This old pa site at Aotea Harbour was right at the doorstep of the place where we stayed for two nights. The harbour in front of the pa was named after the Aotea canoe which is said to have arrived around 1300.
The Tainui canoe arrived about 50 years later and the people from that canoe settled at nearby Kawhia, just down the coast. The Tainui and Aotea tribes lived in harmony until the 1600s when battles started because the Kawhia people were expanding.
The two tribes united when their rohe (area) came under attack around 1800 from inland Tainui. The defeated people fled south to take refuge in pa still controlled by Te Rauparaha, trekking to Taranaki and then on to Horowhenua.
For a long time after their defeat this pa site was left empty, until the defeat of Waikato by Ngapuhi at Matakitahi in 1826 when survivors from that conflict settled here.
The book said it was an easy climb to the top – no it wasn’t. The long grass came half way up my body and it was impossible walking through it. Plus there was some dead gorse in the midst of the vegetation. I did not want to disappear into an old kumera pit so I called it a day and came back down.
The pa site is not a “wahi tapu,” a sacred locality like part of the foreshore – but when I gained the ridge I felt I shouldn’t be up there.
This is a small estuary, prolific with birds despite the close proximity of housing. The walk goes over a swing bridge and along the banks of the Waikanae River to the Waimanu Lagoons. There we were treated to a special sight, a white heron (kotuku) who lives at the lagoon. The bird is so rare that the Maori have a saying, “He Kotuku rerenga tahi,” “a Kotuku’s flight is seen but once.”
The beach is only a short walk from the lagoon, where we watched the sun set over Kapiti Island, 5 kms offshore.
Walk: Kapiti 33
History
Te Uruhi, a former pa site at Waikanae, was one of three ancient pa sites mentioned in the book ‘THE ART WORKMANSHIP OF THE MAORI RACE IN NEW ZEALAND,’ published in 1896. Elsdon Best wrote, “I have seen the remains of an old pa at Waikanae, called Te Uruhi, the fence of which has been a mile in circumference.”
Unfortunately the site would have been obliterated by developer’s bulldozers.
The Waitaha, first inhabitants
“Archaeological and ethnographical research suggests that Waikanae may have been first inhabited by the Waitaha moa-hunters as early as a thousand years ago.” The Waitaha people were replaced by successive waves of settlement of the Ngāti Apa, Rangitāne and Muaūpokoiwi (tribal groups).
In the 1820s the infamous Maori leader of Ngāti Toa, Te Rauparaha, moved into the area and based himself at Kapiti Island.
In this 1840s image of Te Rauparaha, he wears a feather in his hair and a pōhoi (feather-ball earring). Te Rauparaha is famous for the role he played during the musket wars.
In 1824, Waikanae Beach was the embarkation point for a force of 2,000 to 3,000 fighters from coastal iwi, who assembled with the intention of taking Kapiti Island from the Ngāti Toa led by Te Rauparaha. Crossing the strait in a fleet of waka canoes under shelter of darkness, the attackers were met and destroyed as they disembarked at the northern end of Kapiti Island.
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Te Āti Awa of Wellington
In the 1820s the Taranaki tribes iwi Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tama, Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Maru Wharanui began moving to the Kapiti area after being driven south by Waikato tribes in the Maori Musket Wars. The tribes moved back to Taranaki in 1848 but some Atiawa iwi remained in the Kapiti area. Source: Te Āti Awa of Wellington
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The Waikanae Estuary Scientific Reserve
The Waikanae Estuary Scientific Reserve is a nationally–significant reserve located at the mouth of the Waikanae River. The reserve was established in 1987 to protect the large number of bird species that use the area.
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Thomas the goose
Here’s something funny and sweet – a local story about a goose called Thomas who lived at the Waimanu Lagoons from 1970 to 2018.
