"The River of the Lost Beloved"

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 44, 14 May 1927, Page 19 (Supplement)

"The River of the Lost Beloved"

jVlt- Wellington Once Great Maori Stronghold . . When the Tamaki Swarmed With War Canoes. . .

(Written for THE SUN by FERGUS DUNLOP.)

tIPHEN the Prince Regent schooner, >' a hundred years ago, felt her way through the Rangitoto Channel and dropped anchor under the lee of Brown’s Island, she was claimed to be tll j first European vessel to navigate til 3 3 e waters; for Capt ; n Cook on his visit to the Thames had entered the gulf by way of Cape Colville, and had mistaken Waiheke and the chain of ialanls for the mainland. The Prince Regent's trip presented several inter earing and romantic aspects. Her service wa to search for the ship Coromandel, which had been sent to the Haur: ki for spars, and as she had not been heard of for some months,, was supposed to have been cut off by the natives. The Coromandel, how ever, was found snugly at anchor in the harbour to which it gave its name, ami the Prince Regent turned back to the Waiheke Channel. On the voy age down, she had landed Mr. Marsden at the Waitemata, and he good missionary had set out to walk through the country to the By of Islands. On the return voyage the schooner landed a Mr. Clark, an American, who proposed to undertake ‘’ ■ e same feat. It seems that in those times a walk of two or three hundred miles through trackless wilderness sail country settled only by man-eat-ing savages was a fashionable pastime for elderly gentlemen of adventurous disposition. It Is to the credit of the savages in question that both explorers reached their destination. Probably Mr. Clark had the honour of being the first American tourist to visit these shores.

The schooner was delayed in the channel by contrary winds for upwards of a week, and the time was passed by her people in fishing, in shooting expeditions upon Brown’s Island, and in receiving the visits of

crowds of curious natives; but the part of her proceedings that concerns our present purpose is the visit of her officers to the village of Mokoia, or Mauinaina, upon the site of the pres eat village of Panmure and the slopes of Mount Wellington. For centuries Mauinaina was a great fortress, and one of the principal centres of that semi-civilisation of Maoridom. It stood upon the main communication route between the North and the Waikato, and many a time have the peaceful shores of the Tamaki— the name means “the river of the lost be loved"—re-echoed to the paddle-songs of fleets of war canoes, passing upon hostile raid or peaceful embassy, until the day in 1822, when the crackling of Hongi's muskets startled the shags and the king Ashers on the mudflats, and Maui-

naina as a fortress and a settlement ceased to be. The short cut to the Waikato, by the way, was up the Tamaki, across the portage at Otahuhu to the Manukau, thence again across the portage at Waiuku to the Waikato Ri er.

Mauinaina is also a place of a romantic name, “the place where people bask in the sun.” “The village,” says the Prince Regent’s chronicler, “was about a mile and a-half broad, and the houses were larger and more ornamented with carvings than those we had generally observed. Each family occupied an allotment, which in shape was oblong and enclosed with a high strong paling. These allotments contained many houses, and the intermediate passages or streets were as clean as the season would permit. The ground was good and under cultivation, interspersed with detached houses and hamlets, and a profusion of potatoes lay in different parts of the village. Aii immense number of people received us upon landing, and remained with us until we re-em-barked, and they attended us in outwalk over the surrounding country, and showed us every civility.”

Mauinaina had for about a couple of centuries been the stronghold and principal township of a tribe known as Ngati paoa, whose history is mainly concerned with their rivalry, sometimes friendly, sometimes blood thirtsy, with Ngati Maru, who held a great pah named Totara, near the Thames. The two tribes exercised suzerainty over all the gulf and the islands from Kawau to Ponui. The last outbreak of hostilities had ended shortly before the Prince Regent's visit. It seems that upon a joint fishing expedition, Ngati Maru, whether by accident or in jest, upset a Ngati Paoa canoe. Ngati Paoa, in the delirium of their wrath, called Ngati Maru cannibals. One might suppose that in those times Ngati Maru might have accepted the impeachment with complacence. But it was not so. There is man-eating and man-eating. To eat your enemies is not only sweet but decorous; but to eat your friends and relations, no! That is an act un becoming a warrior, a crime abhorrent to usage, an offence to gods and men. The general imputation of cannibalism must be resentd in blood. Hostilities began, and for a season the struggle raged from bay

to bay among the islands. In the course of it Kawau Island and Motu tapu seem to have changed ownership, and the backwash of the disturbance to have extended as far as Cape Colville and Whangarei. One incident is worth recording, as typical of the ingenious trickery by which the Maori was wont to secure the downfall of his foes.

A party of Ngati Paoa, returning to Tamaki from the capture and destruction of the pahs on Kawau, were encamped at Home Bay on Motutapu. Across the channel on Waiheke, an inferior force of JJgati Maru lay sullenly in wait, hoping an opporunity of revenge. Presently a Ngati Paoa canoe, fishing bent, came round the point, and was promptly captured. They manned the canoe, and hastily put over toward Motutapu. Here, in full sight of the unsuspecting Ngati Paoa, they anchored, and, tying their meres to long strings of flax, lowered them overside, and frequently drew them up again, taking care that the rays of the declining sun should flash upon them in the eyes of the Ngati Paoa on the beach. The ruse succeeded. The watchers, deceived by the mats and gleaming meres, supposed that the canoe contained their friends, and had far in upon a mighty school of schnapper, whose bodies gleamed on the gunwales as they were hauled on board. Unarmed, save for fishing gear, several canoes put out to join the sport, and their occupants were promptly slain before the eyes of their friends. The strategist j were in triumphant flight and far away before the main body of the Ngati Paoa could launch their heavier war canoes in pursuit

A stern chase is a long one, and it was only after many days that Ngati Paoa, eight hundred strong, came up with Ngati Maru, now numbering three hundred and forty, on the beach near Clevedon. Again Ngati Paoa suffered severely from the strategy of their foes, for as they approached the beach, Ngati Maru, plunging into the shallows, attacked and slew each man a paddler, before he could reach for his arms. Ngati Paoa had had enough. Military and naval glory no longer tempted them. They withdrew to bask in the sun again at Mauinaina and to lament by the waters of the Tamaki for the lost beloved.