History

Tu Tangata, Issue 30, 1 July 1986, Page 4

History

1. General Recent research by McEwen and O’Regan 1 has revealed major errors in the pre-Euro-pean Maori history written by Best 2 and others. Although none of his descendants remained, Kupe’s voyage of exploration forms a part of the traditions of Maori Tribes based in the Wellington area. The previous dating of 925 AD has been questioned, but although it is thought that Kupe’s voyage preceeded Maori settlement, some sources have suggested that it might have been mid-scale in terms of Maori pre-European settlement or alternatively, because of the oral way that Maori history is handed down between generations, Kupe may have been no more than a mythical figure. Kupe is

said to have stopped over at Cape Palliser, Seatoun, Sinclair Head, Porirua Harbour and Mana Island. The Seatoun stop over was long enough to replenish stocks by growing food and it is said that while some did his work, Kupe explored the northern South Island. Place names attributed to Kupe, which feature in local Maori traditions described by O’Regan, 1 include: Matiu (Somes Island) Makaro (Ward Island) Pariwhero (Red Rocks) Te Rimurapa (Sinclair Head) Te Tangihanga-o-Kupe (Barretts Reef) Te Aroaro-a-Kupe (Steeple Rock) Matauranga (rocks on the eastern side of the Harbour entrance)

The first Maori inhabitants of the Wellington area were the Ngai Tara people. O’Regan 1 describes how an early Hawkes Bay chief named Whatonga took his sons Tara and Tautoki on an exploration to find lands for them. Land south of a line between Kapiti and Castle Point was apportioned to Tara, that north of the line to Tautoki. The first Ngai Tara built a pa on Matiu (Somes Island) and named the Harbour Te Whanganui-a-Tara (the great Harbour of Tara). The first settlement is probably dated around the thirteenth century. Tuatoki’s people named Rangitane after his son, inhabited north Wairarapa and Manawatu. Later the Ngai Tara moved to Te Motukairangi (now Miramar but then on an

island) and built the first major pa Te Whetukairangi on the ridge above Worser Bay. The Ngai-Tara expanded to occupy the island of Te Motukairangi and Mount Victoria down to Island Bay. Many pas were built and there are seven great Ngai Tara pas listed by O’Regan 1 .

Te Whetukairangi (Worser Bay) Mataki-kai-poinga (Mount Crawford) Te Waihirere (Point Jerningham) Te Akaterewa (Mt Alfred) Uruhau (Island Bay) Raekaehau (Princess Bay) Rangitatau (Tarakena)

These pas linked up with Te Raeakaiki (Pencarrow Head) and Oruapounui (Baring Head) on the route to the Wairarapa.

The Rangitatau pa at Tarakena assumed great importance around the seventeenth century when the great Chief Tuteremoana is said to have lived there (ref Adkin 1 and O’Regan 4 ). Tuteremoana was a direct descendant of Tara, and became the principal Maori Chief for the south of the North Island including the Hawkes Bay.

O’Regan 1 describes the marriage of Tuteremoana’s daughter, the Ngai Tara Chief Moeteao to a leader of the Ngati Ira Tribe, who had migrated to Wellington from the Hawkes Bay. As a result, within a few generations the Ngai Tara had changed their name to that of their marital conquerors, who were fewer in number. Thus at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the occupiers of Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington Harbour) were still mostly Ngai Tara, but known as Ngati Ira and said to be as numerous as the pekeka or petrel seabirds on the shores.

O’Regan 1 describes the early history of the Wellington Region as being Ngai Tara and Ngati Ira, overlaid with the addition of the tribes who came for a time including the Ngati Mamoe and Ngai Tahu. Both these Tribes occupied distinct areas for a period of time before migrating to the South Island in the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries there was some intermarriage with the Ngai Tara/Ngati Ira and probably also migration of small groups of Ngai Tara/Ngati Ira to the South Island. The Ngati Mamoe settled the southern coastal area between Sinclair Head and Makara. The main Ngai Tahu pas were above Kilbirnie Park and on the western Miramar Hills south of Cobham Drive.

A war party armed with muskets comprising Nga Puhi, Ngati Whatua and Ngati Toa under Pautone, Tuwhere, Te Rauparaha and Te Rangihaeata attacked the Wellington area in 1819 and after a year long series of attacks the Ngati Ira pas were destroyed. Most of those Ngati Ira who survived fled to the Wairarapa where their descendents are based today.

