the top, and the back of the hole protected by a lining of heavy saplings to prevent the mighty butt from gouging into it. A gigantic frame work, or staging or gantry would have been erected and over this would have been thrown a rope of twisted flax. Hundreds of men would have hauled and pushed, and pulled and struggled until finally the enormous tree would be firmly erect in its hole. As it was the storehouse of a person of such eminence it would, of course have been given a name. “Rakau Tamatea Reke” was the name given, in honour of that Tamatea Toi, great ancestress of the whole Wahineiti. In due course a small carved receptacle, of the type we have come to know as a pataka would have been made, richly carved, and placed in position at the top of the pole storehouse some twenty feet or more above ground-level, and if old traditions are to be believed above fly level too. The food store would then become a ‘timanga’ or ‘komanga’ and would then be thickly hung with food as long as Hinematioro's mana persisted. It would have been standing there for some 17 or 20 years when a strange ship would sail into the bay of Uawa, which we now know as Tolaga Bay. This ship would have been commanded by a young naval lieutenant, named James Cook whom we remember as having become a collier's apprentice some 18 years before. Time went on, Hinematioro married and had children. These children in turn had children, and of them was Te Kani a Takirau, the greatest chief of the East Coast, who was invited to be the Maori king. Within the two generations between Hinematioro and Tekaniatakirau, many things happened. The Ngapuhi raided from far off Bay of Islands killing hundreds of East Coast people and stacking the racking ovens with their flesh as prelude to many a cannibal feast. Then came other pakehas, the whalers and the traders. Then the missionaries and the old ways of warfare, slavery and cannibalism gradually passed away. With them passed Hinematioro, lost, as an old old woman, in the welter of wars between the tribes. But the tree remained and it saw all things. It saw the coming of Te Kooti, and the passing of the Hauhaus. It saw the beginnings of pakeha settlement and the spread of prosperity for both races. It too, though cherished by the tribe, felt the keen appetite of the passing years. Many times its base rotted in the ground, but each time it fell it was re-erected, a litle shorter than before. Somewhere between the time it saw Maori volunteers depart to fight for the Great white Queen in the Boer War, and the time the first world war started, it was removed to Whangara. Here again it was erected. It saw the men of the first Maori battalion come back from Hitler's war. But during these years its deterioration increased and it was recently decided by the Whangara tribal committee to transfer it from its outdoor position on the grounds of the Whiterea Marae, to the Gisborne Museum. Here it will be preserved and erected in a suitable display. It will continue to belong to Ngati Konohe but a wider circle of people will be able to see this famous relic, the only one of its kind, which has witnessed over a thousand years of history here on the East Coast, and may exist to see another thousand.