Heritage Tales From An Extinct Volcano

Forest and Bird, Issue 310, 1 November 2003, Page 26

Heritage Tales From An Extinct Volcano

PAT BASKETT

PAT BASKETT

explores the natural features of a volcanic cone in

South Auckland. Photographs, GORDON ELL.

f the 48 volcanoes that distinguish () the Auckland landscape, Mangere is easily by-passed. Yet, culturally, historically and geologically, it is one of the city’s most interesting and significant cones. Situated to the west of the main thoroughfare from the city to the airport, on a quiet loop of land overlooking the Manukau Harbour, it is also one of the best preserved of the volcanoes, having been spared much of the quarrying that destroyed or defaced so many others. Its geological interest lies in the nature of the volcanic activity which around 30,000 years ago began dramatically transforming a forested plain that stretched from Mangere south to Papakura. The rocks and plumes of steam, grit and dust that burst out of the earth from as deep as 100 kilometres left the landscape littered with a chain of scoria

mounds and lava flows, craters that became lagoons, and a small volcanic island — Puketutu — close to the shore in the Manukau harbour. As E.J.Searle so picturesquely wrote, ‘volcanic forces .. . created a rash of pimples on the landscape rather than concentrating on building one major structure. While ‘mountain’ seems a euphemism when applied to Auckland’s volcanic hills, Mangere is more than a mere pimple. At 107 metres, the higher of its twin peaks dwarfs its south Auckland neighbours such as Te Manurewa o Tamapahore (Wiri Mountain) and Matukutureia (McLaughlin’s Mountain). Its two craters contain remnants of the extraordinary events of its creation some 18,000 years ago. In the main crater — a spacious concave field ringed with macrocarpa trees —

declivities mark individual fire vents and out of its floor rises a surprising mini-cone or volcanic plug 30 metres high. Embedded in the walls of this crater are rocks varying in size from several tonnes to small stones which Searle calls bombs and which were formed from splashes from lava fountains. They owe their strange shapes, he explains, ‘to the fact that larger splashes were torn apart as they spun and twisted while hurtling through the air. A gap in the crater wall on its eastern flank marks the site of a later eruption that also formed the second, smaller but steeper crater. Near the mountain’s southwesterly base lies another curious remnant of volcanic activity — a circular inlet of the harbour called Mangere Lagoon, identified by the scoria cone which rises in its centre a few metres above the sea, like a miniature castle and moat. Volcanoes are good news for gardeners, as Maori knew at least 800 years ago, possibly as long ago as 1000 years. They discovered the area’s advantages — its fertile, easily worked loamy soils, the wealth of sea food in the shallow harbour at their doorstep, and the warm microclimate. It was then called Haumangere, or the place of lazy winds, but it was also known as Te Pane or Te Upoko 0 Mataaho, the brow or head of Mataaho, the giant associated with several other volcanic features on the isthmus. This second name reflects its importance as a site of major settlement, covering about 500 hectares, over a long period. Waiohua were the first people known to occupy and cultivate this beautiful area but, by the late 1700s, the Te Taou branch of Ngati Whatua from Kaipara had overrun much of Tamaki and controlled the southern shores of the Manukau. Modern visitors standing on the crater rim can turn their backs to the city and, looking across the Manukau to the bushclad Waitakere Ranges, believe that this was, and still is, a good place to live. The removal of Auckland’s sewage ponds from the foreground has restored a measure of integrity to much of the foreshore, despite the sight of dredged sludge which was dumped in one spot as the cheapest means of disposing of it. Most of the area is open space, grazed by young cattle whose light weight makes them less damaging to the archeological features than mature beasts. Sheep would be preferable, says Manukau City’s parks’ manager, Dr Digby Whyte, but wouldn't survive the attacks of marauding dogs. The crater’s ageing macrocarpa signal the recent pakeha predominance in this ancient

environment but there are no plans to remove them; nor to replace them as they fall. A stand of young puriri along the eastern rim and more plantings of natives will gradually allow a more indigenous character to prevail. Adjoining the mountain reserve to the north-west is Ambury Regional Park, an Auckland Regional Council domain where Riding for the Disabled, recreation, teaching and farming activities take place. Lava caves lie beneath its surface — in these Waiohua are said to have hidden from the Ngati Whatua invaders. To the south stretch the stonefields of Otuataua at Ihumatao (93.3 hectares were bought by Manukau City Council in 1999)

and Matukurua at Puhinui where for hundreds of years people lived and grew crops. The many deep rua, or storage pits that are clearly visible on the mountain are proof of the abundance of these crops — kumara for the most part, but of different varieties from the red or golden ones we eat today. The first Maori immigrants brought sweet potato Ipomoea batatas with them from their Pacific homeland, along with other crops, such as taro Colocasia esculenta, uwhe or yam Discoria species, and hue or gourd Laganaria siceraria which gradually became less important as a food source. Elsdon Best, writing in Maori Agriculture (1925), gives 82 different names for what we

