Atholl Anderson: The welcome of strangers

“In the early 19th century, the world of Ngāi Tahu was changing fast. As well as material and technological changes, the partnerships of Ngāi Tahu women with Pākehā men — most notable in Murihiku by the late 1820s — foreshadowed the substantial genetic and social changes to come.”

In this edited extract from his new book, The Welcome of Strangers: A History of Southern Māori, Professor Atholl Anderson (Ngāi Tahu) describes the early contact between Ngāi Tahu and Pākehā.

 

Substantial Māori contact with Europeans in southern New Zealand occurred mainly through trading interests.

First, there was sealing. Twelve ships visited Te Ara-a-Kiwa (Foveaux Strait) in 1808–12, the most to any mainland New Zealand sealing area, and shore-based gangs were prominent from 1808 to 1810. Sealing declined between 1813 and 1822, but picked up again from 1823 to 1829 in conjunction with other trading activities. The flax trade, beginning in 1813, persisted into the 1840s, and by 1829, whaling had begun.

European voyagers across the Pacific also found Te Ara-a-Kiwa a convenient landfall for eastbound vessels taking advantage of the “roaring forties” westerly winds.

The observations made by Europeans at that time disclose a vigorous and thriving Māori community, at least in Te Ara-a-Kiwa, for which the evidence is most copious. There were several large villages with populations of several hundred people each; various smaller villages and camps; and a traditional society of chiefs and commoners, with few slaves. Women bore the brunt of monotonous work and carrying, while men fought and foraged.

Settlements were fenced but not heavily fortified, presumably because the people felt secure by distance from their tribal enemies. The population seems to have been healthy. Te Wera, a chief based at Te Mahia, died of scrofula, possibly leprosy, but there is no evidence of introduced epidemics before 1830. Men were prone to accidental death and death by fighting, and were outnumbered by women.

Before 1830, the latter generally took Pākehā men into their family homes, although the Whenua Hou sealer community, with its Māori women, was already in existence.

Whenua Hou (Codfish Island) had been intermittently occupied by Māori on a permanent and seasonal basis since the 13th century. Traditionally, the island was also an important stopping-off point for muttonbirders travelling south to the Tītī Islands. By the early 19th century, sealers had been making sporadic use of Whenua Hou. Shore-based sealers were there in 1809–10, and the village was recorded in 1823.

Honekai, a leading Ngāi Tahu rangatira in Te Ara-a-Kiwa, designated the islands as a permanent settlement site for sealers and their Ngāi Tahu wives, before his death about 1815. Whenua Hou is widely acknowledged as the first permanent mixed Māori and European settlement in southern New Zealand.

Recorded partnerships of Ngāi Tahu women and European men began in 1810 with Tokitoki, niece of Honekai, and James Caddell (who made several trips together to Sydney engaging in the harakeke trade), and there were doubtless others involving men such as Robert Murray, who spent long periods living with Rakiura Māori between 1809 and 1811.

In the records, however, children from the relationships became relatively common only in the 1820s after Pākehā sealers and their Māori partners were settled on Whenua Hou specifically to reduce the trouble caused by Pākehā men in the Māori villages. The earliest half-caste children recorded there were Mary Parker to Hine te Ururaki and John Parker, and Thomas Brown to Wharerimu and Robert Brown, both in 1826.

Sealing had essentially collapsed by the early 1830s, and the flax trade never became a major industry, but just as Pākehā interest in Te Ara-a-Kiwa began to wane, the shore-whaling stations began. Peter Williams’s Port Bunn station at Rakituma (Preservation Inlet) was established in 1829; some of its employees were Māori, and Te Whakataupuka was, in effect, its patron.

At this stage of contact, traditional social practices and ideology were little troubled by alien influences. The rules of tapu were plain and were applied comprehensively and decisively. The authority of high chiefs, who were strong enough to enforce it, was absolute for all who lived within their domains. Māori society in general was still confidently self-contained. The chiefs Te Whakataupuka, Taiaroa and Karetai wanted John Boultbee, an English sealer, to live with them as a Māori. They did not want to live as Pākehā: the white people are too selfish, said Te Whakataupuka.