“Thomas had a relationship with a male black-feathered swan, Henry, for approximately 18 to 24 years until a female swan, Henrietta, joined them. Thomas initially attacked the pair, which included breaking two of the five eggs that Henrietta had laid. But once the remaining eggs had hatched, he became friendly and helped raise them. Henry could not fly because he had an injured wing, so Thomas helped teach the cygnets to fly.
Thomas was left alone when Henry died in 2009 and Henrietta flew away with another swan. Thomas later met a female goose and had his own offspring, for the first time, in 2011. The offspring were then taken by another goose. After going blind and getting attacked by swans, he was moved in 2013 to the Wellington Bird Rehabilitation Trust in Ohariu, and stayed there until his death in 2018. A plaque was placed at the lagoon to remember him.” Source: Wikipedia
The locals even had a funeral for him
Links
We stopped at the Southward Car Museum on the road to the Waikanae Estuary walk. It’s well worth a visit.
Te Ātiawa ki Kāpiti History : The earliest accounts of Te Ātiawa ki Kāpiti go back to the Kāhui Mounga Collective that had spread itself from Taranaki and the Central Plateau region through to Te Ūpoko o te Ika. During this time, further waves of migrations occurred.
Two of these migrations began with the arrival of the following waka to Taranaki; Te Kahutara, Taikōria and Okoki.
The names of these iwi were Te Tini-a-Taitāwaro, Te Tini-a-Pananehu, Tamaki, and Te Tini-o-Pohokura, names after four brothers who led their people to Aotearoa.
The beach at Opera Point is really beautiful and I’m glad to see the bird life is being respected.
The walk to the beach is interesting. Following an old tramway, we walked through the site of a old sawmill, Craig’s Sawmill built in 1862. All that’s left is long grass and an old concrete drain.
There was a headland pa but not much remains. According to Doc it was originally the domain of Ngati Huarere, the pa and surrounding area appear to have been abandoned following seaborne raids in 1818 by Ngapuhi, from Northland.
This headland pa site is at the southern end of Opito Bay, defended by steep bluffs and cliffs. It has good views in every direction. The pa site is accessed by a long flight of stairs. Opito Beach is lovely too, it’s a short stroll along the beach to the stairs.
Walk: Coromandel 11
Links
Ngāti Hei is recognised as the dominant tribe of the Mercury Bay area and can trace its roots to the arrival of the Arawa canoe at Maketu around 1350AD.
Sarah’s Gully remains an important archaeological site with many excavations carried out starting from 1956-60. Discoveries include evidence of prolonged early settlement with abundant moa bones, human skeletons and evidence of at least six periods of habitation, only the top four of which Sue mentions have been reliably linked to early Maori.
OPITO BAY, COROMANDEL PENINSULA, MOA-HUNTER COMMUNITY CONTEMPORANEOUS WITH WAIRAU BAR: Adzes, in differing styles, were produced in high numbers for many years and found their way to New Zealand’s most ancient sites.
Whitianga Pa is just a short ferry ride across the channel from the main shopping centre. At one time the pa was ringed with stone terraces and strongly fortified. The historic wharf which is still in use was built in 1837 from the stones.
The pa was once occupied by Ngati Hei but in the mid eighteenth century it was ransacked by a war party of Ngai te Rangi. It was long burnt and abandoned when Captain Cook visited Whitianga Rock in November 1769.
Cook was greatly impressed by the pa, he said, “the Situation is such that the best Engineer in Europe could not have choose’d a better for a small number of men to defend themselves against a greater, it is strong by nature and made more so by Art”
You can still see a defensive ditch, the post holes in the rock and the middens.
Walk: Coromandel 12
Notes
Ngati Hei date back to the arrival of the arrival of the Arawa waka in 1350 but this site may be older than that. From the placenames people of Maui and Kupe were there before them …
The Māori names of Hauraki places tell the story of discovery and settlement, beginning with the exploits of the mythical Māui.
