[FOREWORD]
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FOREWORD
James West Stack was born in a pa at Puriri in the Thames district on 27th March 1835. He was the eldest of seven children. His parents were Missionaries under the auspices of the Wesleyan Missionary Society and later the Church Missionary Society. After being with his parents at various North Island stations he attended St. John's College, Auckland and later Sydney College, Australia. In 1848 he was re-united with the whole family and they all moved to England. There J. W. Stack became a pupil at a commercial school in London and later became a clerk in the Church Missionary Society office. It was there that he met Archdeacon William Williams and Tamihana Te Rauparaha, and this event seems to have stimulated him to train as a school teacher for service in New Zealand. In 1851 he returned to N. Z. on the ship Stains Castle, Tamihana (a son of Te Rauparaha) was also a passenger. For the next eight years he served under the Rev. Robert Maunsell at Maraetai, Waikato Heads and at Te Kohanga. Apart from teaching, where he felt the demands of discipline prevented him being too friendly with the students, his special responsibilities were clearing the land for cultivation and building a church.
In 1859 Stack was asked by Bishop Harper to become Superintendent at the Christchurch Diocesan Maori Mission. He moved to Christchurch and later to Kaiapoi. He was ordained in December 1860 and the following month he married Eliza Jones in Auckland, she was a sister of the Commissary-General of the N. Z. Forces. Immediately afterwards the Stack's briefly
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visited the Waikato with John Gorst and assisted in the establishment of a School for Maori girls. They returned to Canterbury and settled at Tuahiwi. Stack's district extended as far south as Stewart Island and he was most diligent in visiting all parts of his charge. He was also a Government Interpreter and an Inspector of Native Schools in the South Island. In 1870 his house and school at Tuahiwi burnt down and he moved to Christchurch. Ten years later he accepted the Cure of Duvauchelles Bay, visited England in 1884, was vicar at Kaiapoi from 1885 to 1888, and then became vicar at Fendalton. In 1898 he left New Zealand, lived for a short time in Italy and died on 13th October 1919 at Worthing, England.
Stack collected much information, mainly traditional, relating to the Maori. He published South Island Maoris; a sketch of their History and Legendary Lore (Christchurch 1898) Kaiapohia; The Story of a Siege (Christchurch 1893); Koro, Maori churchworker at Kaiapoi and elsewhere in the South Island (1909); Through Canterbury and Otago with Bishop Harper (1859-60); A White Boy among the Maoris in the Forties; (1840's) from an unpublished Autobiography of J. W. Stack, edited by R. H. Reed 1934; Also, Early Maoriland Adventures of J. W. Stack with memoir by A. H. Reed 1935 and Further Maoriland Adventures told by J. W. Stack; and edited by A. H. Reed 1937. He also printed a number of papers in the transactions of the N. Z. Institute as well as other papers and Press articles.
In the 1893 edition of Kaiapohia; the front portrait was incorrectly identified as Te Rauparaha it was in fact Te Rangihaeata a nephew. This book was then republished in 1906 with a slight textual change. We have taken the liberty in this 1990 reprinting of replacing Te Rangihaeata's Portrait with one of Te Rauparaha.
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We acknowledge this bibliography reference on J. W. Stack to M. G. H. from An Encylopaedia of N. Z. 1966 edition Vol III and to The Canterbury Public Library.
The reprinting of this book is a Bicultural project by the T. M. Reuben family of Tuahiwi and G. J. Leech family of Rangiora for the 1990 celebrations and is made possible by the preservation of one of the original books by the Leech family over many years.
Our aim is to make this part of the history of our area, available to all. This account of the Siege at Kaiapohia is both interesting and full of stories which give a good picture of life in those times.
We would like to acknowledge the interest and encouragement from the late Te Marino Marsden Reuben. We express our thanks to David Leech who is responsible for the design of the cover.
We would also like to acknowledge the assistance of the 1990 Commission for their financial grant which has helped make this reprinting possible. Copies of this book will be distributed to all schools and some libraries in the Canterbury area.
Bernice D. Reuben
and Joyce L. Leech
June 1990
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[PREFACE]
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PREFACE.
I have found considerable difficulty in fixing the exact dates of the occurrences related in this history, owing to the Maoris possessing no written record of them. If Tamaiharanui was carried off in the brig Elizabeth in October or November, 1830, Rauparaha's first raid on Kaiapoi was probably made either towards the close of 1828 or the beginning of 1829; and Kaiapoi was captured in 1831, just four years before Hempleman started his whaling station at Pireka, on Banks Peninsula, and twenty years before the arrival of the Canterbury Pilgrims in the first four ships.
