The European Impact: Exploration to Conflict, 1840–1890

Abstract

This chapter describes the impressions of the country and of the last years of the classic Maori culture recorded in the mid-nineteenth century by Bidwill, Dieffenbach, Ensign Best, Angas, Smith, Hochstetter and Kerry-Nicholls, mostly in their own words. Then it covers the origins of the King Movement, the local consequences of the Waikato War of the 1860s, and the closing of the King Country to Europeans until the early 1880s.

The original version of this chapter was revised: For detailed information please see Erratum. The Erratum to this chapter is available at 10.1007/978-3-319-18410-4_16

An erratum to this chapter can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-18410-4_16

The earliest European visitors to New Zealand found a world very different from the comfortable, prosperous and optimistic society they had left.

It would be an understatement to call New Zealand in 1839 an “undeveloped country”. For as yet there was no development at all and its total population of Europeans at that time can only be guessed; estimates vary between 150 (in 1831–32) to 2,000 in the mid-thirties [4: 34].

By the 1860s, much of the interior of the North Island had been explored by Europeans. Among the earliest of those who ventured inland as far as the edges of the Pureora area were J.C. Bidwill (1839), Ernst Dieffenbach and Ensign Best (1841), Georg Angas (1844), Percy Smith and Hursthouse (1858), Ferdinand von Hochstetter (1859) and Herbert Meade (1864). (Another well-known explorer, William Colenso, did not visit Pureora, as his route of 1847 approached Lake Taupo from Napier and returned eastwards via Waiouru). They all left written accounts of their journeys, which provide detailed descriptions of the land and the people during a critical period of cultural change. After 1864, the west Taupo area was closed to Europeans for 20 years (Chap. 5).

The Europeans did not, of course, really explore the land in the sense of being the first visitors, since most of it had already long been known to Maori. Throughout this period, European explorers used Maori routes and drew up maps from their descriptions. They nearly always used Maori guides and porters, followed Maori tracks (Fig. 3.1), and were fed, canoed and even carried, by Maori [22].

The detailed accounts they published give us a glimpse into a vanished world, written from an outsider’s point of view often steeped in European romantic literature (Byron, Scott, Longfellow, Wordsworth), interpreted through the lenses of their personal interests, and formed by the assumptions of their times.

They tended to value the manly, public-school hardiness (“muscular Christianity”) that made light of sore feet, rough food, hard beds, biting insects and rats, all the while “singing the praises of life in the wilds, of a bed in the bush with stars to see, and a weka roasted on a supplejack ” [22: xiii].

With the last ray of the sun the sandflies disappear entirely, so that at night at last one is rid of that plague. But, sometimes, certain other still more unwelcome guests intrude at night -- rats. They are found even in quite uninhabited countries, and gather after the very first night around the camp. To their running at night leisurely over his head and body, the traveller will easily become used; but eatables must be carefully kept out of their reach by hanging them upon poles [12: 287–8].

Inland from Kawhia in 1882, Andreas Reishek camped one night, watching as

…..small owls kept flittering round the fire, and rats nibbled away at the fragments of my meal or fought with one another [19: 172].

Occasionally, the rats provided some mild entertainment, as reported by the surveyor John Rochfort :

Another great evil is the immense number of rats, which destroy corn and everything eatable. They are almost a match for a cat; in fact, I have known six cats turned out of a house by them in a single night. At the same house one of my companions missed a woollen stocking on rising in the morning; after a long search, a small portion of it was found sticking out of a rat’s hole in the corner of the room. The officers of the garrison amuse themselves, when indulging in bed in the morning, by practising pistol-shooting on them…. by a little stretch of imagination [they can] practise bush-fighting from behind the bedposts [20: 26].

These authors do not specify whether they were referring to Norway or ship rats . Norway rats were the first to arrive and were the larger and more aggressive of the two species (Chap. 13), so Rochfort’s rats sound more like Norways, but in the North Island bush after around 1859–1869, Hochstetter and Reischek could have encountered either species. Both were unwelcome, to residents and visitors alike.

Even at so early a stage in settlement history, some of the visiting authors included pointed criticisms of the ransacking of New Zealand timber and marine resources (whales and seals) by the Pakeha. It is a curious fact, remarks David Young [26: 62], that three of the most trenchant early critics were all German: two (Dieffenbach , Hochstetter) were visiting trained naturalists, and a third (in the far south, Johann Wohlers ) a missionary. Their outsiders’ perspective contrasted pointedly with that of the mostly British immigrants, who came to settle into a new life.

Travellers’ Tales

Because there were no roads over any useful distance outside settlements, the only ways to get about were on foot, on horseback, or by boat or canoe. Settlements built along the main rivers or on the shores of Lake Taupo were relatively accessible (Chap. 3), but other places with few tracks, many steep gorges and fast, deeply incised streams with no bridges, including much of the interior of the west Taupo forests, were seldom visited by Europeans.

Nevertheless, European influence had already significantly changed the way of life of the people living in even the most remote places, long before they ever met a Pakeha. The widespread adoption of pigs, potatoes and corn as staple foods (Chap. 3), plus metal tools with which to manage them, had already greatly improved the nutrition and survival of Maori, especially of children. The opposite effect was achieved by muskets and axes, dangerous weapons that in the early 19th century were swiftly adopted by dominant tribes.

The first Pakeha travellers to venture inland found the going rather hard, and the resident population widely scattered. As the Waitangi Tribunal Report dryly comments,

It was not an empty region. Although large areas appeared desolate, there were many clusters of kainga, small settlements of perhaps up to 20 or 30 people, scattered along the bush margins, by lake shore or river, and associated with areas of surface geothermal activity. Unlike the lowland forests of the North Island, there were large expanses of fern, scrub and tussock on the Volcanic Plateau …. The ranges to the west of the lake were clothed with dense podocarp forest [23: Chap. 3].

The Austrian geologist Ferdinand von Hochstetter ’s vivid first-hand descriptions (Fig. 4.1) summarised the conditions met by most European travellers venturing into the forest in the mid nineteenth century:

Fig. 4.1

Hochstetter’s sketch of himself and his companions on Ngariha (a peak of 560 m on the western edge of the Hauhungaroa Range, northeast of Ongarue) in 1856. From Hochstetter 1867 p. 354. courtesy University of Auckland Libraries, Early New Zealand Books Collection

The slender paths of the natives lead over hills and mountains in steep ascent and descent, rarely in the valley, nearly always along the ridge of mountain-heights. Where they cross the bush, the clearing is just broad enough for one man to wind himself through. [A horseman] used to European paths will scarcely recognise those Maori-trails, and man and beast would be in continual danger upon them -- the horse , in danger of sinking into the deep holes between the roots of trees, and of breaking its legs; the rider, of being caught among the branches, or strangled among the loops of the “supple jack.” Hence there is no other choice left but to travel on foot; and it requires full, unimpaired bodily strength, and sound health, to pass uninjured through the inevitable hardships of a longer pedestrian journey through the New Zealand bush, over fern-clad hills, over steep and broken headlands, through the swampy plains and cold mountain-streams of the country. Whatever the traveller needs for his individual wants, he must carry with him, and therefore must be limited to the most necessary articles. Now and then, a solitary European squatter may be met with; and more frequently still, a Mission station. On all these occasions the traveller will meet with a cordial welcome, and hospitable treatment, and transiently he will enjoy even the comforts of civilized life; but, taken as a general thing, he must resign them all; he must learn to find pleasure in living in the open air with the skies for a canopy and the earth for his table and bed [12: 283].

