Tag: stone

Maunganui Bluff

Walk #131, 4th May 2024

This was a solid grind where we had to climb 450 metres to the summit of the bluff. Getting over an old lava flow was interesting.

The view south along Ripiro Beach to Kai Iwi Lakes is worth the climb but I was hoping to see some standing stones that I know used to be on the summit. Waipoua and it’s stone ruins are just up the coast, less than 25 kms away.

Walk: Northland 27

Links

Stone structures

Alex Nathan is an elder from the local Te Roroa iwi (tribe) who have control or guardianship of the area including the Waipoua forest.

He speaks about Maunganui Bluff and goes on to mention the historical structural formations on the summit.

Alex Nathan: Taputapuātea on Maunganui Bluff

Nathan says; ” … our maunga (mountain), Maunganui Bluff is a place that we know as “Taputapuātea.” There’s very little of the original stonework still intact because during the second world war the American forces bulldozed the summit in order to establish a radar station. Today, all that remains of that facility are concrete foundations.

On the outer edges of the area that was bulldozed there are … in one place the remains of a stone facing and at the other edge, on the other side of that area is a stone alignment that is intact – and that’s all that remains of the original stone structures on that place.”

A listener asks, “So those stones that you are talking about, so they’re quite old, they were put there as (indiscernable) or they were created …”

“No, no, they are constructions, similar to some of the structures that we know about in Waipoua for example.”

-Note, I did a walk in Waipoua Forest in 2020 but I was not able to see the structures he was talking about. My research on the stone ruins is here.

It appears there are stone structures in the area from Maunganui Bluff to Waipoua Forest.

Waitapu Valley (Maunganui Bluff) NZ | astronomical observatory

Stone Cairns in the Waitapu Valley

This is from a book by a local man at Kaihu, “From the Sea we came.”

A SOLITARY CAIRN IN A FARM FIELD,IN THE WAITAPU VALLEY: NEAR THE MAUNGANUI BLUFF WAITAPU VALLEY ANCIENT STANDING STONE CIRCLES AND LAND MAPPING TRIG POSITIONS IN THE WAITAPU VALLEY OF NORTHLAND, AOTEA…That whole region, running from north of the Waipoua Forest Southward to Maunganui Bluff and beyond, is a very rich field of megalithic structures, which litter this Coastline in profusion. This is believed to be a purpose placed, very ancient surveying structure used for precisely marking a position. Many cairns like this, distributed over several square miles between the Maunganui Bluff and Waipoua, are not the result of modern farmers gathering together stones from the land and placing them in heaps.

Source: From the Sea we came, page 106, RIPIRO WEST COAST BETWEEN KAIPARA AND HOKIANGA

Click to access 1-from-the-sea-we-came.pdf

Buried items dug up at Maunganui Bluff

1894; RipiroCoast, North of Maunganui Bluff, about half way to Kawerua: Gum diggers find old relics at a depth of 7 to 9 feet deep. These included adzes and spears. For these to have been buried so deep they must have been owned by some ancient people. Who did they belong to?

Source: National Library: Gang of Dalmatian gum diggers draining the Aranga swamp, Maunganui Bluff, Northland. Creator of collection unknown: Photographs relating to Dalmatian gum diggers, life on the gumfields, and social events. Ref: PAColl-2144-2-03. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23109398

Related post

Waipoua Forest, Northland

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 the Te Ara Encyclopedia of NZ 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.