TOLAGA BAY
AND ITS DISTRICT HIGH SCHOOL

HOW OUR GREAT GRANDPARENTS LIVED.….

by TINIKU MOORE

These reminescences were told to the author long ago by Mrs A. G. Hall who taught at Tolaga Bay School in 1883 and 1884.

I will try to tell you as well as I can remember the ways and customs of the Maoris of seventy years ago.

Along our stretch of country from the Kopuni end of the beach to Kaiaua, a distance of about two and a half miles, there were several native settlements; the main ones being located at either end of the beach. My own kin were settled at Kopuni and their ancestors had lived there for countless generations before them. My grandmother, uncles and aunts with their families and endless connections comprised our little community when my father built our home among them.

The other end of the beach was called Kaiaua, and Mr J. Morris now farms what was once the stronghold of the Tautau family.

We were also on the main highway, as all travelling then followed the Coast Road, except at points like Kopuni to Uawa, where precipitous cliffs forced the road to deviate inland for a few miles before re-emerging at the coast again.

All the kaingas were near the sea because much of the food was obtained from the sea. In the late summer and autumn months the settlements were hives of industry. Whenever the weather was favourable the men would all go out fishing in their canoes and mokihis. The settlements would be supplied with fresh fish and the remainder of the catches were dried for winter consumption. The women collected and dried pauas, and seaweed also in season. Kinas and pupus were also gathered and stored in bottles and jars.

The karaka trees grew in groves along the hillsides facing the sea and the ripe berries were gathered in great quantities. We children loved to help to gather the Karaka berries as we liked to eat the outer part; while the inner part or nut was cooked, either in a hangi, or boiled in a large iron pot, taking all day to cook. The cooked berries were then put into kits and left to soak for a few days in the creek until the wall of the outer flesh was soft enough to soak off. The process was completed by spreading the nuts on mats to dry in the sun and then collecting them again in the kits and storing in the storehouses.

When the kumara crops were dug the largest were carefully stored in the ruas or kumara pits, while the seconds were scraped and the smallest fed to the pigs. The women used to scrape the kumaras until there was a small hill of kits filled with the scraped tubers. These were now washed and put out on mats to dry. This drying out sometimes took several days to accomplish. A long hangi was then made with the object of thoroughly cooking the kumaras before they were again spread out to dry. When the womenfolk were fully satisfied with their handiwork the dried kumaras were collected into kits and packed away. If the kumaras were not properly dried and went mouldy before the next spring then the women would have a subject for their gossip, and the woman concerned would feel very much ashamed.

There was a turnip that was cultivated but also grew wild on slippery places on the hillsides. Its shape resembled a parsnip but it tasted like a swede. These were prepared and dried like kumaras and stored for winter and spring use.

There were always numerous pigs around the settlements. Some were sold to the trading vessels that called every few months and others were cooked in their own fat and packed into calabashes. The young gourds tasted like marrows, when boiled. The young gourds with the best shapes were allowed to grow to their full size and were left out in the fields until their shells had hardened and the flesh inside had dried away. A neat hole would then be cut in the top so that the seeds and dried flesh could be scraped out. A flaxen webbing with handles would facilitate their transport and stoppers were cleverly made to plug the holes in the top. A large calabash would hold about two or three gallons of water. We used to carry drinking water in them and with care they lasted for years. Others were used for storing cooked foods such as pork, both wild and domestic, pigeons and other birds that teemed in the bushes were most esteemed delicacies. In those days the bush was all around us and when we were short of meat our father would take his gun and return with six or more fat pigeons.

When we were children we used to wander about the hills with our elders, collecting the berries of tutu and pressing the juice into calabashes. We ran our hands down the sprays of berries and then squeezed the juice through our fingers into the calabashes, or taha as we called them, until they were full. Before sheep and cattle were intro-

duced the hillsides were covered with tutu. The juice is very sweet and purplish red in colour, and although the seeds are poisonous, the juice is not. We used to squeeze the juice into our mouths and when we had finished we were smothered with it. The juice of the tutu was used to preserve sea weed of the large flat kind that most people have seen attached to rocks. I think that kelp is the name it is commonly known by. The weed was taken from the sea cut up into pieces about three inches square, washed and dried, cooked in the hangi and then filled into the calabashes, and stored. I remember that it was very good to eat as it had absorbed the flavour and sweetness of the tutu juice.

