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| Young Maori Party |
Apirana Ngata realized in his time that Maori culture was in
danger of being corrupted or swamped by European culture, and encouraged the
revival of many Māori arts and crafts, such as kapa haka and carving. He also recorded many waiata and
other forms of Māori literature, ensuring its preservation. He wrote about many
aspects of Maori culture and ultimately it was all linked to whakapapa. Apirana
was an acknowledged expert in the whakapapa of his people and enjoyed gathering
and indeed recording the whakapapa all along the East Coast. One of my uncles
Matene Kaipau Pohatu worked as clerk for Apirana and shared his passion for whakapapa.
In recent years I have had access to Matene’s archives and included in them are
many documents and writings of Sir Apirana.
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| The Great Apirana Ngata |
I especially enjoyed reading his
Rauru Lecture series and this really intrigued me…
Ngati Porou can claim descent
from seven out of ten of Kahungunu's children, while the Ngai Tamanuhiri,
Rongowhakaata and Te Aitanga a Mahaki of Gisborne are able, so I am informed,
to claim from all of them. Yet the
tribal name Ngati Kahungunu has as among the East Coast tribes restricted
application. It was established in the
Wairoa district through Rakaipaaka and Hinemanuhiri, the children of
Kahungunu's eldest son Kahukuranui, by his second wife Tuteihonga. In Hawkes Bay the name followed in the wake
of Rakaihikuroa and his sons and grandson.
Thence by sundry migrations and intermarriages the name extended until
it superseded other tribal appellations in the territory south of Hawkes Bay.
Here’s more
of his abundant wisdom... taken from Lecture 5.
In the time of
Hingangaroa the descendants of Porourangi through Manutangirua were definitely
occupying the Uawa district. Hingangaroa
was a great artist, carver and builder.
He was an expert in the building canoes.
It was this that led him and his wife Iranui to visit Kahungunu in the
Whakaki district of Wairoa. Iranui, then
in child, saw Kahungunu and his people finishing the body of a canoe and fixing
the prow and stern pieces by tying them on by straight joints, tuporo
haumi. A canoe built in this way
depended largely on the rauawa or side boards for strength and rigidity. She told of her husband, who was an expert in
such matters and showed her brother the new way of dovetailing the pieces
in. She effectually if not modestly
illustrated what she meant by lying down and placing her brother's legs each
side of her own. Hingangaroa was invited
to Whakaki and there demonstrated the art of joining haumi. It was at Whakaki on the beach that Iranui
gave birth to her second son, Mahaki.
The gulls pecked at the birth discharge, hence the nickname Ewe-karoro.
Hingangaroa's renown as a
master of the arts and crafts of his race is referred to in Rangiuia's lament:
Me ko Manutangirua, ko Hingangaroa;
Ka tu tona whare Te Rawheoro, e;
Ka tipu te whaihanga, e hika, ki Uawa.
Ka puta te whakaitu, te Ngaio-tu-ki-Rarotonga,
Ka riro te manaia, ka riro te taowaru,
Ka taka i raro na i a Apanui, e,
Ka puta ki Turanga.......