For the plan of the site of the old Pah, I am indebted to my friend Colonel Lean. The plan shows that a considerable space in front of the deep ditch, which crossed from side to side of the lagoon in front of the Pah, was at one time covered with houses. These buildings were all burnt, and the fences removed by the Kaiapoi people themselves as soon as they became aware that Rauparaha was coming to attack them. The principal entrances to the Pah were on the land side, the Kaitangata gate being near the South Eastern angle of the Stockade, and the Hiakarere near the South Western; the Huirapa gate was on the Western side. The illustration representing the Old Kaiapoi Pah shows the South Western angle where Te Pehi was killed, and the dwelling houses of some of the principal Chiefs.
All who have travelled up and down the coast of New Zealand, and experienced a tossing in the stormy Straits of Raukawa (Cooks), will admit that the Maoris must have been very plucky and skilful navigators to be able to traverse such stormy waters with safety, and to accomplish such long voyages as they did in their canoes. Part of Rauparaha's fleet is shewn in the illustration approaching the landing place. The man standing up with a taiaha in his hand is chanting a boat song, to which the paddles beat time. The peculiar appearance of the sails of the canoes still in the offing, suggests the idea that they are upside down, but only to those who have not resided long enough in this country to know that it is a very common occurrence to find things topsey-turvey in New Zealand.
The pattern of tatooing on Te Pehi's face, affords a good specimen of the art, and shows to what perfection it had attained. It is
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PREFACE
astonishing to think that such an elaborate design could be marked on a living human face by such a painful process as the native artist adopted, without making a mistake of any kind; and though the work was done at different times, the symmetry and uniformity was preserved with great exactness. The artist first drew the pattern with charcoal on the face of the person to be tatooed, who placed his head on the operator's lap or on the ground for the purpose; and if it was approved of, he proceeded to tap the point of a bone needle--which had been previously dipped in ink made of a particular kind of charcoal--sufficiently far into the skin to secure an indelible mark being made; the punctures were placed close together, and as the skin began to swell, the difficulty of avoiding a mistake must have been very great. It was generally necessary to submit to several sittings before the tatooing of the face was completed. But brave dandies were not content to have their faces only marked, but had similar patterns on a larger scale drawn on their chests and thighs. It must be admitted that a man with such a pattern drawn on his face as Te Pehi had was entitled to assume the role of a critic on tatooing, and that he was probably quite correct in his contemptuous remarks about the markings on Mr. Moimoi's face, to which reference is made on page 38.
My thanks are due to Mr. Menzies Gibb and Miss Meeson, for kindly helping me to procure some of the illustrations, and to the Press Newspaper Company for the views of Kaiapoi and the Woollen Factory, and to my friend Captain Lowthian Wilson for correcting the proofs, and to my publishers, Messrs. Whitcombe & Tombs, for the kindly interest they have taken in my little book.
I have purposely retained the name Kaiapoi for the old Pah as it was the commonly-adopted abbreviation for Kaiapohia in use amongst the Maoris, and it will help to connect the modern English town with the old Maori town of the same name. The longer name, Kaiapohia, was used in all formal speeches and in poetical compositions; and it is to be hoped that one result of giving it greater publicity amongst Europeans in the accompanying narrative, will be to induce residents in the Kaiapoi district to call themselves Kaiapohians in future, instead of applying to themselves the unmusical name by which they have hitherto been designated.
I have spelt "Pa" with an "h" because my book being intended for English readers, I thought it better to adopt the English mode of spelling the word. I would remind my readers who know nothing of Maori, that the vowels have the same sound as in French, and that as the words are spelt phonetically every syllable should be pronounced.
J. W. S.
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CONTENTS.
Chapter I. --A CONTRAST... ... ...... 9
Chapter II. --ORIGIN OF THE NAME KAIAPOHIA... 19
Chapter III. --RAUPARAHA'S FIRST RAID ... 33
Chapter IV. --RAUPARAHA'S SECOND RAID ... 42
Chapter V. --RAUPARAHA'S THIRD RAID, CAPTURE OF KAIAPOHIA....57
Chapter VI. --RETURN OF VICTORS TO KAPITI... 79
Chatter VII. --PURSUITS OF RAUPARAHA, PEACE, COLONIZATION, CONCLUSION...87
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