ABOUT THE TOWN

Chronicle (Levin), 4 January 1947, Page 3

ABOUT THE TOWN

T.S.D.)

SHANNON SIDE-LIGHTS

(By

We have to extend our sincere thanks to an anonymous friend who has supplied a number of tales of the early life of the Manawatu and Horowhenua districts. Like all true New Zealanders, we enjoy reading the Maori legends which take us back through the pages of time to the settlement of our district by the MaoriS and later by ' the pakeha. No story of the progress of the Manawatu and Horowhenua districts from its settlement by the pioneers would be cpmplete witliout reference to the noble race of warriors who made way for the advancement of European civilisation, giving up their age-old heritage of freedom of the forest, the great river which winds through the length of the district, the streams and the rich swamps, so full of the palatable tuna, that a new race might sow for a prosperous future. In building up this district the pioneers displaced a race as old as time. Seventy years back, Neolithic man dwelt upon these lands, and hunted in the bush with spears and snares for the bird-life and laid traps for the edible rat which contributed to his larder. And before these people whom the pakeha displaced was an older people who owned the land under the patronage of Tane, the Lord of the Forest and of all Life. This district is both young and old; young in its mere seventy odd years of European civilisation when measured j against the abysmal depth of time, • thing of the history of those who ! ground of history stretching back ! a thousand years or more, and it ! is to that remote period that attenItion is directed in recording somei thing of the history of those who first inhabited this district: The immediate past possessors of this countryside were members of a large and influential tribe known as the Ngati Rangitane. When the first pakehas invaded this district the Rangitane people were more or less in a state of war with the invaders from the Waikato, the Ngati Toa and the Ngati Raukawa, two tribes who laid claim to a considerable area of the West Coast by virtue of conquest. Rangitane were not the original owners of the land, for they had. displaced the Ngati Mamoe, who were largely an aboriginal people of naixed Rolynesiq.fi an4 Mqlan- 1 esian descent. These Mamoe people, defeated in the battle for the defence of thir land, escaped to the South Island and were later exterminated and altogether lost to history. The original ■ inhabitants of Aotea Roa' were known as the Moriori or Maruiwi, and their history as far as the Polynesian invasion of these islands is concerned commences about the year • 800 A.D. There are in existence Moriori genealogies going back well beyond the date fixed, but the evidence is too shadowy altogether for conclusive argument representing the beginning of Polynesian contact with the occupants of New Zealand prior to the last of the year 300. The temptation to. speculate upon the years before 800 is strong to those who have made a study of" Polynesian and Maori history. While it must be conceded thqt these- islands were inhabited at an earlier period than that which this brief review will consider, immediate requirements will be more than satisfied by confining this story to the period of the Rangitane people and their ancestors. Toi, the Warrior Foremost upon the background of that history concerning the I ancient occupiers of the lands of j the Manawatu and Horowhenua stands that illustrious ancestor of many tribes, Toi, a warrior chief of Hawaiiki, the homeland of the Maori. In this instance Hawaiiki refers to, Rarotonga which was the last stepping-off place for the j ourneys to Aotea Roa. In Maori his- | tory Hawaiiki is frequently alluded l to and it appears that it was the practice to mark the successive ! stages of the invasion of the Paci1 fic by according to the land upon .which settlement was made for any lengthy period the name of Hawaiiki. Without going into a wealth of argument surrounding the advent of Toi upon the horizon of ' Maori history, it is sufficient to say that he takes his place in the year 800. According to the Lore of the WhareWangana (the House of Learning) Toi left Rarotonga in a large canqe with many of his followers to search for his grandson, Whatanga. This Whatonga had been engaged in a canoe race and when he, with the other canoes, were returning to land after the race, a fierce wind arose from the direction of the land and many of the canoes, including that co.ntaining Whatonga, were blown away to sea. Whatonga eventually arrived at Aotea Roa and meanwhile Toi set sail upon the ocean of Kiwa in an effort to trace his grandson, whom he thought must have been blown to the land discovered by the great Polynesian navigator, Kupe.