Bidwill, Dieffenbach and Ensign Best

In the 1820s and 1830s, visiting botanists Allan Cunningham and J.C. Bidwill sent collections of plants to London’s Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. Bidwill headed inland from the Bay of Plenty to Rotorua in 1839, crossed Lake Taupo in a canoe and then, ignoring the Maori tapu  protecting the sacred mountains of the Tuwharetoa, climbed Ngauruhoe . He was lucky to get away with it because even decades later, when Kerry-Nicholls and his companion climbed Ruapehu in 1882, the tapu was still strong enough to put the Europeans in real fear of being killed if they had been caught trespassing on the sacred mountain [14]. At that time, Pureora was also protected by tapu, but less than 100 years later, trampers were allowed free access to the summit, and public use of this privilege was rapidly increasing by 1971 [24].

Bidwill described the landscape around Lake Taupo in the late 1830s. The forest and the population depending on it surrounded the western shores of the lake and extended into the deep sheltered valleys inland, while the higher-altitude mountains supported neither forest nor permanent populations (Fig. 3.2).

Ernst Dieffenbach spent two years (1839–41) exploring much of the North Island on behalf of the New Zealand Company, which was promoting the country for British settlement. His prime task was to look for agricultural land and minerals, which probably coloured his views of the difficulty posed to settlement by the dense forest.

In April 1841 Dieffenbach travelled up the Waikato River  with Ensign Best , a naval officer on leave from his ship, and from a hill near Mangakino, Dieffenbach described his first view of the central North Island:

The forest was interwoven with creepers, and the road very tedious. We encamped about a mile from the left shore of the river Waikato. On ascending the hill which separated us from it, a novel scene opened before me. Looking to the eastward the land appeared as if the waves of the sea had suddenly become petrified: ……….We also saw Titiraupena, a pyramidical mountain, with naked black rocks heaped upon its pointed summit, and bearing S. 20° E. The Waipapa presented a very wild scene. The river, here about forty yards broad, lost itself in successive falls in a deep fissure which it had corroded out of the soft rock…… Of animal life nothing was visible, with the exception of the Cigale Zelandica [cicada ], which filled the air with its chirping note, and a brown ground-lark very common in New Zealand. …. Here and there I found pieces of obsidian, and everything proved that we were fast approaching a great centre of volcanic action [10: 323–5].

Dieffenbach was interested in all aspects of natural science, and was an indefatigable collector of botanical and geological specimens. His Maori porters could not understand his interests at all, and sometimes quietly dropped the rock specimens he had given them to carry, substituting others collected along the path just before they reached the day’s camp [4: 63]. Dieffenbach gave a detailed account of the fauna, flora, landscape and Maori inhabitants living in New Zealand as he observed them in 1839–41.

Dieffenbach endured with minimal comment all the hardships of an inhospitable environment:

…..[sandflies] are perhaps the most bloodthirsty animal that exist, attacking all the exposed parts of the body. With the last ray of the sun they all disappear, but are immediately replaced by the musquittos …. We had taken our abode in an old house, where the rats ran over us all night, and two species of smaller animals, not to be named to ears polite [10: 145].

Other, less inhibited authors such as Polack [18] did not hesitate to name the offending two smaller species as fleas and lice, both of which over-ran the houses and the persons of the local people. Explorers soon found that sleeping in their own tents was a safe precaution, regardless of the weather. Angas and his companions

pitched our tent, overlooking the broad surface of the Waikato , at about half a dozen yards from its brink. The fear of too many visitations from that active parasite, the flea (cleverly styled “e pakea nohinohi,” or “the little stranger,” by the natives, who say it was introduced by the Europeans), prevented our encamping within the enclosure of the pah. [2: 20].

On the other hand, Dieffenbach was an expert observer, and relished the bird life of the forest:

The sonorous fluting call of the large parrots, varied by their harsh scream when, on a sudden alarm, they started over the tops of the hills, and then returned to rest, were the only sounds that broke the deep silence…..Sometimes a parrot would perch on one of the trees embowering our huts, as if curious to ascertain who had ventured to disturb his repose. During the night a solitary cry from one of these birds might be heard from time to time, after which everything again became quiet. The sweet song of the mako-mako [bellbird ], which I can only compare to that of our nightingale, although I must confess that the former is simpler, and therefore more impressive, and the warbling of the tui , whose note resembles that of our thrush or blackbird , cease at the setting of the sun; but in the morning, before he is above the horizon, the little songsters renew their music with increased vivacity, and their combined tunes form a pleasing concert [10: 117–8].

He attempted to compile a national inventory of animals, the very first ‘Fauna of New Zealand’. Among his finds were the freshwater crayfish , the green puriri moth, and the giant weta . He was also instrumental in locating several species of skinks and geckos.

Dieffenbach was unlike many other travellers, in that some of his strong opinions were well in advance of his age. He loved New Zealand and its people, and was never scathing about them (at that time, other Europeans usually called them “savages”), or the conditions in which they lived.

He stressed repeatedly that Europeans were neither culturally nor morally superior to other peoples, which would have been a novel idea to many Victorians, especially the missionaries. He even recognised the potential of the Taupo district as a future tourist attraction (Fig. 4.2):

Fig. 4.2

View northwards across Taupo from Te Rapa (marked on Fig. 3.2), with Tauhara Mountain in the distance. At the time of Dieffenbach’s visit, Te Rapa was the site of Te Heuheu ’s pa. From Dieffenbach (1843), Travels in New Zealand, Vol 1, courtesy University of Auckland Libraries, Early New Zealand Books Collection

The scenery of Taupo lake, the whole character of the landscape, the freshness and peculiarity of the vegetation, with the white smoke rising around from so many hot-springs, are singularly beautiful, and well calculated to attract visitors from all parts of the world. The excellent disposition of the natives will ensure every one a good reception who does not come with the arrogant and ridiculous prejudices which are too frequently characteristic of a European traveller [10: 363].

Dieffenbach wanted to stay on in New Zealand after his contract expired, and might have had an interesting influence on the processes of colonialism just starting, but his work was not seen as essential, so was not further funded. He reluctantly left in 1841 [4].

Angas

Georg Frederic Angas was an English explorer and artist, and a tireless traveller. His journals and drawings are important first-hand observations of the places and people he visited, although his comments were, understandably, coloured by comparisons with his previous experiences. More than that, all visiting artists interpreted what they saw, and drafted their artworks, in terms of their own ideas about what constitutes the sublime and the picturesque [16].

Early in the spring of 1844, Angas set out on a journey of upwards of eight hundred miles, on foot, to explore the interior of the North Island.

Travelling in New Zealand is very different from travelling in Australia, where the open nature of the country enables one to ride for hundreds of miles in almost any direction: in New Zealand the traveller must go on foot, and so dense and extensive are many of the mountain forests, that he has to cut or force his way through them; whilst the frequent precipices, swamps, and rivers, offer obstacles to his progress that require some ingenuity to overcome [2: 1].

Angas approached the Taupo region by the same route later travelled by Hochstetter and Smith (Fig. 3.1), across the steeply dissected mountain forests of the southern Hauhungaroas. They were all following part of an established Maori trail, apparently the Tapuiwahine track that ran between Totoro and Tokaanu .

Angas leaves no doubt that even well-known Maori trails were not for the unfit or faint-hearted.