Coromandel Peninsula: Te Tara-o-te-Ika a Māui (the jagged barb of Māui’s fish), or Te Paeroa-a-Toi (Toi’s long mountain range)
There is a petroglyph at a ritual site in nearby Flaxmill Bay. I didn’t see it but I know it was there from the archaeologist’s report AINZ32.4.182-192Furey.pdf, T11/109. Flaxmill Bay is situated between Cooks Beach and Ferry Landing.
It consists of a face in relief on the edge of a small pool within a stream bed. Together with another small pool, these were cut off from the main water flow by a diversion channel.
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Image below: Is this Maori? This ivory reel necklace from Whitianga is at Auckland Museum. Similar necklaces, consisting of cotton reel shaped pieces held together by cord, were found at Wairau Bar near Blenheim in the South Island.
Links
Incised stone at the high tide level of a nearby beach at Whitianga. The question remains… Ancient??? or contemporary?
Omokoroa is a peninsula that peninsula which stretches from SH2 into the Tauranga Harbour. It is translated as the ‘place of the long lizard.’
The reserve has some fine old trees planted by the Rev Joseph Gellibrand who came from Tasmania with his wife Selina and settled here. The house that occupied the site burned down years ago. Their adopted daughter Elizabeth married Captain Arthur Crapp and in 1975 the Crapp family gifted the land to the crown for a reserve.
Not much is known about the pa on the headland. The iwi that occupied the area were the Pirirakau hapu of Ngati Ranginui. The great Ngati Haua fighting chief Te Waharoa and his wife moved to Omokoroa in their old age and died here in 1838.
The pa has a landward defensive ditch and some old karaka trees which were used for food.
Te Waharoa : When CMS missionaries made exploratory journeys in the Thames, Tauranga and Rotorua districts between 1831 and 1833, Te Waharoa expressed to them his desire to have an Anglican missionary resident at Matamata. In early 1834 a mission station was established at Puriri, near the mouth of the Waihou River.
This chief was a shrewd man. In April 1835 A. N. Brown arrived to take up residence at Matamata, and was joined by J. A. Wilson in July. The two missionaries negotiated with Te Waharoa for a mission site outside Matamata pā. Wilson recorded in his journal: ‘The old chief seemed unsatisfied with the offered payment, which consisted of blankets, shirts, spades, iron pots, axes, adzes, etc., and he made some shrewd remarks on the durability of the land contrasted with that of the payment. “These,” he said, “will soon be broken, worn out, and gone, but the ground will endure forever to supply our children and theirs.” ‘
Te Waharoa was quick to perceive the potential use of the literacy skills the missionaries taught, as a means of diplomacy to preserve the peace with Ngāti Maru. His son and A. N. Brown wrote letters on his behalf, and on 19 September 1835 a party of Ngāti Maru from the Thames district was welcomed to Matamata at a peacemaking feast.
Recording the death of Te Waharoa in his journal, missionary A.N. Brown remarked: ‘Waharoa was a remarkable character, fierce, bloody, cruel, vindictive, cunning, brave, and yet, from whatever motive, the friend of the Mission.’
Te Waharoa was a great-uncle of Tarore, a little girl who had been educated by the missionaries. Her death led to the Maori adopting Christianity. Tarore’s story begins where her life ended at Wairere Falls.
We walked uphill through grassland to a pa site at the summit of the Papamoa Hills Regional Park, a climb of 224 metres. There are sweeping views of the hills and coast from Te Puke and Papamoa to Mount Maunganui.
We saw a very tame quail sitting on a fence post, he was obviously used to walkers.
“Papamoa Hills Cultural Heritage Regional Park (Te Rae o Papamoa) includes a number of important pre-European archaeological features. The sites have significance to three iwi (Maori tribal groups) – Ngaiterangi, Ngati Pukenga (of Mataatua) and Waitaha A Hei (of Te Arawa). There are at least seven pa sites (forts) in the park, and others can be seen in the surrounding landscape.” Source: 100% Pure NZ
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