Source:
THE CH…….
Date unknown [cc1940]
Located: Waikouaiti Library – Local History – Jan 1999
HISTORY IN PLACE NAMES
Waikouaiti and its Story.
Origin of Name Karitane.
Romantic Maori Tales.
By W. A. TAYLOR.
At the mouth of the Waikouaiti River is situated “Old Waikouaiti,” now well known by its other name of Karitane, largely owing to the child welfare activities of Sir Truby King.
Puketiraki, the third railway station south of the present town of Waikouaiti (which is more correctly Hawksbury) is the nearest
approach by rail to “Old Waikouaiti,” now the Maori village of Karitane, and a pakeha pleasure resort.
The locality was the abode of men long before the main advent of the Maori to New Zealand, about 1350 A.D. The district was occupied by Rapuwai and Waitaha tribesmen, who were displaced by the
Ngati Mamoe. These people
were ousted by the Ngai Tahu, a fiercer tribe, who in order to make
their land tenure more secure, saw to it that little history was preserved
for posterity. The present Maori
inhabitants are members of the Ngaiti huit rapa and Ngaiti ruahikihiki hapus of the Ngai Tahu tribe.
Huriawa Peninsula at the mouth of the Waikouaiti River is a cluster of small hills joined to the mainland by a narrow isthmus (only a few chains wide, and a few feet in height), with the river running into Waikouaiti Bay on the north side.
Huriawa means the river turned around, and there can be little doubt
that the Waikouaiti River once entered the sea on the south side into Puketiraki Bay.
i;
Huriawa Peninsula was an ideal place for a Maori fort. The Ngati Mamoe occupied it and the name of their old pah still clings to its outward part as Pa-katata. When the Ngai Tahu tribe forced their way south about 1730 A.D., the great Te Wera was the chief of the Te ruahikihiki hapu and it was not long before his selection was put to the test.
The Siege.
Taoka, the turbulent, whose mission in life seems to have been to cause trouble, within and without the Ngai Tahu tribe, found an excuse to attack Te Wera’s pah. Te Wera beat of all attacks made on his stronghold, and after six months of effort Taoka was forced to raise the seige.
Taoka found the health
of his men camped on the Waikouaiti Sand Spit (Ohine Pouweru) suffering from lack of vegetable foods. Te Wera, on the other hand, had provided well for the commissariat department inside Huriawa Pah, and what with good spring water at Te Wera’s Well (Te Puna Wai a Te Wera) and fish in abundance, his opponent had little option but to give up the venture.
After the memorable siege
of Huriawa, the old fort was abandoned, and its inhabitants dwelt in kaiangas
along the Waikouaiti River or overlooking Puketiraki Bay. Te Wera later migrated to Stewart Island, where he died peacefully in his bed, a death he enjoined his sons not to emulate, but to go down fighting like true warriors. This injunction the sons carried out to the letter in fighting around Colac Bay, Southland.
On the north side of Huriawa Peninsula is a small cove or boat harbour called Te Awa Mokihi, where Te Wera’s fishing fleet was moored. The gateway to the pah was called Ngutu a Toretore (the lips of Toretore). At the west side of Huriawa stood the carved house Kuramatakitaki and the Owhare Kaika. The site of the old Maori cemetery on the mainland near the isthmus was known as Te hau kapakapu trembling wind).
On the southeast side
of Huriawa Peninsula are two large pinnacle rocks known to the pakeha as the
Old Man and Old Woman Rocks.
The Old Man in the sea is Maramai Te Whata (left from the storehouse), and the Old Woman on the edge of the land is Oraki Te Oraora (shaken to life). Not far away from these landmarks are two remarkable rocks having the appearance of two women rubbing noses; these are known as the Hongi Rocks.
Waikouaiti Beach is known to the Maori as O-Hine-Te-Moa and
Puketiraki beach as Wha kawhai pakepake. On Puketiraki beach midway south are remarkable basaltic rocks named ka-whatu-a-haere (the rocks of Haere). Against these the seas dash with fury, the resultant spray, rich in fragments of rainbows, showing well in the sunlight. Haere is the deity of rainbow fragments.
Puketiraki beach nearer
the railway is Otohe, as are also some undersea rocks. The high Yellow Bluff at the extreme south of Puketiraki beach is Pa Hawea. On the hill above stood a small pah until the end of the eighteenth century. A pinnacle rock on the Yellow Bluff is also Pa Hawea.
This tiki-like rock is often confounded by writers with the large rock
in the sea known locally as Mother Brinns, which is strictly speaking
Maui’s Rock.
The pakeha name, Mother Brinns, is after Mrs Brinns, wife of an early whaler, and the rock certainly appears, from a certain angle, like an early Victorian woman in a crinoline. A Maori looking at his rock from another viewpoint can easily visualise the great hero Maui fishing. Brinn’s Point is the general name for this particular locality.
The saucer-like depression
between the railway station and Mohi Wood’s old home is Huia Rapa, the probable site of a spring. The hill pierced by the railway tunnel is Pari tutae, and the hills behind the whole Puketiraki settlement are Puke-Maeroero (haunted hills).
