Akaroa ‘dig’ traces Maori history

Press, 14 February 1986, Page 3

Akaroa ‘dig’ traces Maori history

By

TESSA WARD

Painstaking inspection of what seemed to be just plain shallow trenches, carved this week out of ground on Akaroa Harbour’s Onawe Peninsula, is uncovering valuable evidence of Maori history. During the last four days, up to 20 amateur archaeologists have been gently digging, scraping and brushing away earthern crumbs on a small section of the peninsula. They aim to gain a better insight into the defence structure built by Ngai Tahu people to withstand an impending attack by Te Rauparaha in 1830. Te Rauparaha, the Ngati Toa chief at Kapiti Island, made several sorties to the South Island in the late 1820 s followed by three main raids. Most of the people defending Onawe Peninsula died during the third of these

attacks. The dig, organised by the Canterbury Museum in conjunction with the Lands and Survey Department, is part of a threeyear Onawe Peninsula project which could result in restoration of some earthworks.

Crouching on his hands and knees in each shallow trench yesterday the museum’s director, Mr Michael Trotter, pointed out intricate details of the soil which reveal former defence features.

“We have found the spot where the original gateway stood,” he said. “It was built on a slant to the line of its enclosing defence wall which probably means that it was designed to withstand musket fire directed at the wall.

“The defence pile of earth next to this curved wall was made by scraping soil into a heap and did not have any pal-

isades. Within the pile we have found a rare adze head which was probably put there for good luck when the pile was built,” said Mr Trotter.

The Ngai Tahu people needed more than good luck and a stout defence structure to escape the burning and bloody onslaught by Te Rauparaha on their rectangular pa on the peninsula’s summit, Mr Trotter said.

“They appear to have lacked an effective strategy to hold Te Rauparaha’s warriors back. This is in spite of building the military pa shortly before the expected attack and preparing for a long siege," he said.

“A circle of stones in the sea near the peninsula shore is likely to have been a fish holding pen to feed the people during the siege. There is also evidence of two covered ways extending from the pa for the stealthy trans-

port of fresh water from two sites during the siege.” The museum’s liaison officer, Mrs Beverley McCulloch, has been trying to sort out the true accounts of Te Rauparaha’s raid from the "tall stories” that tended to be fabricated later. This is part of her research into all the South Island raids by Te Rauparaha early last century. Her key sources are original manuscripts. Within the next year she hopes to publish her findings to help establish a more factual account of the raids. When the excavating team turns over the last sod tomorrow it will begin to replace the disturbed topsoil and grass. The Lands and Survey Department might be able to restore some of the earthworks to their former state as a new feature of interest for people visiting the reserve, Mr Trotter said.