Tag: Kupe

Te Pa o Kapo, Titahi Bay

Walk #83, 3rd March 2022

We stopped here to eat breakfast on our way home from Wellington after witnessing the end of the protest at Parliament Grounds. We felt shattered.

Eating our food, we watched a couple of divers enter the sparkling water. A man and his dog played fetch with a driftwood stick and two yachts sailed slowly by. In the calm and tranquil peace of the morning we realised life would go on.

This is a stunning part of the lower North Island west coast. Mana Island could be seen in the distance and beyond that, misty and barely disernable, the mountains of the South Island.



Our breakfast spot
Looking out to
Mana Island
Te Pa o Kapo, Titahi Bay

History

The place name means the Pa of Kapo. The tribe was Ngati Ira. Te Pa o Kapo may have been occupied for as long as 400 years, but when Te Rauparaha invaded the area in 1819-20 the pa had already been abandoned.

Ethnographer Elsdon Best (who was born at Tawa) visited the pa and was impressed by the superb defences. He noted that at the time the stumps of the totara pallisading were still visible.

I suspect the rock at the site may have been a tuahu. Each canoe and tribe had one, a sacred place marked by a stone.

A plaque in front of the stone reads, “This is the site of a fortified pa occupied by Ngati Ira prior to 1820. The defensive bank and artificially narrowed causeway were once clearly visible. Archaeological evidence suggests there was an extensive settlement in this area.”

Walk: Wellinton 13

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Kupe’s anchor

It is said that Kupe’s anchor used to lie on the Porirua foreshore. This is the narrative or korero from Te Ara about Kupe’s anchor: “The Polynesian explorer, Kupe, visited this area and named Porirua Harbour, Mana Island and his landing place, Komanga Point, situated south of Titahi Bay. The anchor stone from Kupe’s canoe, Mātāwhaorua, rested for many years on what is now Ngati Toa Domain. It is now at Te Papa.”

Be aware, this is a classic example of revisionist history about canoes and dates of discovery. Te Ara are wrong on two counts; they haven’t mentioned there were two explorers named Kupe and they failed to point out the stone is actually local greywacke.

Here’s the stone which is NOT from Kupe’s canoe. It used to lie on the beach at Porirua.

Links

Titahi Bay

Porirua City

Ngati Ira: Intermarried with Ngati Tara. In 1819 a war party comprising Taranaki, Atiawa, Ngati Toa, Ngapuhi and Ngati Whatua attacked the Wellington area, destroying the main Ngati Ira fortifications. Most Ngati Ira fled to the Wairarapa where they still live today.

WELLINGTON’S TE ARA O NGA TUPUNA HERITAGE TRAIL

KUPE’S VISIT TO NEW ZEALAND: Kupe and his people discovered people at various places. These people were the Mamoe, the Turehu, the Tahurangi, the Poke-pokewai, the Patupaiarehe, the Turepe and the Hamoamoa. “Such is the story as told me by my elder Tati Wharekawa.”

The Land of Tara and they who settled it, by Elsdon Best : The story of the occupation of Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara (the great harbour of Tara) or Port Nicholson by the Maori.

Arai te Uru Reserve, Omapere

Walk 42, 29th September 2020

This is a walk to the site of the former Signal Station. From that spot there’s a sweeping view of Hokianga Heads, the coast, Tasman Sea and the villages of Omapere and Opononi.

Arai Te Uru is the name of the Taniwha (mythological sea monster) which guards the harbour entrance with its sister Taniwha Niwa which stands guard on the opposite shore.

Signal Station Track: The Signal Station was in operation from 1838 – 1951 to guide ships over through the treacherous harbour entrance until being replaced by an automated lighthouse. Today all that remains is a few upright timbers and a horizontal beam.

The full name of Hokianga harbour is Hokianga-nui-o-Kupe”, meaning “the final departing place of Kupe. Kupe is a legendary figure, a Polynesian chief from Hawaiki who was involved in the discovery of New Zealand.

Each canoe and tribe had its tuahu, a sacred place marked by a stone. This huge stone is the tuahu of Kupe, erected as a memorial to him at Pakanae marae, near Opononi. It was moved here in the 1960s from the upper Hokianga Harbour.

Traditions about Kupe appear among iwi (peoples) of the following areas: Northland, Ngāti Kahungunu, Tainui, Whanganui-Taranaki, Rangitāne, and the South Island. Details about him differ from iwi to iwi.

Early accounts from the Ngāti Kahungunu area consistently place Kupe on board the Tākitimu canoe or name as his companions people who are strongly associated with the Tākitimu.  The few references to Kupe in South Island sources indicate that the traditions are substantially the same as those of Ngāti Kahungunu, with whom Ngāi Tahu, the main tribe of the South Island, had strong genealogical and trading links.

The local iwi is Te Roroa, a sub tribe of Ngati Whatua. They occupy the region between the Kaipara and Hokianga.

Walk: Northland 23

Links:

Hokianga Heads area

Notes:

The Burial cave near the pilot station: On the southside of Hokianga Heads there was a cave in a perpendicular cliff, which was the burial place of the people of Hokianga from time immemorial. Ramaroa was the name of the cave. To reach the cave men were let down over the cliff with a rope. When that part of the country was purchased by John Martin as a pilot station in March, 1832, the people removed the bones to another place, and it became common (noa) or free from tapu. Source: https://kaihuvalleyhistory.files.wordpress.com/2015/12/1-from-the-sea-we-came.pdf

Whiria Pa, Episode 20, Musket Wars #3

Ngapuhi trace their lineage back to Rahiri, who was born at Whiria Pa.
“Hong Hika tried to conquer Whiria in 1813, without success. Join me in a drone over Whiria where ancient earthworks are still clearly visible.”

It’s not far from Pakanae marae where the stone tuahu (memorial) to Kupe is.

There were two explorers named Kupe. The original discoverer of New Zealand named Kupe flourished some ten generations before Toi: THE ACCOUNT OF KUPE AND TAINUI. Source: The Journal of the Polynesian Society, Volume 28 1919 > Volume 28, No. 110 > The account of Kupe and Tainui, by George Graham, p 111-116

There were people here before the arrival of Kupe.

The article from the Journal of the Polynesian Society states that Kupe and his people discovered people at various places, according to elder Tati Wharekawa; “These people were the Mamoe, the Turehu, the Tahurangi, the Poke-pokewai, the Patupaiarehe, the Turepe and the Hamoamoa. They lived on the fronds and berries of the trees, and the roots of the earth. They were expert in preparing such foods, and in snaring and spearing the birds in forest and fish in stream.”

Monica Matamua of the Ngati Hotu tribe confirms this. She said that everywhere Kupe went, he found the land already occupied by people, some were fair skinned tribes. Here’s a close up of the Kupe memorial stone, and Monica Matamau’s account.