We struck over some fern hills into the most awful and almost impenetrable forest and jungle we had yet encountered. Supple jacks, fallen trees, and masses of decayed vegetable matter, impeded our progress; and to surmount these obstructions we were obliged to creep on our hands and knees through tangled brakes, jump over trunks of trees, slide down precipitous banks of slippery roots, and endure all manner of horrors and abominations. On, and on, and on, we toiled-- wading, creeping, jumping, sliding, and scrambling-- till sunset, when we reached a few deserted huts in an old potato-clearing upon the slope of a hill amidst the forest, beside a stream of water embowered with beautiful fuschias in full blossom. [Next day] we proceeded through [dense forest] for eight weary hours without finding a single opening, and during this time we had frequently to cut or force our way through the tangled overgrowth of vegetation. In these primeval and all but impenetrable forests, the birds are so tame that, on resting and imitating their various notes, we frequently brought round us a flight of little songsters, that approached without the slightest manifestation of fear. Amongst the smaller varieties, I observed the white-headed manakin, a black and yellow fly-catcher, and an extremely diminutive wren. At intervals, in the silent and gloomy forest, one passes an old shed constructed of bark, or the leaves of the nikau-palm, where the remains of fires bespeak the resting-place of native travellers [2: 104–106].

Whiteheads and fantails still live in the Pureora Forest (Box 2.2), but the bush wren is extinct, and beautiful fuchsias in full blossom have become a rare sight since the arrival of the introduced browsing mammals (Chap. 12).

After three days, Angas reached Lake Taupo in late October 1844 [3], and made the customary courtesy visit to Te Heuheu Mananui , paramount chief of Tuwharetoa at his lakeside pa at Te Rapa (Fig. 4.3).

Fig. 4.3

Te Heuheu Mananui (seated) and his brother Iwikau . From Angas (1847) The New Zealanders p. 126, courtesy University of Auckland Libraries, Early New Zealand Books Collection

Te Heuheu was superintending his people, who were at work in the potato grounds; but he at last arrived, and saluted me by pressing noses. After sitting down again in silence for some time, I delivered to him a letter of introduction, which I had brought from Te Whero Whero , the principal chief of Waikato.

Te Heuheu is a fine old man; he stands nearly seven feet high, and is very corpulent. His hair is silvery white, and his people compare it to the snowy head of the sacred Tongariro ; there being no object, except this tapu mountain, of equal sanctity to permit of its being mentioned in connection with the head of their chief. ….

After Te Heuheu had heard the contents of the letter, which was read to him by one of his grandchildren, he immediately ordered a large pig to be killed for us; in the mean time I was fed, much against my inclination, with potted pigeons , boiled down in their own fat and kept in a gourd until perfectly rancid; for no salt is used in preparing them: this is a delicacy reserved for visitors and state occasions [2: 109–110].

After some days enjoying Te Heuheu’s hospitality, Angas and his party reluctantly set off again into the “volcanic wilderness”, which he described in less than flattering terms while at the same time delighting in new species of plants and animals.

We started in the rain and wind, through a dismal and desolate country, composed of broken hills, ravines, and rocky masses of pumice, intersected by swamps. Amongst the wiry grass, or wiwi, of these volcanic districts, two very beautiful species of moss occur in considerable abundance: the one is a cup-moss, with brilliant scarlet sealing-wax-like tips and edges; the other resembles bushes of white coral. Larks (Alauda Novae Selandiae) are abundant here, and amongst the grass I captured a new species of butterfly, belonging to the genus Polyommatus; the latter has since been described and figured from my specimens by my friend Edward Doubleday, Esq., of the British Museum.

We crossed a foaming cataract by jumping across a chasm of rocks, which was our only means of passing a broad and swiftly-flowing river: it was a dreadful leap, and had either of us slipped we should have been dashed to pieces in the raging cauldron of rock-beaten surf below. A flower, which I have observed in no other locality, somewhat like the Christmas primrose, grew on the banks of this river [2: 132–3].

Raging rivers and impenetrable bush were not the only hazards of travel, and some of them are still familiar to modern campers.

We were….. annoyed by the mosquitoes during the night; and no sooner had the sun risen, and we issued from our tent to wash by the river side, than those peculiarly vexatious pests, the sand-flies (namu), commenced their attacks on our bare hands and feet. The sand-fly is a small black insect, and swarms in such myriads, that one is never free from their vengeance, if remaining for a single instant in the same position: whilst sketching, my hands are frequently covered with blood, and their numbers being inexhaustible, one at last gets weary of killing them [2: 20–21].

Smith

Percy Smith , then only 18 (and described by historian Nancy Taylor as a “young colonial savage”), with four companions set out from Taranaki on 4 January 1858, via the Mokau River (Fig. 3.1) and across country as Angas had done, making comparable comments on the hazards of travelling on foot through forest and swamps [21].

On 17th the party reached Pukawa , and stayed until 21st. Smith was unimpressed by the state of the village, which, he saw,

…..may have been a large and populous place at one time, but now is fast sinking into decay. There are not more than 15 houses inhabited, if so many, and we scarcely saw anyone but Te Heuheu and his women. Not far from his house is a splendid pataka, or store house, and it is elevated on four red posts, in fact the whole concern is painted red. The doorway end is beautifully carved, the carvers seeming to have vied with each other in making the ugliest faces and letting in the biggest bottoms of glass bottles for eyes. I believe that at the meeting called together to erect this, the Maori King movement was first mooted. In it Te Heuheu keeps all his household goods, such as plates, chairs, dishes, basins, wheat etc. [21: 365].

Smith was shown the site of the pa at Te Rapa (Fig. 4.4),

Fig. 4.4

Position of the unstable thermal area above the southwest shore of Lake Taupo. Te Heuheu’s village of Te Rapa was buried under the 1846 slip. Both SH 41 and the modern village of Waihi are still at risk. Data from Geological Survey NZ, image from G.T. Hancox, GNS Science, Lower Hutt, in Crozier et al. (2008: 199)

…where in May 1846, the former Te Heuheu [Mananui] , brother of the present one, was killed, with 60 of his people. It appears that the hot springs above had loosened the earth, stones etc., which, rushing down the course of a stream, had overwhelmed the pa in the night, covering the houses, fences, and everything in its way. The position of the pa is now occupied by a mass of yellow hard mud, with the tops of some houses just showing above. One of the houses had been dug out to get at the body of Te Heuheu…….It is believed he would have been saved, but an old woman (whom we saw at Pukawa , bent nearly double with age) called out to him that his child was in the house, when he ran back and was caught by the avalanche. The stream at present runs over the tops of some of the houses [21: 367–368].

Modern studies of the volcanic activity in the area above the village [7] show why this was not the first such catastrophic landslide in that area, nor would it be the last.

In 1931, two generations later, Ted Lattey , the grandson of one of Smith’s companions, Charles Hursthouse , attempted to re-enact the central part of Smith’s journey from Ongarue to Pukawa. Like Smith, Lattey did the trip the hard way—on foot and with four companions from Taranaki.

They could follow the Ellis and Burnand sawmill tramway (Chap. 5) up the Mangakahu Valley at first (16 km), but after that, getting through the bush was just as tough as Smith found it, especially where there were no wild cattle to make tracks. They missed Percy Smith’s route, suggesting that the old Maori tracks were by then invisible. Relevant to this story is the report that the inland country was still sufficiently unknown that, on their return, the newly formed State Forest Service asked Lattey to describe the timber resources he had seen [6].