Yet traditional ideas were beginning to be disturbed by 1823. Captain Kent of the Mermaid disputed the truth of the story that Māui had fished up New Zealand and found his informants “very much vexed at my appearing to think otherwise”.

By 1827, there was much talk of the English Atua — although Kikoro wanted Boultbee’s Bible only to make wadding for cartridges. The drowning of Pahi and his people was attributed to the anger of the new Atua (to whom Pahi had converted) at the killing of the youth Ebenezer Denton at Pānui-o-Hau in 1823.

Taiaroa and Karetai were fascinated by books and writing, and had Boultbee show them how to make letters in the sand.

The very existence of Europeans as well as of other Polynesians and Asians, Aboriginals and Black Americans in Te Ara-a-Kiwa also opened Māori minds to the possibilities of a wider world. Numerous new items of material culture were becoming familiar — brass and iron tools, fish hooks, pots, pans and other domestic articles. Few people owned any at this stage, but they were known, and the currency of pounamu and other familiar valuables was correspondingly debased.

Māori had seen plank-built boats at sea, and sealing boats on shore; some had also witnessed shipbuilders working at Pegasus Inlet on Rakiura in 1826 and the refurbishment in 1824 of the Elizabeth Henrietta, driven ashore at Ruapuke. Traditional waka, earlier propelled by the double spritsail and paddles, were fitted with square sails and sweeps by 1827, an intermediate stage before the later availability of whaleboats.

The traditional houses in their various forms remained, but models of the future — two-roomed thatched cottages — were being built in Pegasus Inlet by the shipbuilders in 1826. Of course, some people had also seen stone houses and even more substantial buildings in Sydney.

Chiefs were beginning to wear jackets and trousers when meeting Europeans, and moccasins were made occasionally from sealskin. There was little opportunity for women to obtain dresses, except among those few who had been abroad, but they sought beads and other ornaments to supplement the traditional flower and shell necklaces and the more formal pounamu ornaments.

Traditional weapons predominated — the taiaha, spear and patu — although a few Te Ara-a-Kiwa Māori had muskets in 1827. Those probably arrived with men such as Paitu who had been to war against their cousins at Horomaka. Potatoes had been available since the early 19th century, along with many other garden plants — there was even a single plant of Indian corn, which puzzled its owner at Ōmāui until Boultbee explained what it was.

Gardens were prepared as for kūmara by cutting and burning the forest, digging the ground with the traditional kō (digging stick) and then planting the seed, including potatoes, in small hillocks. Potatoes were stored in pits. Dogs continued to be eaten, but pigs were introduced in 1823 and were available from Otago to Ruapuke Island by 1826. Domestic fowls were seen at the Rakituma whaling station by 1829 and almost certainly much earlier on ships, while ships’ cats eventually followed the mice that came off the Elizabeth Henrietta. The mice were known, from the ship’s name, as “Henriettas” or “hinerata”.

In the early 19th century, Ngāi Tahu were changing materially and technologically. Partnerships of Ngāi Tahu women with Pākehā men, most notable in Murihiku by the late 1820s, foreshadowed substantial genetic and social changes, and European diseases were on their way.

In early 1828, however, a more traditional and lethal sequence of events was about to unfold as warriors of migrant iwi from Kāwhia, led by the formidable Te Rauparaha, ventured into Ngāi Tahu territory.

 

Edited extract from Atholl Anderson’s new book, The Welcome of Strangers: A History of Southern Māori, https://www.bwb.co.nz/books/the-welcome-of-strangers (BWB, $69.99) available now from all good bookstores.

Professor Atholl Anderson (Ngāi Tahu) is a leading archaeologist and historian. He is co-author, with Aroha Harris and the late Judith Binney, of the landmark Tangata Whenua: An Illustrated History (BWB, 2014). He is Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University and adjunct professor at the Ngāi Tahu Research Centre. He is also a fellow of the Royal Society of Te Apārangi, the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and the Society of Antiquaries of London.