The women took great pride in ensuring that the family pataka or storehouse was kept well filled. The men too did their part by preserving pork, birds, dried fish, eels, crayfish and also assisting in the ohu or working bees.

In those days the methods of cultivating the land differed a great deal from the ways we know today. All the digging had to be done with the spade and all the neighbours came and helped with digging, planting, sowing and so on all round until all the maaras or plantations had been done. This was one reason why it was so necessary to lay in such large stores of food.

Quite a lot of wheat was grown on the Wharekaka flats and it all had to be transported from there to the beach, a distance of some six miles

over steep hill tracks, that the feet of generations of my ancestors had worn until there were high banks on either side which were very handy to rest their burdens on, particularly when going up hill. The heavy packs often galled the shoulders of the men and women who backed the wheat over in the closely woven flax kits that the women, young and old, had woven throughout the winter months in readiness for the next years harvest. My father told me that the kits held sixty to seventy pounds of wheat.

When I think of those sturdy old people my heart swells with pride in them. White people may call them savages as they may have been in times of strife and war, but in times of peace one could not meet a more industrious and hospitable race. I look back to the time when they lived on the products of the land and the sea, and they were never in want. Their only needs that were supplied by the traders were iron implements. Most of the old men still wore the korowai and the pake which were their traditional flax woven clothes. The trading vessels had already begun to make their periodical visits and wheat and pigs were the principal items in demand.

The women had begun to wear print and dungaree petticoats and jackets. I had not seen the Maori use soap. When their clothes required washing they were taken down to the creek and there rubbed with a blue clay that could be found under the side of the creek banks. This clay had a sticky substance in it and the clay was rubbed onto the clothes which were then pounded on round stones in the creek. When the children required washing they were also rubbed with this clay and after a good ducking they came out clean.

My father had a steel mill which had to be turned by hand. He would bake our own bread from the wheat that the Maoris would give him in payment for grinding their wheat.

The only trade in the way of foodstuffs in my time was in big boxes of dark brown sugar; cases of hard biscuits, tea in boxes and salt. My father made his own candles and soap. Of course we had to buy the material for our garments. Our father had been a sailor and so knew how to make all his own clothes. Until we went to live at Poverty Bay I had not seen him wear anything he had not made himself.

The Maori women when meeting visitors of importance from a distance, donned all their petticoats and brightly coloured skirts so that they looked to be wearing crinolines. There would be not less than four widths, often six or more, so that when they had them all on they were the envy of their less fortunate women friends. I heard my father tell of an occasion when my mother, after a tangi, when the feast had been consumed and the speeches interchanged, stood up and took off her skirts and presented one to each of the six women present in the party. This was considered the proper thing to do as my mother was the wife of a white man.

OF TANIWHA, NGARARA AND HOW PAEROA GOT ITS NAME

by LEO FOWLER

I had always thought that the town of Paeroa got its name from the long ridge of hills behind it pae-roa. But I was wrong. I found that there was another and older meaning to the name. There is a very old, old story about the naming of Paeroa. I learned the story first, many years ago, from Hoane Te Huia of Paeroa, and later heard other versions from other old Maoris of my acquaintance.

I don't know what the name of the place was before it was called Paeroa. Some have told me it was Ruawea, some Ohinemuri, but these are district names, as far as I know. Anyway, in a cave near the hill now known as Turner's Hill, near the present town of Paeroa there lived a taniwha, or ngarara, named “Urea.”

