Walks relating to Ngati Hotu

The Ngati Hotu were the original people who lived around Lake Taupo / National Park. A remnant survived at Te Rena (27 km southeast of Taumarunui) represented by green eyed, red haired Monica Matamau.

Here are some sites related to the Ngati Hotu: the site of the final massacre near Taumarunui, an old trail from Te Porere to Te Rena, a site at Tokaanu near Turangi where ancient skulls were unearthed under eight feet of pumice, and stone aligments at Taupo.

Taumarunui walk

Unbeknown to me at the time, in 2017 parliament passed the Te Awa Tupua (Whanganui River Claims Settlement) Bill and the Whanganui River became “a person.” There’s a soft, lyrical, romantic article about “the innovative law” in the National Geographic. I can’t remember it mentioning anything about the bloodshed on the river.

Here’s what the bill means in english: Te Awa is ‘the river’ and tupua is a goblin, foreigner, demon, object of fear, a strange being.

As well as a tupua, there are taniwhas. A taniwha is a water spirit, monster, powerful being which often live in lakes, rivers or the sea. They are often regarded as guardians by the people who live in their territory, but may also have a malign influence on human beings.

Before the Battle of the Five Forts, the harried remnants of the Ngati Hotu lived at Kakahi. The Whanganui Māori attacked and took the forts one by one. The final, brutal episode of the battle was played out on the flats between Kakahi and the Whanganui river.

There was a whirlpool at the confluence of the Whanganui and Whakapapa rivers (at Kakahi) which Maori believed was caused by Whangaipeke, the taniwha of the Whanganui River, when he turned around to head back downstream to his lair. The whirlpool has disappeared since the waters were diverted into the western diversion tunnel.

The name of Whangaipeke relates to the vanquished ngāti Hotu whose limbs were dismembered and fed to this taniwha.
Ngāti Manunui, The National Park District Inquiry Report, Page 96

Is there some cultural amnesia over this?

National Park

Below: Te Porere Redoubt, between Turangi and National Park. This is the site of an old Ngāti Hotu track leading to Te Rena, where a remnant of Ngati Hotu lived.

Te Porere Redoubt walk

Turangi

what do you say when the museum itself is an artifact?

There’s an empty lot off to one side of State Highway 41 beyond the southern fringe of the small town, which was the site of the Turangi Museum. Fifty years ago the museum was regarded as a national treasure and attracted busloads – the parking area had to be extended to accommodate six buses at a time.

The pre-maori artifacts and other historical exhibits unearthed from the excavations for the Tokaanu tail race below the power station were arguably the most extensive collection of pre-maori moa hunter period artifacts in NZ. Where are they now?

The Ghost Museum

Tokaanu

Bones were excavated near the Tokaanu Stream during the work on the Tongariro Power Development in 1966. Some eight feet of pumice had been removed before the bones were discovered. The loader driver had unearthed the skulls of a very early, pre-Polynesian people. The skulls were the same shape as the Waitaha skulls found underneath the pumice layer in the Horowhenua.

Related walk: Tokaanu walk

Lake Taupo

When Tia, an explorer from the Arawa canoe arrived in Taupo, he was disappointed to find a large tribe, Ngāti Hotu, already living there. Because of development, not much is left to show of them.