Hochstetter

In March 1859, Ferdinand von Hochstetter set off from Auckland on a long surveying trip into the interior, which he stated was at that time “topographically almost unknown” to Europeans. He was not the first to venture there, but Hochstetter was a skilled geologist, and he compiled a detailed and relevant account of the central North Island in the mid nineteenth century. He published an invaluable and detailed map on returning to Auckland (Fig. 4.5). It marks the Rangitoto Ranges, Titiraupenga and Pureora (labelled with its original name, “Hurakia” ), as he observed them from neighbouring mountains to the west and south.

Fig. 4.5

Part of the map drawn by Hochstetter in 1859, showing his route from Kawhia to Pukawa. An “Overland Mail Track” is marked running north of Titiraupenga. From Hochstetter (1867), Map 2, last (un-numbered) page

The published version of the map was accompanied by some notes explaining his intentions and his route.

Since Dieffenbach’s memorable travels in New Zealand…., no naturalist has visited the southern part of the Province of Auckland, so justly celebrated for its grand volcanic phenomena. ….I started with a numerous suite, well provided for a long journey on foot, and for a campaign in that thinly inhabited country. On the 6th of March, 1859, near Maungatautari , I reached the main stream of the Waikato , flowing from the heart of the Island.

I travelled along this river in the canoes of the natives…… and entering the Waipa , visited the Mission Station, and took a tour to the West to visit the Harbours of Whaingaroa , Aotea , and Kawhia . All those localities are of geological importance on account of the numerous localities for petrefactions. At Kawhia, I found, besides Belemnites, the first Ammonites found in New Zealand.

From Kawhia, I took a tour inland to the Mokau district. Penetrating through numerous primitive forests, and traversing large mountain chains, I passed the springs of the Wanganui River in the Tuhua district, and on the 14th of April, our party arrived at the majestic Lake Taupo [11].

This laconic summary of the route gives no clue as to how challenging such a journey was at that time. But Hochstetter’s full account goes into much greater detail, leaving no doubt about the effort required and the dangers he faced. Some sections of it are very valuable and relevant to our understanding of the appearance and history of the Pureora district only 160 years ago, starting with his first sight of the Rangitoto Range.

[At] Orahiri,…. the river [Waipa] takes a south-easterly direction towards the Rangitoto-range. The valley here changes to an extensive plain covered with Kahikatea-forests; in the background rises the wood-clad Rangitoto-range forming the water-shed between the Waipa on one hand, and the Mokau and Wanganui rivers on the other. The river-pebbles lead us to suppose, that the Rangitoto-range consists of shale, sandstone and marl, and consequently is not of a volcanic origin [12: 335–36].

He was right about that (Chap. 1). A week later, on the evening of April 8th, Hochstetter and his companions reached the Ongarue valley.

Two valleys, bordered by picturesque mountains, meet together at Katiaho [near the present town of Ongarue], the Ongaruhe valley from the North, and the Mangakahu valley from the East. Between the two, opposite the settlement, arises the Ngariha mountain. The Ongaruhe is the main river; the Mangakahu only a small tributary; and Katiaho lies just opposite the junction of the two rivers on the right bank of the Ongaruhe….

The terrace formation, so remarkable on the Waipa, is still more marked in …. all the valleys of the Upper Wanganui district. There are here three terraces in the valley and as many on the declivities of the bordering hills. The former are cut into thick beds of pumicestone gravel, which fill the bottom of the valley; the latter into trachyte-tuff, composing the hills and mountains on the sides of the valley. To the terraces on the sides of the valley correspond farther up the valley extensive table-lands covered with pumicestone, and everything indicates to the observer that he is drawing nearer and nearer to a powerful volcanic hearth, from which those huge masses of pumice-stone and trachyte-tuff are originating [12: 352–3].

He was absolutely right about that too, as modern geologists can explain in great detail (Box 1.1).

Hochstetter and his companions climbed Ngariha on 10 April 1856 to get a view of the volcanoes. He wrote a lyrical description of the view, and made a neat drawing of himself and his companions admiring it (Fig. 4.1).

Next day the party walked another 16 miles (26 km) to reach the western borders of the present Pureora Forest Park.

At the mouth of the Mangakahu we crossed the Ongaruhe by means of canoes, and followed the river up the valley in an easterly direction on a miserable road, which, in a manner very fatiguing to the traveller, led continually up and down over the terraces, through swamps, over numerous small creeks, and several times across the river itself. …. At a distance of three miles, the valley turns South-East towards the Tuhua -mountain, the most prominent point in the whole country, about 3400 feet high with a broad platform and a steep descent on its South side ….

… The chief ornament of this landscape is the Hikurangi (i.e. ascending towards heaven), at the right between the Piaua and the Ongaruhe rivers, a volcanic cone of a very regular shape, rising from a very gently sloping base steeper and steeper to a height of 800–1000 feet, the top appearing as if cut smooth with a knife (Fig. 1.7). Dark woods cover its declivities. The top is said to contain a water basin at the bottom of a funnel-shaped crater, and on the South-Eastside two powerful mineral springs (probably chalybeate) bubble out. [we came to Petania]… a Maori village … situated at the southern foot of the Tuhua -mountain, 754 feet above the level of the sea [12: 354–6].

The last leg of the journey to reach the lake took longer than expected, but despite the miserable conditions Hochstetter kept detailed notes and later wrote the first comprehensive European description of the unexplored forest country west of the lake, skirting the southern edge of what is now Pureora Forest Park.

The distance from Petania to Lake Taupo is estimated a two days’ journey. The road, however, is extremely difficult; it leads up and down from valley to valley, from mountain to mountain, across the ridges springing from the Tuhua-mountain in a southerly and southwesterly direction, and through dusky primeval forests. It traverses the sources of the Wanganui, and, ascending higher and higher, it finally reaches the watershed between the Wanganui and Lake Taupo . We were three whole days passing over this route. On the first day, after a most fatiguing passage through deep ravines cut into pumicestone gravel, we crossed the Takaputiraha range (1534 feet high), and encamped on the left bank of the Pungapunga river upon a beautiful grass-plain, called te Patate , 897 feet above the level of the sea.

April 13.-- We had now to scale the Puketapu , …and thus gained an interesting view of the sources of the Wanganui, over a sombre mountain-country and wood-landscape, in the back-ground of which the Ruapahu loomed up in all its majesty, its peak wrapt in clouds. Southwest of the Ruapahu another volcanic cone, 3000 feet high, was visible; it was pointed out to me as Hauhanga . To the Northwest and West the Tuhua-mountain and the Hikurangi-cone were the most prominent points. In clear weather, Mt. Egmont also is said to be visible from here. ….

After leaving the Puketapu we were continually in the bush; it seemed as though it would never come to an end. Up and down, from ridge to ridge, from dale to dale; we passed the Waipari , then the Waione , cold creeks, the water of which showed a temperature as low as 50° F. Again we had to climb up-hill, over roots and logs in the sombre dusk of the bush, the huge crowns of the tall forest trees shutting out the light of day, and the sky being moreover veiled by dark, dismal clouds of rain. The magnificent fern Leptopteris hymenophylloides grows in those damp woods with a extraordinary luxuriance, in the shape of the variety called superba.

