Tag: Ngati Hotu

Te Porere Redoubt

Walk 9: Te Porere Redoubt, 28 Dec 2018

Te Pore Redoubt

Click here for the video

Te Pōrere, in the shadow of Tongariro, is the site of the last major battle of the New Zealand Wars was fought on 4 October 1869 between Te Kooti and a combined force of Armed Constabulary and Māori fighters.

Te Kooti or an ally built this British style redoubt/pa but the angles were poorly sited and the horizontal loopholes prevented the defenders from firing down into the ditch, which the government forces speedily occupied after taking out two small detached positions.

The dead from Te Porere are buried on site.  Te Kooti got away into the bush with other survivors.

Te Kehakeha led him and others ‘in the general direction of Te Rena via an old Ngāti Hotu track’.  Te Rena belonged to the remnant of the Ngati Hotu.  (Source: The National Park District Inquiry Report, Page 173.)

Walk: Central North Island 42

Te Kooti

“Perhaps time will allow us to see this figure in perspective, and help us to decide whether he was murderer, butcher, and slayer of innocent women and children. Or was he really a military genius, a Maori hero, who suffered defeat only twice in the long years of campaigning.  Was he a prophet, a spiritual leader, who could refashion the adherents of a pagan cult into warriors who could fight with rules, who could show mercy to prisoners, who could begin and end the fighting with worship of God. Te Kooti Rikirangi Te Turuki—mystery man of the Maori race—we see him now in a clearer light.”
Article: Did This Change the Course of History?  by Ernest E. Bush

Te Kooti – Wikipedia

*See page on Te Kooti’s war.

Tokaanu

Walk 7: Tokaanu

15th October 2018

Tokaanu hot springs

Click here for the video

Tokaanu on the southwestern side of Lake Taupo, is near the small town of Turangi.

This short walk is next to the Tokaanu Hot pools, which I’ve found are well worth the visit after a day skiing on Mount Ruapehu.  The path at Tokaanu wends its way past steaming pools and boiling mud.

 

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Walk: Turangi / Taupo 39

History of Tokaanu

Wikipedia: Before the development of Turangi in the 1960s, Tokaanu was the main settlement at the southern end of Lake Taupo. It had been known to Māori for centuries for its natural thermal pools. The pools became a major stopover on the Grand Tour stage coach run from Wanganui to Taupo in the 1800s. Passengers arrived by stage coach from Waiouru, and departed by steam launch from the historic Tokaanu wharf onwards to Taupo.

Trevor Hosking, archaeologist for the Tongariro Power Development 1966

In the 1960s the country needed more power and numerous schemes had been mooted.  The Tongariro Power Development was to be an important one which would involve thousands of acres of land as well as many rivers and tributaries in the area around the new town of Turangi and as far south as Waiouru.  The Ministry of Works was in charge of the scheme and wanted things to be done correctly, and it was decided that the Historic Places Trust would have the responsibility of making sure the development progressed without destroying areas of historic or archaeological interest.

The Trust wrote letters to the Tuwharetoa Board asking for permission to undertake the work and recommended archaeologist Trevor Hosking for the job.

A Museum Underfoot

The book ‘A Museum Underfoot’ was published on Hosking’s work.  On page 100, Hosking writes about his discovery of Ngati Hotu skulls:

Bones had turned up near the Tokaanu Stream.  Some eight feet of pumice had been removed before the bones were discovered.  The skull shapes were quite different and Trevor Hosking had access to the late Lesley G Adkins who provided him with his research papers on the Horowhenua burials and the types of skulls found in that area.

Adkin’s information tied in exactly with what Hosking had been turning up while working throughout the Turangi area.  The loader driver had unearthed the skulls of a very early, pre-Polynesian people.

In Taupo these early people are known as Ngati Hotu and Korako.  In Horowhenua they are Waitaha, down south Ngati Mamoe and so on.  In most cases their history is lost in the mists of time.  They didn’t survive the onslaught of the more warlike arrivals from the Eastern Pacific.

Turangi

The Ghost Museum