The Waikouaiti River near Merton railway siding is Te-raka-o-waka, a mooring place for canoes. The prominent hill away in the far distance at the head of
the Waikouaiti River is Hikororoa, known to the pakeha as Mount
Watkins (a favourite rendezvous of deer and pig-shooters).
The name deservedly immortalises the Rev Mr Watkins the first Wesleyan missionary in the South Island, whose story has been admirably told in the Rev M A Rugby Pratt’s work.
On Huriawa Peninsula are three blowholes (Pehu), two of these are easily seen by the visitor. A legend explains their origin. This has not previously been recorded.
Away in the dim past a Maori maid and a Maori youth fell in love, as
must folk do. The parents on both sides objected to the marriage, and the young couple eloped. A year passed and they returned to Old Waikouaiti to receive forgiveness and a paternal blessing. In this the couple were disappointed. The parents took their respective offspring to the Puke Maeroero Hills, and angrily heaved them into space. The young woman was much heavier than her spouse, and consequently her fall caused the larger blowhole, the one nearest Puketiraki.
The meaning of the word
Karitane has brought forth many explanations. One says it means the soft ground. Another that it indicates a pool in the Owhare creek near the site of the old mission station. Still another writer says it is a Maori effort to immortalise the name of the Rev Mr Creed, the second Wesleyan missionary at Old Waikouaiti.
To the old Maoris who have passed away it meant what its literal meaning
is, “a crippled or maimed man,” and definitely refers to an incident in the
seige of Huriawa when that pah at one stage was defended only by maimed men.
The kaingas of Old Waikouaiti were known as Maraekura, Makuku, and Waipipikaika, and nearby was the assembly ground Hau te-kapakapa flapping of the wind.
A creek entering Puketiraki Bay is Te-awa-puaka, and there is a terrace nearby called Te-taumatea-o-Puaka.
The Hawksbury Lagoon is Mata Manga, and the shelter north of Hawksbury Lagoon is Maru-nihi.
Matainaka Head (Whitebait) at the northern end of Waikouaiti
Bay has coal deposits discovered in 1838.
The reef in Waikouaiti Bay is Tau-ka-pukio.
The story of “Old Waikouaiti” from the earliest European days now commences.
In 1837 Messrs Long, Wright and Richards, of Sydney, established
the whaling station. In 1838
this firm fell into financial difficulties, and its interests were purchased
in Sydney by the celebrated “Johnny” Jones, and he sent Captain
Bruce (of Akaroa fame) in the brig Magnet to take possession.
In 1840, the Rev James Watkins arrived and established the first mission
to the South Island. In 1844
the ship Deborah brought to “Old Waikouaiti” the Rev Charles Creed, to succeed
Mr Watkins, and also the Rev J.G.H. Wohlers, a Moravian missionary
who later settled at Ruapuke Island, and laboured for 43 years with
the Maoris there.
A Maori friend of the writer, Mrs Chicken, who died at Karitane a few years ago, aged 112
years, was a girl of twenty when these missionaries arrived. Mrs Chicken, who was well tattooed in all parts apportioned to women, will be remembered as a shrewd business woman.
Poultry purchased ready dressed were always minus the wings, as she
considered such her perquisite.
The population of Old Waikouaiti in 1843 was 115 persons. It was a regular North Otago port. Captain Haberfield, of Moeraki, used to call there.
The writer’s father-in-law, who arrived at Otakou in 185[?] as first mate of the Jersey brig Louisa and afterwards served on the
s.s. Beautiful Star, running up the coast to “Ready Money” Robinson’s at Cheviot often mentioned calls made at “Old Waikouaiti.”
“Big
Mary”
Little did he think that
“Big Mary” (the late Mrs Harper), who carried the sailors ashore
on her back, would be the main informant of this tale of Old Waikouaiti. Anyone taking liberties with the lady in her task of porterage soon found a sudden bath. The missionaries did their work too well at Waikouaiti and the principal, Johnny Jones, soon found out that the rough whalers became too respectable to work on the Sabbath.
The last link with the whaling days remaining is Johnny Jones’s lighthouse, moved to the main part of Huriawa to do service as a washhouse. Tripots and a whaleboat are, however, safely housed in the Otago Early Settlers’ Museum, Dunedin.
Johnny Jones resided for some time at Cherry Farm, Hawkesbury, and his after success as a trader is well known. The old track from Waikouaiti to Dunedin, like the Purau trail on Banks’ Peninsula, followed the hill summits.
The marriage, baptism and death records kept by the Wesleyan Mission are still in existence. Among the many records Chasland the whaler is shown as marrying Puna, a sister of the fighting chief Taiaroa on August 14, 1843. Mr and Mrs Mohi Woods, Mr T Parata, M.H.R., and several of his family, have, with Mrs Chicken and Mr Harper passed to Reinga, and the writer feels that just as one by one left a friendly gathering of an evening on the slopes of Huriawa pah, looked down on the gathering shadows on Waikouaiti Bay, and departed one by one to their earthly homes, the words of Alfred Domett’s poem “Reinga” ring out:- “The seer has left the hill: Hark that wailing cry, the shades he saw were the braves of the tribe to Reinga passing by”
[NB inconsistencies in the spelling
of some words is as per the original document]
[Transcribed by Mary Hall Jan 1999]