At length we came to a small creek flowing in a direction different from that of all the other creeks we had hitherto passed; it was the source of the Kuratao , running in a N.E. direction towards Lake Taupo, a sign that we had crossed the water-shed, and we hailed with joy the first indication of our having come quite close to our long looked-for destination. …. Of the lake, however, the sight of which we had expected to greet our longing eyes, there was as yet nothing to be seen. But in its place two beautiful mountain-cones, the Kuharua and the Kakaramea , rose before us. We had reached a Pumicestone-plateau, called by the natives Moerangi , and I was greatly surprised at finding the result of my barometrical observations to show a height of 2188 feet. We pitched our tents by the banks of the Kuratao river, which, cutting through the pumicestone, forms a ravine about 100 feet deep with triple terraces.

April 14.-- The distance from the lake was greater than we had supposed….we struck once more the Kuratao valley at Whakaironui , a potato-plantation at the margin of the plateau. ….after Poaru , we plodded along through marshy woods, we came to an open eminence, whence we had the first view of the lake. Like a sea it lay there spread out in the distance, without our being able to discern the opposite shore in consequence of the murky weather. Gently sloping down-hill, and passing along the foot of the Kuharua… to an elevation, from whence we saw the celebrated pah Pukawa , the residence of the great Maori-Chieftain Te Heuheu [Iwikau] , situated beneath our feet at the margin of the lake [12: 357–359].

Hochstetter lodged at the missionary station run by Rev. Thomas Grace near Pukawa. He described the scene at the southern end of the lake:

The West shore of the lake is formed by vertical bluffs of rocks, which near Karangahape , at a promontory projecting far into the lake, attain a height of more than 1000 feet. Upon that side of the lake a landing is practicable only at the few points where little rivers empty into the lake. The long-stretched wooded ridges of the Rangitoto and Tuhua [= Hauhungaroa] mountains, rising to a height of 3000 feet above the level of the sea, shut out the horizon in a northwesterly direction, and only one point attracts the attention by its rather singular form,—I am speaking of the Titiraupenga mountain, from the summit of which a bare pyramid towers up, resembling a ruined castle [12: 366].

Hochstetter spent five days at Pukawa, sketching a detailed map of the local geology and benefitting from Grace’s “exact local knowledge” on expeditions, both for mapping field work and for visiting the pa at Te Rapa . Hochstetter was deeply impressed by the mission station and its Pakeha inhabitants.

The generous hospitality of the Rev. Mr. Grace and his amiable family…..[and] the arrangements of the excellent lady of the house made us utterly forget, that we were sojourning in the remotest interior of New Zealand. The picture of that happy family circle, blessed with a number of blooming children, was truly calculated to awaken the most grateful emotions [12: 360].

One of his expeditions took him along the lake shore to Te Rapa, the geothermally active area in the hills above Te Heuheu’s original village, and the site of the natural disaster that had destroyed it and killed his brother Te Heuheu Mananui in 1846 (Fig. 4.4).

East of Pukawa, in the rear of a steep promontory, a small bay extends south. The western-shore of this cove is formed by vertical bluffs consisting of alternating horizontal banks of trachyte, trachytic conglomerate and tuff. A small creek, the Waihi , plunges quite close to the South-end of the cove, in a magnificent fall about 150 feet high over this bluff of rocks. At this cascade the mountains recede somewhat from the lake; and here already, from the conglomerate-layers forming the beach, hot water, of 125–153 °F., is seen bubbling forth. By conducting this water into artificial basins, the natives have prepared several bathing-places, the water in which showed a temperature of 93° F. …Above these springs on the side of the mountain, probably 500 feet above the lake, steam issues from innumerable places. The whole Northside of the Kakaramea mountain seems to have been boiled soft by hot steam, and to be on the point of falling in. From every crack and cleft on that side of the mountain hot steam and boiling water are streaming forth with a continual fizzing noise, as though hundreds of steam-engines were in motion. Those steaming fissures in the mountain-side, upon which every stone is decomposed into reddish clay, the natives call Hipaoa, i.e. the chimneys, and it was at the foot of that mountain-side, that in the year 1846 the village Te Rapa was overwhelmed by an avalanche of mud, and the great [Mananui] Te Heuheu perished. [12: 367–8]

The Mission House still stands just outside Pukawa, now restored and privately owned. The cliffs above the modern village of Waihi still steam and gently shudder with geothermal activity (Fig. 4.4).

The landslide mentioned by both Smith and Hochstetter was in fact only one of three recorded there (the other two were in about 1780 and in 1910), which between them killed 200 people. The most recent alarm was on 29 June 2009, when the village was evacuated after a series of small earthquakes led to fears of another landslide, but within days the residents were allowed to return [17].

Hochstetter’s map, “The Southern Part of the Province of Auckland ” (Fig. 4.5), labels the area between Titiraupenga and the Waikato River as “Volcanic Tableland 2000 feet high consisting of trachytic rocks thickly covered with forests and unexplored” [11]. A track is marked with the inscription “Overland mail track” between the Rangitoto Ranges and the Waikato River. This was the route of the Maori track by which local Maori carried the mail between 1857 and 1863, until the service was stopped by war in the Waikato.

Hochstetter was also an observant naturalist, and he made large collections of plants and animals representing the unfamiliar species he found along the way. He found a unique species of frog (now named Hochstetter’s frog ) and a giant snail. Unlike some other explorers, he described the birds as very abundant in some places:

The country here [Ohura] seems to abound in birds; for thousands of Tuis (Prosthemadera Novae Zelandiae), which had perched themselves upon a group of Kahikatea pines, gave here a concert, such as we hear in Germany from the starlings , when they visit the vineyards in autumn [12: 350].

Even as late as 1883, this area was still largely unknown to Pakeha and, some claimed, to Maori also. On the other hand, local Maori at Taupo may well have had other motives for telling Pakeha enquirers “that it was covered in dense bush, and that it would be impossible to travel through it for any distance, and especially on account of the numerous rivers and creeks that would have to be crossed” [23: Chap. 3].

Kerry-Nicholls

In 1882 J.H. Kerry-Nicholls described the landscape along his route north-west from the Waihaha area of Lake Taupo. He was one of the first to attempt an exploration of the recently opened King Country, which had been closed to Europeans for the previous 20 years, so his account is much later than those of the first European explorers. The much diminished local population still offered the travellers traditional Maori hospitality.

At about a mile distant from the Waihaha River….we arrived at Kahakaharoa [Fig. 3.2, right], a small pa situated on a winding mountain stream called Te Pikopiko . At one time there had been a considerable native settlement here, but now the whole place was nearly abandoned [14: 318].

Here, besides the usual diet of pork and potatoes, we were treated to roast kiwi ….these birds…are still very plentiful in the dense, unfrequented ranges of the King Country [14: 319–320].

He was one of the few who attempted the journey on horseback, but even by then, riding was not easy.

Journeying still further on, we crossed the Te Tihoi Plains, a fine tract of open country extending around the mountains of Titiraupenga as far north as the banks of the Waikato River, and thence north-westerly to the Te Toto [Rangitoto] Ranges. ………To the north-east high, forest-clad mountains rose up one above the other in the direction of Ouranui [Oruanui ] and the valley of the Waikato, while to the west were rugged, forest-clad ranges, crowned by the towering form of Titiraupenga.

This magnificent mountain, which is one of the highest peaks in the northern portion of the King Country, rises to an altitude of some 4000 feet above the level of the sea. It assumes in general outline the formation of an extensive cone, with a broad base and long, sweeping sides, while its summit is surmounted by a gigantic pinnacle of rock, of a pointed form, and which serves with the great mountain as a conspicuous landmark all over the surrounding country. It is covered from base to summit with dense forests and its enormous gorges and deep ravines give rise to many streams and rivers [14: 319–320].

