by Rendt Gorter (published in the Barrier Bulletin 4 October 2008)

The landscape of Great Barrier Island is a record of its history. If you are a geologist, you will see volcanic rocks shaped by millennia of erosion. If you are an ecologist, you can map past forests and wetlands from present vegetation and soils. If you are tangata whenua, you will notice the many signs of Maori occupation on the hills and foreshore of Aotea that mark the stories of settlements and battles recounted in spoken history. 

 

In those places where fresh slips and washouts reveal the layers that have built up over the centuries, a time-line of geological, ecological and human history can be distinguished in the coloured bands that become visible. And sometimes, more recognizable signs of the past can be found by the observant passerby. This is how Christina Spence and Johnny Blackwell came across a spectacular find on the last Thursday of August. They were in Boulder Bay at the far end of Medlands Beach, across Oruawharo Stream, where they had just finished maintenance work on a private property and there was still enough daylight left before the sun would set. "It's low tide - let's go rock hounding," Christina said when she saw that the winter storms had once again laid bare many colourful boulders and pebbles on the beach. 

 

What Christina and Johnny found instead were the remains of a careful burial on the foreshore of the bay. Mindful not to disturb anything, they left the site as they found it, and as soon as they got home, Christina called a tangata whenua – which I suppose you could call a distant relative - Judy Hale, and then Roger Bright. After confirming the find, the policeman coordinated with Bruce Davies, Chairman of the Ngati Rehua Ngatiwai ki Aotea Trust Board, to ensure tangata whenua oversight. It appeared to be an intact skeleton still in the position that it had been buried in. "I could tell it was a Polynesian because over the years I have seen others and learned how to tell the difference," Roger Bright said. "I've been on the island for a while now and this is the sixth time I've been called when human bones were found. The previous times were in Awana, Okupu and further along this beach as well."   

 

It was evident from the traces of erosion that the bones had to be moved or otherwise the sea would continue the excavation. This had to be done properly, so when the skull was returned from Auckland, a day was arranged for Bruce Davies to fly back to the island and a small group of people gathered to assist with the excavation and a respectful re-burial.

 

Don Prince took charge of carefully examining and exposing the bones. He has been coming to the island since 1970 and been a landowner in Allom Bay since 1976. And this was not the first time that the archaeologist had come out to the island for archaeological tasks. Apart from studies at Harataonga and at Okiwi airfield, he also regularly does work with the City Council for resource consent applications.

 

A forensic examination had assessed the remains to belong to a mature woman who had died in her twenties and estimated that it would have been approximately 400 years ago. But without expensive carbon dating that would have to remain an approximate estimate.  The position of the body, in a sitting position with hunched knees and facing out to sea, and a broken shard of a pounamu/greenstone ornament  which must have been placed with the body of this woman, suggests that she would have been rangatira, that is from a well-born family. But more could be discovered by studying the site of the burial, so Don Prince took many photographs as he brushed the earth from the bones. These are records that will contribute to the historical knowledge of the island.

 

On the face of the shore, other traces of human occupation could be made out. "This would have been within the settlement among vegetable gardens," Don Prince explained as he staked out other possible evidence of human activity. The little flat, arable land in this bay and elsewhere on the coast would have been used for food production and to process other food produce gathered from land and sea. Already Captain Cook was impressed with the meticulous horticultural practices of Maori. He saw communal plantations of sweet potatoes set in little 'molehills' carefully arranged in lines. Cultivated spots were “enclosed with a perfectly close pailing of reeds about twenty inches high.” Apart from the nutritious kumara, he would have seen taro, gourd and yam growing in village gardens.

 

Peter and Jan Hay, the owners of the house overlooking the site, had also come down, curious to learn more about the history of Boulder Bay. Bruce Davies pointed up the hill, where terraces could easily be recognised. "There were three pa sites around this bay alone, although probably not all used at the same time," and he gestured to what some people call Boatshed Island and across the Oruawharo Bay to the Sugar Loaf. "There is history everywhere on this island, and there are pa sites all over. This was like Queen Street at times with up to 3,000 people living here." The New Zealand Archaeological Association has registered at least 32 pa and over 350 archaeological sites on the island, dating from at least 700 years of Maori presence.

  

Bruce Davies explained why the island has always had such a popular appeal. "The island was a paradise for Maori. There was abundant food, and being on an island made it easier to see attackers early. It's location on major trading routes between the Bay of Islands and the Bay of Plenty, the Hauraki Gulf and not far from the outlying islands with prized mutton bird meant that it was a very desirable location to be. And there was even obsidian found here that could be traded for goods from the mainland. The name of the island's highest peak, Hirakimata means that it was one of the places where they were gathered."