I have no certain knowledge as to what was the form in which this taniwha liked best to manifest himself. Most accounts agree that it was in the form of a gigantic lizard. Ngarara, or taniwha, are queer creatures and are apt to change their form in a most haphazard and perplexing manner. The Ngati Tamatera had another taniwha named “Tupe to Tauhai” which, when it wished to warn the tribe of impending invasion, would take the form of a dolphin and gambol in the river until its movements had been reported to all the chiefs. But when the Ngati Tamatera went forth to war, this same taniwha appeared as a blue cloud, and, in that form, led them to battle, and invariably (they claim) to victory. There was yet another taniwha in the Ohinemutu district called “Pukeko” which always took the form of that bird and gave mournful cries throughout the night when the death of a chief was imminent.

Personally, I have never seen a taniwha, nor I expect have readers. I have met some who told me they had seen one, and they were people I had every reason to respect and to believe. My old friend Nepia Pomare, (a Ngapuhi and my Maori godfather) once told me that the taniwha on our gold sovereigns was not unlike a taniwha he had once seen.

This taniwha, whose name he could not utter, (so tapu was it) had a body very like that of the taniwha on the sovereign, but the wings were only partly formed and the head was the head of a manaia. Some of my older Maori friends have told me that the manaia itself was, originally, a taniwha. Others will say that manaia is simply a carved representation of a human head seen sideways, such as a “koruru” or “ruru.”

Colonel Jim Ferris once told me that, during World War I he and his platoon were led out of danger, on one occasion, by a taniwha which appeared as a small cloud of smoke. He was a very practical and hard headed man, and a great friend of mine and I believe him. Princess Te Puea told me that, as a girl, she had seen taniwha in the Waikato and had also seen fairies. Riki Kereopa, of Cape Colville; Kapa Potae of Kennedy Bay,

Coromandel; Te Kanawa of Kawhia, and an old tohunga friend of mine in Otakau (who asked me never to write his name, though I might speak it freely) all these have told me of ngarara or taniwha, which they themselves have seen, in various shapes. They were all my friends and they were all truthful men. Some taniwha, they said, were good, others were bad. “Urea” the taniwha of our story, was not only bad, but, like the little girl in the nursery rhyme, he was horrid. Not only was he horrid but he was very, very cunning. He had several smaller taniwha around the district who acted as sentinels and kept him well informed of what was going on. One of them, named Hotaiki, lived in a pool which is to be seen to this day, close to the bridge just outside present day Paeroa. Another of Urea's many sentinels was named Waikino, and gave his name to that village half-way between Paeroa and Waihi. These sentinels kept a very good lookout indeed, and warned Urea whenever any Maori of that district set out to travel to the East Coast. Whatever the purpose of their journey, Urea would go after them, swift and terrible as fire, and gobble them up. Urea, the taniwha of Ruawea, was especially fond of pretty young maidens—as an article of diet.

It was this very weakness for gobbling up young maidens which led to Urea's downfall. There was a young tohunga named Hamea who decided that Urea's taste for tasty young ladies was becoming a serious embarrassment to the tribes around that district and it was time he did something about it. It not only made wives scarce for their young men, but that very scarcity made such competition among the remaining maidens as to give them ideas, far above their station. Hamea was a young and ambitious tohunga, with many weighty matters to occupy him. Instead of devoting his time to those matters he was continually being bothered to waste his time in the recital of “atahu” or love charms, a form of karakia or incantation, very much sought after by young men in love when their fancied maiden was playing “hard to get.’ I never found out, to my complete satisfaction just what kind of tohunga Hamea was. Hoane Te Huia says he was a ‘tohunga tatai aorangi’ whose duty it was to read and interpret the stars and their omens, and to guide their navigation when they went to sea. Others said he was a ‘tohunga makite’ or a seer into the future. One chief claimed that Hamea was a ‘tohunga makutu’ who dealt with black magic, and who would, for a consideration, put a fatal spell on anyone who happened to incur your displeasure. As Hamea is held in some veneration by the tribes which knew him best, we could charitably class him as a tohunga of the higher class who dabbled in makutu, if at all, merely as a sideline and to increase his knowledge and his mana.