In one of the ravines flowed the Mangakowiriwiri , “a tremendous gorge of the mountain, flanked on either side by tall precipices of rock…. Looking down into the deep fissure we could just see the silver streak of water foaming nearly a hundred feet below”. The stream was crossed “by means of a very narrow and very primitive footway, which the natives told us was known as the ‘Bridge of God’” [14: 321].

Between the Mangakowiriwiri and Mangakino Rivers was “open undulating country covered with a luxuriant growth of tussock and other native grasses”. The Mangakino was crossed by swimming the horses across a ford “like ducks”, and the travellers continued on to cross the Waipapa River and Rangitoto ranges into the Waipa valley:

We gained the crossing place by a steep winding descent, the mountains with their rocky bluffs on the opposite side of the river being clothed with a dense vegetation of giant trees, while to the right of the track by which we had to descend was a small mountain forming a complete cone, and which was clothed from base to summit with a luxuriant growth of fern and tall manuka . ….It took us several hours to traverse the Te Toto [Rangitoto] ranges, the track winding about in every direction with deep ravines on either side. Here the vegetation was of the most luxuriant and varied order, but the enormous roots of the great trees made riding very difficult [14: 324–5].

Te Heuheu Iwikau and the King Movement

Maori tribes were generally independent, but they also had a form of loose association of groups linked by ancestry and marriage.

By 1840, the region around Lake Taupo was peopled by a number of different hapu led by chiefs who operated independently of one another, but not in total isolation. There was a form of confederation of the various hapu whose lineages could be traced to Tuwharetoa.

It was the custom with Ngati Tuwharetoa, from the time of Turangitukua until the close of the nineteenth century, to select from a panel of high-born men the paramount chief and war-leader of the tribe. This rank was not necessarily a hereditary right. It was conferred by the tribe on the most suitable man, irrespective of seniority. The ariki of the tribe were the direct descendants of the senior male line from the tribal ancestor Tuwharetoa himself, and it was the senior ariki’s prerogative on behalf of the people to install the paramount chief. The rank of ariki could not be removed as was the case of the paramount chieftainship [23: Chap. 2].

After the death of Mananui in 1846, his younger brother Te Heuheu Iwikau succeeded him and led Ngati Tuwharetoa until his death in 1862. Iwikau went to live at Pukawa , in the territory of Ngati Manunui, the hapu of his senior wife Ruingarangi (or Morunga). Pukawa became his principal pa, where he was visited by several prominent European explorers. Iwikau had long requested a missionary to live there, and in April 1855 Thomas Grace settled with his family at Pukawa, under the protection of Iwikau.

According to the geologist Ferdinand von Hochstetter , who met Iwikau a few years later, the Ngati Tuwharetoa leader was ‘not averse to Christianity’ but feared that baptism would bring about a loss of his influence and authority. He would also be obliged to give up several of his wives before baptism. Although he never became a Christian, Iwikau attended church services regularly, and Grace respected him as ‘friend and protector’.

Te Heuheu Iwikau had signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, although his older brother Mananui had not done so. He had consented to the Pakeha coming to New Zealand, but he objected to land sales to Europeans, and therefore lent his significant authority to the King Movement.

Hochstetter was impressed by Te Heuheu during his visit in 1859:

Long ago I had heard of the great and mighty Te Heuheu Iwikau, residing in Pukawa at Lake Taupo. His name is known wherever the Maori language is spoken; for he belongs to one of the oldest and most renowned noble families of the country; and is numbered among the heroes and demigods of his people. He had been pictured to me as a man of considerable talents, as the best and worst fellow at the same time; as proud, shrewd, generous; as a mysterious medley of modern civilization and ancient heathenism [12: 361].

In 1850 Governor George Grey had visited Pukawa, admired Te Heuheu’s richly carved food storehouse, and remarked that all chiefs should have such storehouses as a sign of their standing and generosity. When later this storehouse was destroyed by fire, Iwikau, remembering Grey’s words, set out to build another one, larger and more elaborately ornamented.

After 4 years of building, it was completed in 1855, and named Hinana. To demonstrate his mana, which was being challenged by some of Ngati Te Aho, Iwikau invited people from all the major tribes to its opening in November 1856 [9].

Under the increasing impact of Pakeha intrusion during the 1850s, there was growing Maori concern about the alienation of land and the effects of the advance of Pakeha settlement. Resistance to land sales was building up in Taranaki, Waikato and elsewhere. Discussion during a series of tribal gatherings, from 1853 on, led to the idea of some sort of great confederation of tribes to protect their lands from further alienation.

Iwikau had been seeking both to restrain Maori protest and to support the growing grievances over the loss of land. He used the opening of Hinana to convene a meeting at Pukawa to debate the idea of electing a Maori king. Te Heuheu was an ardent proponent of Maori nationalism, and he used his influence to encourage the King Movement.

Through the later 1850s there was intense debate about who should lead such a confederation, and about what form of Maori local government should be set up. These ideas developed into what became the Kingitanga, or King Movement. There was keen support for the concept throughout the central North Island, although less elsewhere.

At the large gathering at Pukawa in 1856 (Chap. 3), nearly every tribal group in the North Island was represented. It was resolved that Taupo would be in the centre of a district extending to Waikato and Hauraki in the north, and Taranaki, Whanganui and Rangitikei in the south, in which no land sales would be allowed.

Tokena Kerehi gave a first-hand description of the hui to a sitting of the Native Land Court, as recorded in the Waikato Minute Book and cited by the Waitangi Tribunal:

I was present at Hinana meeting, that was our meeting, all of Taupo. All the Taupo hapus, including N’Wairangi prepared food for it. The object of this meeting was to elect Potatau King. The Arawa wished Te Heuheu Iwikau to take that position, N’Tuwharetoa and N’Raukawa concurred [23: 4.2].

So there was strong inter-tribal support for Te Heuheu Iwikau to become King. He had keenly supported earlier discussions about a confederation of tribes.

But this was a difficult situation for him, because Te Heuheu also realised it might not be in the best interests of Tuwharetoa for him to accept such a position. He refused, and instead supported the installation of the paramount chief of Tainui, Potatau Te Wherowhero , as the first Maori king. Te Wherewhero, equally cautious, consulted with his Maniapoto relatives at a special meeting held in 1857 at Haurua , a marae just south from Otorohanga . They gave their approval, and a memorial besides the road records the decision. At Ngaruawahia in 1858, Te Wherowhero became the recognised first head of the Kingitanga movement until his death in 1860, when he was succeeded by Tawhiao (Fig. 4.6).

Fig. 4.6

Left Te Wherowhero was the first Maori King, from 1858 to 1860. The meeting to confirm his nomination was held at Haurua marae in 1857, near this roadside memorial beside SH 4 south of Otorohanga. C.M. King (2014). Right Tawhiao, the second Maori King. Photo by Pulman, E. (1882), taken in Jan 1882 when Tawhiao visited Auckland. Auckland War Memorial Museum—Tāmaki Paenga Hira. PH-RES-425

War

Within 2 years after the pivotal 1856 meeting in his home village of Pukawa, Thomas Grace was becoming apprehensive about the effects of the developing King Movement on native life. He wrote from Pukawa to the Church Missionary Society in London, referring to the Constitution Act 1852:

The constitution, which has been given to this country, has placed the Maoris in a far worse position than they were, seeing they have no share in any of the representation.