The Te Ati Awa people from Taranaki later migrated to Wellington and settled the previously unoccupied northern

side of the Harbour, along the mouth of the Hutt River, Petone, Ngauranga, Kaiwharawhara, Pipitea, Kumototo and Te Aro. Smaller Te Ati Awa settlements were at locations such as near the coast at Cape Terawhiti and Karori Rock and near Lake Kohangatera, Fitzroy Bay. Also at this time, the Ngati Toa migrated from Kawhia to Porirua. The Te Ati Awa lived in conflict with their neighbouring tribes of Ngati Toa (Porirua), Ngati Raukawa (Otaki) and Ngati Kahungunu (Wairarapa), and this is said to be a major factor in their acceptance of European settlement.

Adkin * notes that the Chief Honiana Te Puni lived at Petone (Pito-one pa) and was the ariki (paramount Chief) of theTe Ati Awa people in occupation of the Wellington Harbour lands at the time of the advent of the New Zealand Company’s settlers. In 1839, a year before the first settlers arrived, Colonel William Wakefield and the Te Ati Awa Chiefs signed a deed of purchase by the New Zealand Company of the lands around Wellington Harbour described by McGill 5 as ambiguous. There were said to be three hundred Maori people living around the Wellington Harbour at that time.

The Te Ati Awa people have remained the tangata whenua (people with authority in Maori terms] for the Wellington Harbour lands to the present. In that time the proportion of non-Maori population has increased substantially. The migration of Maori people from the rural areas (i.e. East Coast) to the major cities in recent decades has resulted in the majority of Maori people living in the Wellington area now not belonging to the tangata whenua. Including also the Ngati Toa people of the Porirua Basin, Love 6 estimated six thousand out of fifty

three thousand total Maori population were tangata whenua.

2. Related to Moa Point area The linking of the Rangitatau Pa to the Chief Tuteremoana which was described in Section 1, gives great historical importance to that site. Tarakena Bay, sheltered from the main southerly winds by the Palmer Head reef, was an important canoe landing place. Thus the significant physical historical sites are Tarakena Bay (formerly Taraki Bay, now Ataturk Bay), the Rangitatau pa site on the western headland to the bay and an associated pa on the eastern headland. O’Regan 4 does not place an historical significance on the land to the west of the Rangitatau pa. No urupa (burial grounds) are known of in the Tarakena vicinity. Tuteremoana is said to be buried in a cave on Kapiti Island.

The Maori settlement of the Tarakena Bay area spanned many centuries until 1819 when the northern raiding party burned and destroyed the pa and settlement. During this time the bay bounded by the Palmer Head reef and Hue-te-taka peninsula would have been an important fishing area. O’Regan 1 describes how Tuteremoana’s rock off Tarakena Bay near Palmer Head, where that Chief fished for hapuka, was named “Toka Whangai o Tuteremoana”. Adkin 1 shows this rock off Barretts Reef and another traditional fishing rock, the Kaiwhatawhata rock, on the southern end of the Palmer Head reef.

The Tarakena Bay area was not settled by the Te Ati Awa people, who migrated to the Wellington area around 1825. The nearest small settlements were said to be at Worser, Karaka, and Mahanga Bays. Love 7 indicated that the south Wellington coastline and Wellington harbour could be considered traditional Te Ati Awa fishing grounds. At a seminar in 1985, he stated that when the Moa Point outfall was constructed in 1898, the coastline adjacent was abandoned as a fishing ground by the Maori people.

References 1. Stephen O’Regan as told to David McGill for the series “The Harbour of Tara” published in the Evening Post and later reprinted in the Newspapers in Education booklet “The Harbour of Tara -Wellingtons Past”, 1984. 2. Elsdon Best; Te Whanga-nui-a-Tara, Wellington in Pre-Pakeha Days; 1874. 3. G.L. Adkin; The Great Harbour of Tara; 1959. 4. Stephen O’Regan; personal communication, 1986. 5. David McGill in the series “Harbour City” on the European settlement of Wellington published in the Evening Post and later reprinted in the Newspapers in Education booklet “Harbour of Tara - Wellingtons Past” 1984. 6. Ralph Love as reported in the Evening Post, March 5, 1985. 7. Ralph Love; telephone communication, 1986.