 

Like elsewhere on the coasts, flat ground served as gardens, which typically consisted of rectangular plots, often at right angles to the beach, and delimited or marked out by rocks in some way. Any buildings would be set back from that. Even if they were used as sleeping quarters, food would be stored safely up the hill in the fortified pa where the families would have their whanau houses. But it is very likely that actual customs varied according to the times. Some generations lived in more insecure periods where the risk of surprise attacks was higher, so lookouts would remain posted on a high hill and the men would have been ready to defend the village at any time. In other eras over the hundreds of years Maori occupied the island, it was more peaceful and fear of unwelcome visitors would have been less of a preoccupation. 

 

Evidence of Maori occupation can be found everywhere. At Pa point in Tryphena, the original ditch, terraces and at least one pit and midden can easily be seen. In different places, old kumara gardens are often still apparent - one has to look out for earth mounds, ditches and drains, stone walls and pikes of cleared rock. Stone piles and low walls can for instance be seen on the old consolidated dune of the Whangapoua sandspit. 

 

To catch sea food, fishermen used various nets and traps as well as hook and line. Snapper would have been the main catch of fishermen, but a wide range of other species was also caught. Especially during the summer months, much shellfish would also be collected where it could be found. A large part of the catch was probably preserved through smoking for other seasons or to transport back to the mainland. It is quite likely that crayfish were also collected.

 

From what archaeologists have been able to make out, there is no typical model of how life was organised in pre-European days. In practice, particular customs would have been formed by individual whanau and hapu according to the sites and resources available, and simply because certain habits got ingrained. It is quite possible that on Aotea over the centuries of Maori history, occupation would have varied from a year round presence by a whole community to other times when villages were maintained for seasonal visits only to gather and preserve seafood while perhaps producing a seasonal crop. Such visits may have consisted of young families only, with kaumatua staying behind in more permanent mainland settlements where families gathered again during the winter months. But the size of the fortified pa sites suggest that there will have been periods when there was a substantial population in long-term residence, periods which will have extended over generations. 

 

From the settlement in Boulder Bay, extended trips would have been launched to go mutton birding on other off-shore islands, shell food gathering in the islands harbours or to go net fishing on the opposite side of the island. In prehistoric times, the seasonal round of subsistence activities meant that a single social group, or a part of a group, might reside briefly in several different places around the island or across the Hauraki Gulf in the course of a year. This did not make Maori be nomads, but simply meant that homes were spread across different places. A practice imitated in more recent times by many old time Bach owners on the island who are in the habit of returning when the warmer summer months arrive.

 

Life was short by modern standards, like in other pre-historic societies elsewhere in the world. According to archaeologists, Maori must have been relatively healthy and well nourished in many parts of New Zealand. Most people died in their twenties or thirties, and forty would be considered old age. Death was of supreme importance in Maori life. Tangihanga were, and still are, major events in Maori culture. "To Maori the dead are not the bones that are left behind, but their spirit that continues to be present. Our dead are still living in one sense; they are still part of us. That is what is meant when we say that their wairua is still with us," said Bruce Davies. That is one reason why Maori traditionally have attached value to remembering their forebears. "If you can whakapapa to your ancestors, where and to whom they were born, and where they died, you will know your place in the world." 

 

The first settlers brought with them to New Zealand a typically Polynesian practice of burying the dead in or close to settlements. In Samoa, people were even buried beneath the floor of houses. The permanent presence of the dead on the fringe of the homes of the living reflects older attitudes that had become uncommon by the time the Europeans had arrived. It was a way of emphasising the relationship of the living and dead members of a kinship-based community. But there was great diversity in practice between hapu and iwi - even within one burial place. Maori today will readily remind Europeans that in earlier times there was a diverse range of tribes and cultures spread across the 'continent' of New Zealand that should not be generalised into any textbook stereo-types of ‘The Maori’. After all, the word Maori simply means to be ‘normal’.

 

To those that can read it, the landscape will tell many stories. To the Davies and the Blackwells, the Ngawakas and the Medlands, these are stories that connect the present generations with the past. So what are your stories?

 

 

Further reading:

Great Barrier Island, Don Armitage, Canterbury University Press, 2001

The Prehistory of New Zealand, Janet Davidson, Longman Paul, 1984

Two worlds, Ann Salmon, Viking, 1991