Here in New Zealand we have about four-fifths of the population, British subjects and lords of the soil, and paying the greatest portion of the revenue, cut off from all shares in the representation of the country, either in person or by proxy.

Surely this is a strange state of things to exist. If a separate house were formed for Maori representatives, there is little doubt that, with a few official leaders appointed direct from home as protectors, the Maori chiefs would be found quite able to take their full share in the representation.

If we deny them the right of British subjects, and thereby ourselves break the Treaty of Waitangi, we should not be astonished if they seek protection for themselves [by setting up a Maori King] [23: 4.4].

Grace could see that a confrontation between the Kingitanga and the government was becoming inevitable. When it happened, he commented in a letter to the Church Missionary Society in London:

The real cause of the war is, without doubt, the constant coercion that the Maoris have been subjected to in order to induce them to part with their lands. The Government professes not to buy lands, the ownership of which is in dispute, yet nearly all the wars and quarrels that of late years have taken place, have been on this very subject [23: 4.4].

Relationships between Pakeha settlers and the tribes of the Kingitanga confederation became more strained. War erupted in Taranaki in 1860 over a different but related issue, the government purchase of a block of land at Waitara .

Te Heuheu Iwikau had maintained a policy of neutrality in the Taranaki fighting, in which Waikato and Maniapoto tribes participated. He tried to prevent Ngati Tuwharetoa from joining, fearing that the tribe’s lands would be threatened. But in 1862 he died, to be succeeded by Te Heuheu Horonuku , his nephew and son of Te Heuheu Mananui who had been killed in the landslide of 1846. Horonuku later took the name Te Heuheu Tukino.

In July 1863 British imperial troops, led by Lieutenant-General Duncan Cameron , crossed the Mangatawhiri Stream (Fig. 4.7), a tributary of the Waikato River which had, since 1858, denoted the northern boundary of the Kingitanga. During the following “Waikato Campaign”, there was a series of battles as the invading troops progressed up the river, reaching Ngaruawahia in early December. Waikato tribes and their allies retreated to Maungatautari and the Waipa valley.

Fig. 4.7

The invasion of the Waikato by British troops in 1863–64, and the battle sites of the Waikato war. After the deciding battle at Orakau , the survivors and their whanau retreated into the King Country, while Waikato lands within the Aukati line were confiscated. Redrawn by Max Oulton from Waitangi Tribunal (1993: Fig. 4.2)

In late 1863, Te Heuheu Horonuku Tukino gathered a force of over 200 men to go to the assistance of Waikato, a change from the neutral policy hitherto maintained by Ngati Tuwharetoa under Iwikau. Another force, mainly from Ngati Te Kohera and Ngati Parekawa of the Tihoi-Pouakani area, led by Te Paerata and Te Kohika , joined with Ngati Maniapoto and others in the final stages of the Waikato war.

The British troops had advanced up the Waipa River, by-passed the pa at Paterangi and attacked Rangiaohia . By the end of March 1864 the troops were in occupation of the Te Awamutu area, while many Waikato and Maniapoto retreated south of the Puniu River. As a last-ditch stand, they

….decided to build a pa at Orakau . The construction work was observed by the British and an attack begun. By the time Horonuku and his party arrived they could do nothing but look on during the three day battle (31 March–2 April 1864) that followed [23: 4.3].

At one point, a cease fire was called by Cameron, and the defenders were asked if they would surrender. The response from Rewi Maniapoto was that they would fight on in spite of the lack of water and limited supply of food and ammunition, “ake, ake, ake” (for ever and ever and ever).

The firing began again, and the British troops advanced on the pa. The defenders formed themselves into a tight group with the women and children in the middle, broke through part of the earth works and rushed out. The firing continued as British troops stormed the pa.

The Maori survivors made their way through the swamp below, sheltered by scrub, and retreated south of the Puniu river…The Raukawa and Tuwharetoa survivors, along with Tuhoe people, retreated up the Waikato valley towards Titiraupenga …..There had been no fighting on Tuwharetoa lands, but west Taupo and the upper Waipa valley became refuge areas for dispossessed tribes [23: 4.3].

After Orakau, Te Arawa saw their interests lay in some form of co-operation. Ngati Tuwharetoa had supported the concept of the Kingitanga, but had not participated in the fighting until the final stages at Orakau. The tribes fought to protect their land, but did not see themselves as “rebels” in the Pakeha sense. Few Pakeha saw the situation as the missionary Thomas Grace saw it, or were willing to acknowledge Maori concerns and attitudes.

Te Rohe Potae

Cameron’s invasion of the Waikato was more or less complete after the fall of Orakau . The Government then confiscated some 2.1 million acres (849,870 ha) of Waikato land from its defeated but still aggrieved Maori defenders. To prevent further bloodshed and confiscations, the Government agreed to an aukati (boundary) line along the Puniu River (south of Te Awamutu, between Pirongia and Maungatautari), dividing the confiscated Waikato land, the Raupatu, from Ngati Maniapoto land under the control of King Tawhiao , where he and his supporters were free to administer their own affairs. Pakeha were forbidden to travel south of the aukati. The Government further agreed not to pursue King Tawhiao or the defeated warriors beyond it, and no land within Ngati Maniapoto territory was confiscated.

The line of the boundary was supposedly determined by an incident during a meeting in 1864 between King Tawhiao and Governor George Grey . They could not decide how best to separate Maori and European claimants to the land, until King Tawhiao threw his hat down on a map. They agreed that Ngati Maniapoto should be allowed to assert Maori sovereignty over all the area covered by the crown and brims of the hat, Te Rohe Potae. The name loosely translates as ‘the area of the hat’; it is known to Europeans as the King Country , centred on Taumarunui , where a memorial to the agreement stands, topped by a hat (Fig. 4.8). Te Rohe Potae became a de facto state within a state, effectively out of bounds to Europeans.

Fig. 4.8

The original outline of the King Country, Te Rohe Potae , was supposed to have been decided from the area of a map covered by King Tawhaio’s hat. (Te Rohe Potae means literally “the boundary of the hat”). This memorial in Taumarunui records the event. C.M. King (2014)

Te Rohe Potae originally stretched from the west coast eastward to the middle of Lake Taupo, and south from the Puniu River to beyond Taumarunui, although its boundaries changed over the years (Chap. 5). The west Taupo ranges were in the middle of it. The heavy casualties among Tihoi and Pouakani warriors participating in the defence of Orakau , and the immigration of the defeated survivors escaping retribution, had severe social consequences for the people of the King Country after 1864. Their only compensation was that these lands were effectively a self-governing province, largely protected from the government and settlers until the early 1880s.

The agreement ended the war, but did not guarantee peace instead. On the one hand, the whole concept of the Rohe Potae, a separate system of Maori government in a district outside of the control of British colonial administrators and military, was unacceptable to the majority of Pakeha. The Government became exasperated by endless disputes over local boundaries which impeded land sales, so it insisted that traditional collective ownership of land had to be transferred into individual legal titles recognisable by the Crown. That would enable undeniable legal purchases of Maori land, after investigation and survey of land holdings by the newly granted authority of the Native Land Court established in 1865 (the name was changed in 1954 to the Maori Land Court).

