Walk #8, 26th April 2025
The Wairau Lagoon is a vast salt marsh of interlacing waterways covering an area of 2000 ha. It stretches from the mouth of the river to White Bluffs in the south.
The wreck of the SS Waverley was to be sunk at the mouth of the Wairau River to form a breakwater, but floodwaters swept it into the lagoons instead.
Wairau Bar, a gravel bar on Marlborough’s Cloudy Bay coastline where the Wairau River flows into the sea, is a place so historically significant that it is referred to as the birthplace of our nation.
Walk: Blenheim 11
The Moa Hunter Artifacts from Wairau Bar
The Wairau Bar is the site of ancient Moa hunter grave relics. It is said to be one of the oldest occupied sites of NZ.
In 1942 about 2000 artefacts and 44 human skeletons were removed and examined in detail. These early colonisers were tall compared to most Polynesians. The skeletons were all found in shallow graves, with the heads pointing towards the east and the feet to the west, as was the practice in eastern Polynesia.
Of the extinct birds found in the middens, there were at least six species of Moa, the flightless NZ swan, the NZ crow and the gigantic Haast eagle. Evidence suggests that over 8000 Moa were slaughtered and over 2000 eggs consumed.
Necklaces were found as well as adzes and Moa eggs. The necklaces consisting of cotton reel shaped pieces held together by cord in a style common to the Marquesas Islands. A similar necklace was found at Whitianga Pa in the Coromandel Peninsula of the North Island.
We are expected to believe that these Moa hunter remains date from the 13th century – see my page How NZ is ‘mythtaken’ over the year 1350 – and belong to the Rangitane tribe who came from the Heretaunga (Hastings) area. Rangitane travelled south and occupied Dannevirke, Wairarapa, Wellington, and Wairau in the South Island. They displaced the Ngati Mamoe who had in turn displaced the earlier Waitaha people.
The remains at Wairau Bar predate the arrival of Rangitane
Initially, in 1939 the Rangitane tribe who later settled the area were unaware of the site. “It’s nothing to do with us,”’ and ‘“he’s not one of us,” they truthfully asserted when they saw the remains.
Excavations of the site undertaken from the 1940s through the 1960s identified three distinct burial groups, from which 42 individual burials were identified. These human remains and many of the artifacts recovered from the site were held at the Canterbury Museum as part of its permanent collection until 2009, until they were repatriated to Wairau Bar and Rangitane. Nothing more can now be learned.
In 2003 Rangitane made formal claims to repatriate the remains through the Waitangi Tribunal, asserting “they had been stolen.”
The Ohaki Māori Advisory Board acknowledged the significance of Māori spiritual beliefs and their significance within their cultural history. It conceded that the remains predated the arrival of Rangitane, but recommended a scientific study be undertaken in consultation with Rangitane, a decision which the iwi criticised.
Rangitane eventually got the burial relics from the Canterbury Museum after a compromise was made between “obtaining scientific knowledge and ‘respecting the cultural integrity’ of the remains.” Source: Re-excavating Wairau: A study of New Zealand repatriation and the excavation of Wairau Bar, By Shaun Hickland
In other words the science and the cultural integrity of the artifacts is compromised. And this from a site referred to as “the birthplace of our nation.”
What the mitochondrial DNA research reveals
At least DNA testing was done on the skeletons.
The results from the sequencing of four human samples from the site were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in October 2012. The results revealed there was a greater level of genetic diversity than expected in the early settlers of New Zealand, compared to the uniform Polynesian DNA.
Mitochondrial DNA is only inherited through the mother’s side and can be used to trace maternal lineages and provide insights into ancient origins and migration routes. Lead author Professor Lisa Matisoo-Smith said, “We found that three of the four individuals had no recent maternal ancestor in common, indicating that these pioneers were not simply from one tight-knit kin group, but instead included families that were not directly maternally related.