Anyway, I have no doubt that when Hamea set out to put an end to Urea the taniwha, he was glad to have every trick of every grade of tohunga at his command. Urea, as we have already said, was a taniwha of fearsome reputation, and considerably cunning. His motto was, if we may put it in the terms of a famous pakeha proverb, “He who fights not, but runs away, lives to eat maidens another day.” So he withdrew to his cave and sat patiently upon his magic perch to wait until Hamea's other pressing duties drew him away from this particular hunting trip. This is not to say that Urea was a coward, but merely that he realised that what was good clean fun for the tohunga, was not always fun for a taniwha.

Hamea the tohunga, in the course of his search, came to that part of the Waihou river where Hotaiki, the sentinel, lurked in his pool. Hotaiki being a minor taniwha, was no more anxious to meet a hostile tohunga than was Urea, but, unable to resist the power of Hamea's magic, he came reluctantly to the surface. “Where is Urea, the greatest of all Taniwha?” asked Hamea. Hotaiki, the sentinel, made the historic reply, “Urea ke nga rua i tana paeroa.” ‘Urea’ is on his long perch’—the long perch of Urea, or in its shortened form, the pae-roa or Paeroa of today.

In the course of becoming a tohunga, Hamea had learned many proverbs. One was the “He who eats the kumukumu, (or gournet) in too much of a hurry, is liable to get bones in his throat.” So instead of dashing in to beard the ngarara in its den, he set about thinking up a stratagem by which to lure Urea from his magic cave into surroundings where he would be more vulnerable. By reading the stars, and (some say) by dealing in blacker magic, Hamea conceived a great idea. Knowing Urea's appetite for toothsome young maidens and knowing too that the local supply was becoming daily scarcer, he thought to draw the taniwha away by offering a particularly luscious bait. He caused word to be spread freely around the district that there was a growing superfluity of young and tender maidens among the Tainui people of the Waikato.

So, one by one, Urea's sentinels reported to him that everyone was going around saying, “Ka nui te pai te waihine to Waikato” (how fair are the women of Waikato). Urea swallowed the bait hook line and sinker. He decided he would slip across to Waikato, escape this busybody of a tohunga, and try out these reputedly luscious morsels of feminity in the kainga of the Waikato.

Now, for some reason or other which was never explained, Urea the taniwha started his journey by following the course of the Waihou river to its mouth, which discharges into the Hauraki gulf at what is now Thames. I have no doubt that he had his own reasons for doing so. Perhaps he thought his departure in an almost opposite direction would conceal his true destination. Or it may have been that he intended to invite some of his fellow taniwha down river to accompany him. Whatever the reason, it died with him. Hamea the tohunga, either by black magic, or white magic, or just everyday observation and common sense, had learned of his route and lay in wait for him

downstream. Hamea, of course, slew the taniwha, ngarara or dragon, after a fearful struggle. Details of this battle, of the weapons of offence and defence, of the tactics employed and other data which would be extremely valuable to an historian, are sadly missing from all accounts I have heard. It has been recorded, however, that the death struggles of the taniwha were terrific and protracted. As, at last, his corpse stiffened in rigor mortis, his tail stood stiffly upright like a “taia” or the post of a palisade, and is to be seen there, to this day, in petrified form. Hence the name of that place “Hiku Taia” from Hiku (tail) and Taia (the post of a palisade.)

There are some folk, of course, (there always are) who offer a more mundane explanation. These folk say that “Hiku-taia” means simply the tail of the t [ unclear: ] de” and refers to that part of the river where the actual flow of the tide ceases.

Anyway, that is the story, as well as I understand it, of how Paeroa got its name, and how Hiku Taia and Waikino got theirs. Moreover, I have been to Paeroa and have been shown the cave of Urea and the pool of Hotaiki; and also to Hikutaia where I have been shown the rock which they claim is the stiffened tail of Urea the taniwha.

I have mentioned the other meanings which some folk attach to the names, and you can take your choice. All I can say is that I would take an exceedingly poor view of anyone who would prefer a ‘long ridge’ to a ‘taniwha's perch’ or the mere ‘turning of the tide’ to the ‘death throes of a ngarara.’

