1907 - Wilson, J. A. The Story of Te Waharoa...Sketches of Ancient Maori Life and History - Sketches of Ancient Maori Life and History - THE HAWAIKI MAORI IMMIGRATION. SUPPLEMENTARY..

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THE HAWAIKI MAORI IMMIGRATION.

SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER.

In concluding these "Sketches of Ancient Maori Life and History," let me say that since the foregoing pages were written a memorandum on the coming of the canoes has been found by my brother, Captain C. J. Wilson, amongst some family papers in his possession, which is in our late father's well-known handwriting, and is initialed by him. The paper is undated, but for reasons it is unnecessary to trouble the reader with I think it was written some time between the middle of 1836 and the end of 1841. In addition to some things already mentioned, it gives the following information:--

First, certain details of the struggle that led to the emigration from Hawaiki are treated; but as these are not within the sphere of our inquiry, we need not enter upon them now.

Then the Pukeko is named among the living things that were brought in the canoes from Hawaiki. 1

We are told that the canoes left Hawaiki "lashed together in one long line."

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The names of seven or more canoes are given, six of which landed in the Bay of Plenty. These, with four Ngapuhi canoes--of which I have since been informed by a chief of that tribe--make the number of the fleet up to twenty-two canoes. The following is a list of the fleet and the place of landing of each canoe in so far as I can furnish the same. The eleven canoes whose names have been already given are placed last on the list. The exploring canoe Matawhaorua is omitted because she did not bring immigrants to Aotearoa:--

From Ohiwa Pakihikura canoe went to Opotiki. The bar at the mouth of Opotiki river

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was named after her, and still bears her name in the abbreviated form of Pakihi. The Ngariki people who formed her crew landed on the flat at Opotiki and lived there. They and their descendants occupied the seaboard in that part until they had made themselves so obnoxious to the aborigines, that the latter emerged from the forest-clad mountains of the interior and swept them out of the Opotiki valley. The remnant of the Ngariki fled eastward, and their descendants may be found at the present time living amongst the compatriot Whanau Apanui tribe.

It is more than twenty-eight years since I heard of Ngariki and their troubles; but I refrained from mentioning them in the previous pages simply because I was unable to find a niche for them in the historical arrangement of these sketches (and I may also say that I have been unable to include the Panenehu in the scheme); but now the difficulty, so far as Ngariki are concerned, is removed by my father's memorandum, written perhaps twice twenty-eight years ago, and I am glad to fill up the blank by placing them amongst the Hawaiki-Maori tribes.

While searching my papers for particulars of the Ngariki-Whakatohea war, I came upon a note of my own that had been overlooked when I remarked upon the paucity of information in connection with Rangimatoru canoe. I find by the note that Rangi was the captain of Rangimatoru. The canoe terminated her

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voyage from Hawaiki at Ohiwa, thence she went to Opotiki. Her passengers ascended the Otara branch of the river at Opotiki, and settled in what is known as the Opotiki gorge, and they hunted in the valley of the Pakihi stream. Unlike the Ngariki, who behaved treacherously, these immigrants lived at peace with the aboriginal Whakatohea, and ultimately became incorporated with them. They are now known as the Ngatirangi, a sub-section, or pori, of the Whakatohea tribe.

The Ngatihau settled when they came in Nukutere canoe at Marahea, between Tokomaru and Anaura, from whence they hived off as they increased in number, and made an additional home for the tribe on the banks of the Upper Whanganui River.

At Mangonui a stone marks the spot where Te Ruakaramea finished her voyage from Hawaiki.

Some of the descendants of the immigrants who came in Tainui penetrated as far as Taupo, Moawhango and the Upper Rangitikei, and settled there. They were called Ngatihotu after Hotunui, the captain of Tainui, and were living at the places named one hundred and eighty years after the arrival of their ancestors' canoe at Kawhia. It was at that time that the Ngatihotu were invaded by sections of the Arawa, and driven out of Taupo; but they maintained their position on the watersheds of the Moawhango and Rangitikei rivers until they were displaced and finally destroyed by bands

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of adventurers of Takitumu extraction; this happened about three hundred years ago. The Hawaikians struggled with each other for possession in remote parts, just as Europeans contended against one another in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for dominion in America and the Indies.

The Tainui tribes did not take possession of the Lower Thames Valley until more than one hundred years after they had occupied the Taupo district, although the former was nearer and more suitable to their requirements. From this we may infer that while the Tainui were few the aborigines at the Thames were too numerous to be attacked by them, and that Taupo was unoccupied or but sparsely settled by the ancient inhabitants when the Tainui people went there.

I will now, with the leave of my reader, lay down my pen, and would say that in making these sketches I have refrained from subordinating fact to effect. I have endeavoured to unravel and lay straight the convolutions of a tangled skein. If I have in any degree succeeded in the task; if from heaps of material that cumbered the ground a structure has been outlined that shall bear the test of time and bear being added to, then I shall have accomplished that which I desired, notwithstanding the errors and imperfections of the record; the distant retrospect will be in a measure cleared, and some points will be fixed in the ancient history of New Zealand.

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CHRISTCHURCH:

WHITCOMBE AND TOMBS LIMITED.

1907