This is the most definite
and authoritative statement of the existence in this old centre, Uawa, of a
school of arts and crafts. Te Rawheoro
became the leading Whare wananga of the East Coast area from Wharekahika to
Wairarapa. Rangiuia who lived in the
early part of last century was its last priest and teacher. Tokipuanga of Ngatiira, Mohi Ruatapu of
Tokomaru, Hoani Te Parehuia of Ngati Ira were among the pupils or tauira of
Rangiuia. We shall find the manuscripts
left by Mohi Ruatapu and Wi Tamawhaikai, brother of Hoani Te Parehuia very
helpful in this course
Hingangaroa's fame
attracted experts from other parts of the East Coast and from Te Kaha. The school he founded, Te Rawheoro, developed
into an institution for teaching and maintaining the occult knowledge brought
from Hawaiki as well as a school for training in the arts and crafts. In a later generation Iwirakau (see table
paged II) of Waiapu and Tukaki (grandson of Rongomaihuatahi see table paged 9)
came to Te Rawheoro for an intensive course in woodcarving. According to custom they brought a gift, Te
Ngaio-tu-ki-Rarotonga, a cloak of the finest fibre and workmanship, and
heirloom which some authorities say came with the migrants from Hawaiki, and
proffered it in exchange for the knowledge they came to seek. Iwirakau added to the designs and styles of
the Waiapu carvers new details acquired from Uawa, while Tukaki founded at Te
Kaha and the neighbourhood one of the most famous schools of carving in
pre-Pakeha days. Outstanding examples of
the work of the descendants of Iwirakau from the Port Awanui district may be
seen in the Auckland Museum. But they
are surpassed by the carved slabs of the front part of a pataka or storehouse,
which had been hidden in a cave north of Te Kaha to save them from the raiding
Nga Puhi. These priceless remains of the
art of Tukaki and his descendants are also preserved in the Auckland Museum.
The further story of Te
Rawheoro School of Learning may be found in my introduction to Rangiuia's
lament from which I have quoted freely in these lectures. The Maori Purposes Board is supplying the
School with eighty copies of the composition as published in the Wananga
magazine.
The institution of Te
Rawheoro School at Uawa presupposed a state of affairs in the district and
among the descendants of Porourangi........
There were born to Iranui
by Hingangaroa three sons, TAUA, MAHAKI-EWE-KARORO and HAUITI. With these three ancestors the compartments
into which we can place the main subdivisions of the Ngati Porou tribe acquire
definiteness. We can say, that it is
from the eldest, Taua, that the Ngati Porou element in the make-up of the
Whanau a Apanui tribe is predominantly derived; that it is from Mahaki-ewe-karoro,
the second brother, and his marriage with Hinemakaho, that Ngati Porou proper
in the limited application of that designation trace descent; and that Te
Aitanga a Hauiti with their centre at Uawa claim the youngest of the sons,
Hauiti, as their eponymous ancestor.
Check out the book launch in 2007...
TAUA:
I quote here a statement
by Wi Pewhairangi, an elder of the Whanau a Ruataupare of Tokomaru: When the three
children of Iranui were born Tamatea-a-Muriwhenua heard of it at Tauranga. When Taua was born he sent the Pararaki, Te
Pananehu and Ngaoho hapus, also Te Ahowaiwai, to be a people for his grandson,
Taua. When these hapus came they were
absorbed into the tribe known as Wahineiti.
When Taua and Mahaki saw these people had been sent for them they
commenced to persecute their brother Hauiti."We have in this statement
an explanation of the traditional account of the large population, which at
this time occupied the Uawa district.
The settlements linked up with Whangara in the south and with Tokomaru
in the north. In the fighting which took
place between Hauiti and his elder brothers they led large war parties, whose
numbers cannot be accounted for by the direct descendants of Porourangi. In our third lecture we recounted how the
elders explained the existence of Ngati Ruanuku. Wi Pewhairangi accounts for the number of
Taua's retainers by importing them from the Bay of Plenty, the habitat of the
tangata whenua tribes over whom Toi and his descendants had cast the mantle of
their mana and chieftainship. The names
of the tribes sent by Tamatea to be a people for his grandson are familiar in
East Coast tradition. Te Pananehu are
associated with the Opotiki district and we will hear of them besieging
Kahungunu in his pa Maungaakahia at Nukutaurua on the Mahia peninsula under
their leaders Tutamure and Tamataipunoa.
Te Hapu Pararaki are referred to in the patere of Hineiturama of Te
Arawa in the following lines:
(Nga Moteatea:
Part 2, song 131)
Mokai taku whaea i riro atu na,
I waiho ai hei hikihiki taua
Ki te ihu o Pauanui, ko te hapu Pararaki
To peha taua e te Kirirarauhe ki te rangi.