EDUCATION IN TWO CULTURES CAN BE A SUCCESS

by FRANK McPHERSON

A trust was established by Bishop G. A. Selwyn in 1848 ‘for the education of children of both races of New Zealand and the islands of the Pacific’. The school began operation in 1849 on a site at Taurarua (Parnell) in what is now St Stephen's Avenue, and was the first New Zealand school to celebrate its centenary.

Through its long life the roll of the school has been predominantly Maori, but there has always been a sprinkling of island and pakeha children.

Instruction, after the passing of the New Zealand Education Act (1877), followed fairly closely the state primary school system, and most pupils gained the Proficiency Certificate some of them staying on for a year in Standard VII. About 1910 a few pupils were entering for the Public Service Examination, and regularly winning Makerini Scholarships for advanced secondary schooling at Te Aute College. Numerous well-educated Maoris thus became old boys of both schools.

In the 1920–30 period, St Stephen's slowly developed its own secondary department, and after 1931, when the school moved to the beautiful Bombay site, the secondary roll grew steadily. Pupils stayed on for University Entrance Examination and further study in Form VI. The move to the country also allowed the development of an agriculture course.

During the 1939–45 war the school was requisitioned as a hospital, and its senior pupils went to Te Aute and Wesley Colleges, but without losing their St Stephen's identity.

The school opened in 1949, as a purely academic type post-primary school, and without the 230 acres of farm, which were still under lease. The rising cost of living brought suddenly a heavy increase in fees in 1953, and the roll dropped quickly in 1953 and ‘54.

With the appointment of the present Headmaster Mr L. E. Lewis at the beginning of 1954, it became the policy of the school to try to carry out the original aim of Selwyn for the education of the Maori, Pacific Islander and Pakeha side by side. It was also decided to terminate the farm lease, to start anew the Agriculture course, to run

parallel to the state schools in staffing and salaries, and to build up the work of the senior school to VIA standard. At the same time work began on the improving and extending of the playing fields.

The results of the new policy over these last four years show a record of achievement probably unequalled in present day New Zealand. On 3rd February, 1954, the roll stood at 31; on the same date in 1958 it had reached 125. There was no sixth form in 1953, but in 1958 there are 14 in VIb and four in VIa, the latter all intending to proceed to university courses. There are five now at University from the two previous years.

The library has been completely reorganised, and restocking proceeds rapidly, to keep pace with the revised and modern [ unclear: ] sed curriculum. Revision of the curriculum has been reflected in the great increase in School Certificate passes, and since 1957 the school has become an accrediting school for University Entrance.

Maori language study is compulsory for a [ unclear: ] l pupils to the end of Form IV, and in 1957 and 1958 the School has had pakeha pupils presenting Maori as a subject for U.E. Maori concert work, shared by all pupils, and developed in co-operation with the girls of Queen Victoria School, has reached a very high standard. The combined senior concert party has roamed as far afield as East Cape and Hastings in 1954, Masterton and Palmerston North in 1956, Northland and Waikato in 1957, and this year, the boys only to the South Island.

In rugby union football the record of St Stephen's 1st XV has probably not been equalled by any New Zealand School over the past four seasons. In that time the 1st XV has played 109 matches, won 104, drawn 2, and lost 3, and has journeyed as far South as Christchurch and Hokitika.

In its hundred odd years St Stephen's has served New Zealand well, and numbers among many of its great sons the two Bishops of Aotearoa. Many leaders in the Waikato have been pupils of the school, and the new scholarship system, now being operated by the Waikato Diocese, will provide St Stephen's with fine material to be moulded into the leaders of the future.

Hence we have here an establishment, catering for the education of Maori, European, and Island boys, an example of a mixed community living in harmony.

Following are accounts in Maori from boys from St. Stephen's College, telling something about themselves and their homes.

NO TIPENE AHAU

A FAMOUS HAKA

EDITED BY REV. TIPI KAA

This famous haka has been edited for us by Rev. Tipi Kaa, of Te Kaha who used a translation and brief commentary given to him by the late Sir Apirana Ngata.