Source: Science Learning Hub | DNA diversity in early New Zealanders
So different population groups once lived together peacefully and were buried in the same burial group with similar grave goods. The results, which run counter to the narrative, were published quietly and without fanfare. The Moa hunter people were probably the Waitaha, who lived peacefully in NZ before Ngati Mamoe and Rangitane.
19 kms of hand dug canals
In 1903 CW Adams surveyed Wairau Bar and noted the existence of 12-miles (19 kilometres) of hand-dug canals. These linked the waterways of the alluvial plain together, bringing abundant fish resources into the region, as well as enhancing gardening. Extensive canal building and intensive wetlands gardening went hand-in-hand in other parts of ancient New Zealand as well.
European History
The south side of the Wairau River mouth was settled by Europeans in the 1840s, who set up a port to service Blenheim.
A pilot house was built in 1868 to guide ships across the bar. Today, it is the only pre-1900s building left in the area around the river mouth.
The southern end of Wairau Bar can be viewed from across the river, accessed by Wairau Bar Road.
My forefathers arrived from Scotland in 1840, and were among the first settlers in the area. All my grandmother could tell me was “some bad Maoris tried to kill is but some good Maoris saved us.” It’s probably an explanation given to her as a child. The family left the area after my Gran’s Great-Grandfather James Gilbert went missing, presumed drowned.
For more info see ‘James Gilbert’ in the links below.
Roadside Stories: Trouble at Tuamarina | Today a sleepy settlement between Picton and Blenheim, Tuamarina was the site of bloody conflict in June 1843. The New Zealand Company believed they had bought the Wairau plains – but Ngāti Toa chief Te Rauparaha considered that the area had not been purchased. He evicted surveyors from the Wairau, and when a party of settlers arrived to arrest him, conflict broke out.
Cobb Cottage, Blenheim
This historic building from 1865 or earlier can be seen while driving to the walk.
Links
Wairau River – ancient and modern engineering
Re-excavating Wairau:
A study of New Zealand repatriation and the excavation of Wairau Bar, By Shaun Hickland
DNA: Complete mitochondrial genome sequences of the remains from the archaeological site of Wairau Bar was done and compared against Polynesian DNA. Polynesian DNA is uniform. The settlement of most of East Polynesia occurred rapidly, in the period from A.D. ∼1190–1290 which explains the uniformity of the Polynesian DNA.
The DNA from the Wairau Bar people was unexpectedly diverse. At least three of the four individuals sequenced from the Wairau Bar site were not recently maternally related. Burials 1 and 2.1 were recovered in the same burial group (Group 1) with similar grave goods, presumed to be of high status, yet these two individuals belonged to two different haplotypes. Source, NIH : Complete mitochondrial DNA genome sequences from the first New Zealanders
Marlborough historian Barry Holdaway releases book on Wairau Bar village | The Wairau Bar is a well-known archaeological site, but Holdaway focused on the early Pakeha involvement with the area, beginning with the Wairau Massacre in 1843 and following the settlement through to the 1860s.
Story: Marlborough places | Lower Wairau
James Gilbert, the Scottish tailor at Te Awaiti | “In some places the sun was penetrating the clouds. “Kei puta te Wairau.” (The sun always finds a hole to shine through at Wairau.) In spite of the threat of inter-tribal war, and the depopulation that had taken place in the previous twelve years; in spite of the fear of further fighting; in spite of the cosmopolitan population that arrived every whaling season and the prostitution of Maori women; in spite of the drunken habits of Europeans, the sun was shining through several holes in the clouds.
A handful of Maoris from the northern mission stations had created a thirst for knowledge of the Gospel; some well-disposed Europeans welcomed anything that would help in the cultural advancement of their Maori partners and half-caste children; here and there a European became a self-appointed religious teacher, as did the Scottish tailor at Te Awaiti.
These people were not a large group among the residents, both Maori and Pakeha, but they were enough to give a missionary some hope of success. This was the Cloudy Bay for which Samuel and Sarah Ironside were preparing to set out in December 1840, and in which they were to spend the next three years of their lives.” Samuel Ironside in New Zealand 1939-1858, page 110
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