On the other hand, although the operations of the Native Land Court were supposed to act in the interests of Maori, to define who actually was entitled to profit from selling which areas, the Court often enforced legislation that served only to separate Maori from their land. To defend their shared ownership of lands, tribal elders had to attend prolonged Native Land Court hearings at locations far from their homes, and pay for costly surveys and legal proceedings unfamiliar to them. These led to arguments over mana and territory, social disruption, massive debts, costly mistakes on survey boundaries and expensive litigation. Some of these mistakes later had a serious effect on the development of Pureora Forest Park (Chap. 11).

There was nothing in the Treaty of Waitangi which required the transmuting of traditional forms of land tenure into titles recognisable in British law. By imposing requirements for survey and associated costs, fees for investigation of title in the Native Land Court, and other costs such as food and accommodation while attending lengthy court sittings, Maori were forced into debt. When the debts were called in, Maori paid in land [23: 307–8].

The tribes supporting the King Movement hated this process, and were determined to stop settlers and Pakeha speculators buying up any of their land. For a while, Te Rohe Potae allowed them to settle their own disputes without interference from the Native Land Court, but it did not last. In the early 1870s, the Government resumed purchases of Maori land, and the original boundaries of Te Rohe Potae rapidly contracted (see Fig. 5.1).

Continuing conflicts of loyalties between those supporting the Government answerable to Queen Victoria (“Queenites”) and those supporting the King Movement (“Kingites”) disrupted traditional hunting and gardening, and forced the emigration of young people in search of employment. A third group, the basically pacifist Pai Marire (the “Hauhau rebels”) had an important cultural centre near Pureora at Tiroa (Box 4.1),

The breakdown of traditional food gathering and social structures were beginning to cause obvious depopulation of central North Island Maori by the late 1850s (Chap. 3). War and disease accelerated the losses, so that later visitors often found formerly occupied areas deserted.

Their cultivations and enclosures and the settlements generally have a neglected appearance, and one meets everywhere with strong proofs that the population is very rapidly decreasing [8].

The King Movement protected the Pureora district from European settlement and exploitation for almost 20 years after the 1863–64 war. But it never represented all Maori, and over time it lost its mana as Maori lost effective control of the political process. Then, they could no longer defend their traditional lands in Te Rohe Potae from newcomers who knew little of its history and significance to them (Chap. 5).

Te Kooti

In 1869 government troops came into the Taupo district in pursuit of Te Kooti Rikirangi . This mission-educated leader, prophet and founder of the Ringatu church, had been arrested on suspicion of sympathy with “Hauhau rebels” in the Gisborne district in 1866 and transported without trial, with other Maori prisoners, to the Chatham Islands. In July 1868 he and a group of followers captured a ship, the Rifleman, and now well armed, sailed back to Poverty Bay. There followed a series of raids on local settlers, and then Te Kooti retreated into rugged bush country, where he was sheltered by the Tuhoe of Te Urewera.

During 1869 Te Kooti was pursued by government troops through Te Urewera. He came out of the bush to cross the southern Kaingaroa plains. On 7 June, he destroyed a small garrison at Opepe [on the present Napier-Taupo road, where a DOC sign marks this historic site] and carried on to eastern and southern Taupo. He stayed some time at Tokaanu and then went on to Te Kuiti, returning to Tokaanu in September. There were more skirmishes in the Rotoaira area in September, and an engagement at Te Porere pa on the lower slopes of Tongariro on 30 October. Te Kooti retreated into the west Taupo bush, where he remained for several weeks (Box 4.1).

Box 4.1 Miringa Te Kakara Te Tiroa

Miringa Te Kakara Te Tiroa , a magnificent sacred house at Tiroa, was of considerable historic value to Maori [13], especially Pai Marire and Te Kooti. The main building was constructed, entirely without nails, in cruciform shape 54 feet (16.5 m) square, whose four arms were oriented north, south, east and west. Unsawn split timber provided the main supports for the walls, and totara bark filled the spaces between them and covered the roof (Fig. 4.9).

Fig. 4.9

Miringa Te Kakara Te Tiroa was an important meeting house and spiritual home for the Rereahu people. It stood at Tiroa between Pureora and Benneydale, and was visited by Te Kooti while he was a fugitive from British troops in 1869. In the foreground stands a niu pole (a Hauhau ceremonial boundary marker) 16 July 1977. Graeme Reinhardt

In the 1950s the posts marking the four points of the compass around the old building still had legible writing on them. The writing used the Ringatu language, which has extra letters and is part of a faith and culture associated with Te Kooti, who took refuge from British soldiers in the Pureora area in 1869. Next to it was an eating house in octagonal form, with walls made of closely packed punga (tree-fern) logs.

In the 1930s, renovations were done to Miringa Te Kakara and a huge celebration was organised with the support of local sawmilling company Ellis and Burnand, whose Directors were always generous with help for community projects [1: 193].

When Ivan Frost was OC at Pureora, more work was needed, and Ivan gave permission for the main building to be re-roofed with totara bark from a current Pureora logging site. Sadly, the main building was burned down in 1983. But the octagonal eating house survives, and has recently been fully restored by the Rereahu people [1: 193].

The troops pursued him across the Tihoi area and camped at Waimahana , a kainga on the Waikato River north of Mokai . A pa “called Tewe, apparently near Tihoi” was attacked by British troops. Te Kooti escaped his pursuers, and eventually returned to Te Urewera. Te Kooti had no further association with the Pureora area, but continued to elude capture. In the 1870s he returned to live in the north of Te Rohe Potae, at Otewa , beside the Waipa near Otorohanga , under the protection of King Tawhiao. In 1883 he was granted a pardon, and became much more co-operative with the Government. When the surveyor Charles Hursthouse was kidnapped by Maori opposed to the construction of the North Island Main Trunk Railway, Te Kooti helped to rescue him (Chap. 5).

The Beginnings of European Settlement

Until well after the end of the Waikato war, Pakeha settlers were few and far between in the Taupo district. The Grace family had abandoned their mission station at Pukawa in October 1863 [5]. When Meade visited the area in 1864 [15], he found a government medical officer, Dr. Hooper, at Oruanui , north of Taupo, who said he had not seen another European in the district for 2 years.

From the late 1860s, a few government and private land purchase officers appeared, and on 28 October 1867 the first sitting of the Native Land Court was held at Oruanui. Negotiations for sale of Ngati Tuwharetoa lands had already begun [23: Chaps. 4 and 5].

The pursuit of Te Kooti in 1869 led to the establishment of an armed constabulary station at Taupo , and the construction of redoubts. In 1870 there were 30 men at Taupo, 180 at Opepe and 40 at Runanga on the Taupo-Napier route. The redoubt built at Taupo became known as Tapuaeharuru (the name of Poihipi Tukairangi’s village on the opposite bank of the Waikato River) and was the base for military activities and European government in the region.

The armed constabulary provided the focus for a small Pakeha settlement and associated activities. They planted gardens, repaired the mill at Tokaanu and traded in oats and potatoes with the Tokaanu Maori. Taupo was also a strategic staging post on the mail route and road which was constructed in the 1870s from the Waikato via Atiamuri to Napier.

In due course, Pakeha businesses followed the military families, and by 1878 the number of Europeans living in Taupo county had reached 95, compared with (as near as could be determined) at least 805 Maori [25]. None of these represented any serious incursion of Pakeha into the forested western hill country of the future Pureora Forest Park. But eventually the isolationist policy of the King Movement had to end.