Te Kiri Ngutu is still frequently performed by East Coast groups on important occasions. Although the text, taken strictly, would suggest that the performers are hostile to the European, the Maori does not really feel the haka in that way. For instance, it was performed before Lord Bledisloe when the Waitangi Treaty House was opened in 1934; then, it undoubtedly symbolized deep gratitude. When performed before Prime Ministers on East Coast maraes, Te Kiri Ngutu is felt as a respectful greeting. It expresses the proud and defiant spirit of Ngati Porou.

EAST COAST TRIBES HAVE A MODERN WHARE WANANGA

by LEO FOWLER

When Rongo Whakaata Halbert stood up before a large gathering at G [ unclear: ] sborne one sunny Saturday afternoon last November, and declared open the new Maori Wing of the Gisborne Museum, he was performing what may well turn out to be one of the most significant rites of the transition of the Maori from the old order to the new.

Even from the viewpoint of tangible realities this opening was significant. It represented many angles of Maori interest. For one thing the money was raised by a Maori Museum Committee which is, so far as I know, the only one of its kind in New Zealand. Furthermore it has an advisory status protected by special minute of the Art Society Council which is the governing body of the G [ unclear: ] sborne Art Gallery and Museum. But, before I go into all that, it might be as well to tell you about the Maori Wing and its relation to the Gisborne Museum as a whole.

The Art Gallery and the Museum were set up a little over four years ago by the Gisborne Art Society. The Society bought the old Lysnar home, itself an historic building, and vested the ownership in the City Council. It then set about the formation of an Art Gallery and a Museum. The Art Gallery was founded under the directorship of Mr Alan Barnes Grahame and has since become a model of its kind and the focal point of art in Gisborne.

Early in 1954 the Art Society entrusted me with the establishment of a Museum. I immediately gathered together a small committee of people willing to work on the complicated project of setting up and organising a museum. Mr Rongo Halbert was elected to the committee to represent the Maori people and has been a stalwart supporter and member ever since. He was later appointed to the Council of the Art Society in the same capacity.

It was apparent from the beginning that a Museum serving Gisborne and the East Coast would not be truly representative unless it was largely Maori in character and from the first it was planned with this fact in mind. About this time, May 1954, we heard of a maori house in the Canterbury Museum which had East Coast associations. Mr Vic Fisher, ethnologist at the Auckland Museum furnished me with something of its history. It was originally planned for the East Coast chief Henare Potae of Tokomaru Bay. The carvings for it were begun in the late 1850's and completed during the period 1866–69. Some of them were destroyed during the Te Kooti troubles and the remainder were acquired by Mr C. S. Locke of Napier for the Canterbury Museum. I wrote to Dr Roger Duff, director of the Canterbury Museum who agreed to let us have it for the sum paid for it in 1872, an extremely generous offer. He warned us at the time that it would cost us at least another thousand pounds to transport it to Gisborne and re-erect it there.

By this time we had got other members of the Maori community interested in the project. A few of us got together to discuss the acquisition of this house as a purely Maori project. As a result of this discussion a Maori Museum Committee was formed. It held its inaugural meeting on the 25th of March 1955, the original members being Rongo Halbert (Chairman), Pahau Milner, Reta Keiha, Hira Paenga, Tawhai Tamepo, Eru Ruru, Hiwi Maynard, Kahu Te Hau, Judge Howard Carr, R. J. Wills and myself as director holding an ex off [ unclear: ] cio position and acting as secretary to the Committee. We were able to record in the inaugural minutes that £700 had already been raised toward the purchase and erection of the house.

Through the assistance of Mr Peter Kaua of the Department of Maori Affairs who was coopted to the Maori Committee I was able to attend meetings of some of the tribal committees up the Coast and each of them appointed an Associate member, giving representation among Maori communities up as far as Te Kaha. Original associate members included Ropata Kingi and Te Tane Tukaki, W. Potou, D. George, Enoka M. Potae and H. Te Kani Te Ua.