The Great Stretch of Water – Whanganui river

Tu Tangata, Issue 32, 1 October 1986, Page 26

The Great Stretch of Water - Whanganui river

□ NGA RA □ MUA

Although New Zealand is a land that is well provided for with regards to rivers and streams, in earlier times, few of these water courses could be utilised for navigation because of their gradients over much of their length, general shallowness once the tidal influence was left behind and the numerous snags protruding from their beds were a never ending hazard in forested country. One major river however which was out on its own in olden times through being able to provide access by water well into the hinterland was the Whanganui.

Since the earliest times the Whanganui river with its long reaches and spectacular gorges had provided travellers with a convenient but not necessarily easy means of access into the interior of Te-Ika-a-maui by canoe. For the wending nature of the navigable section of the Whanganui’s course of 151 miles, its overall fall of 520 feet from the Ongarue Junction near present day Taumarunui to the sea and its numerous rapids presented a considerable challenge to the stamina of those manning the canoes. As a consequence when either ascending or descending the river early European travellers tended to overestimate the distances travelled when they calculated mileage on proceeding at an

average speed of so many miles per hour.

However, well before the terrain and dwindling volume of water called a halt to any further navigation by canoe, an important route by way of water and overland travel branched off at the Manganui-a-te-ao river, 71 miles upstream.

This route led travellers to lakes Roto Aira and Taupo. From Taupo access to the north could be obtained by following the course of the Waikato River or by keeping to defined tracks and routes, parties could journey to the Thames Valley, Bay of Plenty, Hawkes Bay and other localities to the south. That the geographical knowledge of the Maori was deep and profound be-

fore the days of British sovereignty and universal education, was brought to Captain A D W Best’s (80 Regiment) attention, when on August 28 1841 while stationed at Auckland he records in his journal “Atako a Mauri a chief from Port Nicholson paid me a visit. Our conversation turned to the possibility of penetrating through the centre of the island to that settlement. He informed me that from that part of the Manawatu to Wairarapa is only two days journey over Ruahine a snowy mountain and that he has travelled that way, also that a good road exists from Taupo to the said point on the Manawatu”. Best was already familiar with the route from Auckland to Taupo.

E T Wakefield while residing at Taupo in November 1841 witnessed further proof of the geographical knowledge of the old time Maori and his bushcraft prowess when he records in Adventure in New Zealand “After I had been at the lake about a fortnight, a chief and his train arrived from a place called Te Whaiti in the district of Urewera with pigs and mats”.

The reason for this journey which Wakefield estimated to be in the order of 300 miles was to procure doublebarrelled guns at Whanganui, items which incidentally the Tuhoe could not obtain from East Coast traders.

LT W Tyrone Power captures the atmosphere of the Whanganui river in its lower course at Tunuhaere. When in 1862, J C Crawford the then Wellington Provincial Council geologist overstayed at Pipiriki the then capital of Upper Whanganui, he had occasion to comment in his memoirs on colonial life of the amount of traffic on the river. Although some of this traffic was the result of Pipiriki occupying both banks of the river there were other reasons for the numbers of craft observed plying the Whanganui. Being a major communication route long before the days British sovereignty was proclaimed it generated traffic in its own right. In Crawford’s time the volume of traffic was probably greater than in pre-european times. For other than when war parties were on the move, in 1862 it was still the era when most of the country’s crops were still being produced by Maori cultivators from tribal land. Much of this produce was destined for the growing towns and settlements of the colonists. Some of the river traffic noticed by Crawford however was due to Maori politics being in a state of flux. Shortly after leaving Pipiriki Crawford’s party were thwarted in their investigation of a reported coal seam up the Tangarakau. This was through the land being declared beyond the pale to colonists. On the same journey he had further cause to recast his plans and turn about on a matter of principle, through feeling that for a person in his official capacity to pay a toll charge to the Maori king in order to procede up the river beyond a certain point would give rise to serious political ramifications. For at this time there was certainly a

hardening in attitudes towards the colonists. Nevertheless traffic flowed along the course as earlier sketches of the scene and journal entries show. It is also significant that in November 1842 when Bishop Selwyn’s overland party reached the navigable section of the upper river the bishop was able to obtain a ride for himself and some of the party. This he managed by hailing a passing canoe in the manner of a latter day hitchhiker. Lt Tyrone Power of the British Army’s Commissariat Corps in 1847 fully appreciated the strategic importance of the Whanganui. Assessing the situation “that small slopes here and there are taken up by native pas and cultivations there is nothing to tempt the settler in this direction”. Here he was more astute and understanding of the situation with regards to land sales than the agents of the New Zealand Company. His military training further enabled him to sum up the situation by recording in Sketches in New Zealand “The highlands and passes of this river can be looked on as impregnable retreats for the native inhabitants whence they can annoy the settlements almost with impunity”. To guard against this eventuality arising Power advised “to keep on good terms with them; at any rate till a road from Wellington or Auckland passes to the eastward of Tongariro and Rotorua”. Power’s thinking was not all negative however for he was a firm advocate of coming to some business arrangement with tribes in the lower North Island by encouraging them to provide accommodation and ferries at difficult river crossings when bridges were still a thing of the future. One further legend recalls how the

course of the Whanganui was created by the fire Tamatea obtained from Tongariro after he invoked the services of a tohunga of renown. As this legend explains, this action of Tamatea was to make good his loss of possessing fire which he had been without since suf-

fering a mishap far to the southward. As this legend can be dated about the fourtheenth century (great fleet theory) and if accepted as gospel it puts forward the exploration of the Whanganui and the blazing of paths to Taupo and beyond by some centuries.

Not surprisingly the Whanganui River figures well in legends. The majority of New Zealanders are aware of how according to legend the great gorgy course of the Whanganui came about. This legend which goes back to time immemorial was recorded by Wakefield soon after the establishment of the New Zealand Company’s settlement at the river mouth.

This great national legend tells how the course of the river was gouged out by Taranaki’s (Mt Egmont) great bulk after a fall out with Tongariro, the paramount chief, over women.

The result of the discord caused his eviction from the fold, an event which took place at a remote time when sacred mountains had the ability to move about.

The Whanganui also appears in the sagas of Kupe, who in the lore of a number of tribes was the legendary discoverer of the land. According to this legend Kupe was forced to anchor off the river’s mouth for some days because of sea conditions on the bar. The old place name of Kai-hau-o-Kupe (wind-eating of Kupe) recalls this episode in the exploration of Te-ika-a-Maui because by the time sea conditions had moderated the party was short of rations. Recalling this incident is the Kaura paua. This is a latter day corruption of Kau-ara-pawa and records the drowning of Arapawa, a contemporary of Kupe who lost his life in attempting to swim across the river to obtain food for the voyagers who were by now suffering from short commons.

Poling up the Whanganui as depicted by J C Crawford. Being a former officer in the Royal Navy, Crawford was impressed by the way in which the crew performed their poling technique. He could not help comparing their litheness with the more awkward appearance of European seamen when engaged in poling small craft.

Complementary to Crawford’s concise description which reads like a terse log book entry, is Wakefield’s graphic impression that “on reaching the foot of the rapid, the crew abandon the paddles, stand up in the canoe and handle long poles of kanuka, toatoa or other hardwoods and commence pushing against the bed of the stream in perfect unison, as if by clockwork”.