know simply as kumara. Other earlier writers recorded the great variety of shapes, colour and texture of the vegetables they saw. Some were said to be the size of a finger while others weighed ‘several pounds’. These kumara were rough or smooth-skinned, the flesh red, white or purple. Elsdon Best refers to new varieties introduced in the early 1840s that were more easily cultivated. While most but not quite all of the old cultivars have been lost, Ian Lawlor, the Auckland Regional Council’s senior archaeologist and team leader for cultural heritage, has grown three varieties which give us some idea of what might have been grown on Mangere’s slopes and stored

in its pits. (See box.) Called hutihuti, rekamaroa and taputini they are different in habit from the kumara we know: the modern plant sends out vines and shoots whereas the older varieties are bushy and grow in clumps. Ian Lawlor says his plants were very hardy and produced a large number of tubers, not inferior to modern produce. Their bushy character would have made them suitable for traditional methods of production and storage. To compensate for the cooler climate here, Maori learned to utilise the millions of stones littering the ground. They heaped them into mounds and filled the interstices with soil so that the stones absorbed the

Getting to Know A Volcano

uarrying, the scourge of Auckland’s cones, took a large chunk out of Mangere mountain but it’s hard now to see where. The wound has healed well and the site has become an education centre administered by the Mangere Mountain Education Trust. This collaborative body consists of two representatives each from the Department of Conservation, the Auckland Regional Council, Manukau City Council and Te Waiohua Trust. The former quarry depot office has been refurbished as the centre itself and the old pumping station, which houses a deep well, has been restored. Beside it a kumara garden has been established, as a trial patch using modern varieties. It is hoped eventually to propagate tubers of older varieties. Illustrated panels provide information on Maori gardening and occupation and on the mountain’s volcanic origins. A native plant garden, the Children’s Nature Park which won a gold medal at last year’s Ellerslie Flower Show, has been recreated next to the centre. Designed by Jan Latham, this was commissioned by Manukau City Council. Weeds on the old quarry wall have largely been dealt with. The few straggly remnants of gorse will, it is hoped, provide a nursery for the spread of natives from a thickly planted neighbouring plot. A path from the centre joins a walk that leads past a sports field and circles the mountain, taking in its most important traditional, archaeological and geological features. The education trust’s aims include the protection of the mountain, the development of an education programme and visitor centre, and the initiation of scientific investigations into the area. It hopes in the future, to employ a director and a teacher. Activities have a strong bi-cultural focus with particular relevance to the many schools in the district with high numbers of Maori and Polynesian students.

sun’s heat, warming the soil and creating a microclimate in which to grow tropical vegetables. They also built low walls for wind shelters and used the stones to delineate the boundaries of family gardens and to form house-wall foundations. Remnants of these boundary walls, which radiated out from the base of Mangere and up its slopes, can be seen from above or picked out when the light is right. Walking along the crater rim one is struck by the immense industry involved in the creation of what was the hub of a populous Maori town. More than 160 terraces, dug using a ko, or digging stick, rib the outside of the two cones. In some places they extend from the rim right down to the base of the mountain, and at others spill over into the inside. These terraces were mostly living areas. It is likely that, while evidence of some ditch and bank defences have been found at Mangere, this mountain was never a pa or completely fortified village in the manner of other Auckland cones such as Maungakiekie (One Tree Hill) and Maungawhau (Mt Eden). Mangere was, nevertheless, in a strategic position since it overlooked two portages from the Manukau to the Tamaki river. It was along one of these routes that two of the earliest Europeans to visit Mangere, the missionaries Samuel Marsden and John Butler, walked in 1820. They both left accounts of the thriving communities at Mangere and Onehunga and of the gardens they saw. Canoe trade and traditional communication routes had already spread a

range of European vegetables. The introduction of potato revolutionised Maori gardening because careful management allowed at least two crops a year — twice as many as kumara. The missionaries noted that maize was well established, as were pumpkin and watermelon. They also saw herds of pigs. They would likely have met the eminent Ngati Whatua chief Apihai Te Kawau who was born at Mangere and who negotiated the sale of the first Tamaki land to Governor Hobson. But hardly a year after his birth, Apihai’s people fled the place in fear of Hongi Hika who, with his muskets, decimated the nearby pa at Mokoia (Panmure) and on Maungarei (Mt Wellington). Apihai and his people returned in about 1835 and by the early 1840s the gardens of Mangere were once more in full production, providing meat and vegetables for settlers in the newly established town of Auckland. A few years later large chunks of Mangere land passed into settler hands and Maori gardens became market gardens. This landuse persisted until well into the twentieth century when population growth resulted in houses covering the fertile fields. Mangere Mountain became a public domain in 1890. It encompasses an area of about 65 hectares, 70 percent of which is an historic reserve. The remainder is recreation or local purpose reserve.

is an Auckland-based feature

writer.