The Pararaki people are
heard of at Uawa, up the Hikuwai valley and at Tokomaru they were prominent in
the killing of Tautini, grandson of Hauiti, at Toiroa pa. Their name is associated with the ope of Ngai
Tuere under Tamakoro, Uetaha and other chiefs when they tracked north from
Whangara to recover the lands of Ruawaipu in what is now Matakaoa county.
As to Ngaoho there are
several traditions. One is that it is an
ancient name for Te Arawa, representing the semi-devine origin of that
tribe. The legend is that an atua in the
form of Toi cohabited with Te Kuraimonoa, chief wife of Toi, and begat
Ohomairangi; hence Nga Ohomairangi or Nga Ohomatakamokamo. As in other cases the name was probably
applied to retainers and other nondescript collections of peoples. At any rate a people called Ngaoho pervaded
many parts of the Bay of Plenty and penetrated to northern Waiapu. We will take up their story in the proper
order.
Te Ahowaiwai mentioned by
Wi Pewhairangi are among the tangata whenua tribes known to the elders of this
district, together with the Pohoumauma, Raupo-ngaoheohe and others.
Wi Pewhairangi tells us,
that when these hapus, who were sent by Tamatea to be a people for his
grandsons came they were absorbed into the tribe known as Wahineiti. We have already seen that Ngati Ruanuku and
Te Wahineiti were practically one people at the time they slew Poroumata and
his sons. It is very important to
remember in this course and in your studies of the settlement of this district
the very considerable tangata whenua element in the early population. You will not otherwise be able to appreciate
the many evidences of occupation, especially the hill fortifications and terraced
pas which extend all along the seaboard and up the numerous valleys of the
Horouta canoe area.
In the story of Taua and
his younger brothers we are concerned chiefly with the country north of Uawa
and west and north-west of it up the Mangaheia and Hikuwai valleys. Canoe transport made possible the occupation
of these valleys, but the most important settlements were at the mouth of the
Uawa river on both sides of the river and along the coast to Anaura, Te Mawhai
and north of that point. According to
one authority the great pas were at Te Karaka, Marau and Te Mawhai, and that
the brothers lived at the POHATU-A-TIKI pa at Marau. The name of another pa there was Te
Ika-a-Tauira. Closer in to Uawa and
north of it were PAONEONE and PAERAU. On
the west bank of the Uawa river and up the Mangaheia valleys were other great
pas, two of which you see as you approach Tolaga Bay township from the north.
In that environment and
supported by his numerous retainers Taua lorded it over the peoples of
Uawa. He was the senior male
representative of a great line from Hawaiki and Whangara. But he was overbearing and grasping. With is younger brother MAHAKI-EWE-KARORO he
appears to have exercised his privileges as chief and overlord in a tyrannical
manner.
Mahaki was favoured by
his elder brother and emulated the latter in manner and conduct. We have recorded the circumstances of his
birth. Here is another account of it by
the late Hone Ngatoto Tuwahiawa, which I quote here as an introduction to a
haka fragment, which has survived from the ceremonial opening of Te
Kani-a-Takirau meeting house at Uawa:
"Mo Mahaki te tikanga o tenei haka, i whanau
atu i a Iranui ki te one i Kaimatai, kei te Whakaki. Ko te take o te haere a Iranui ki reira, i
haere raua ko te tane, ko Hingangaroa, ki te whakaako i a Kahungunu ki te
whakatutaki haumi waka. Ka whanau a Mahaki, ka putu te ewe i te akau, ka kainga
e te karoro, ka tau atu te kowhitiwhiti o ro rimu ki runga. "Ko Mahaki i
mate ki te moana i te whainga i te ika, i te aturere, i te atihakona."
Tona tangihanga... nga roimata tini o te Tairawhiti...
(Awesome stuff)... ka nui te mihi
