Matariki celebrations of various kinds begin in about two weeks with the ‘Carnaby Lane Collective’ might night market and the big bang fireworks display off the New Brighton pier pencilled in for the start of Kids Fest on July 9th.
As most will know, Matariki marks the start of the Maori new year, but it is also a good time to revisit indigenous connection to our sea-side environment, and the knowledge… under the protection of ‘te hau rawhiti’ (the east wind) is te kete kai (the food basket), and it is important we continue to bring this back to the natural resource it once was.
Various iwi were here for a very long time with ancient tribes like the ‘Waitaha’ moa hunters inhabiting parts of this coastal environment many hundreds of years after migrating down from the north following the arrival of Maori in Aotearoa 1200 years ago.
Te Ihutai (the estuary) and its catchment is of significant cultural and spiritual importance, and oral history suggests occupation since about 1290AD enlarging to a network of trading between families and hapu and maintaining tribal connections throughout the South Island.
The Maori trails (ka ara tawhito) to the estuary and Pegasus Bay from various parts of Canterbury including journeys from distant Banks Peninsula kaika (small semi-permanent settlement) by waka have faded into memory and oral history.
While Christchurch Maori were known as “swamp dwellers” (O-roto—repo), their permanent dwellings tended to be on dry high ground and some within the fortified pa.
The more recent arrivals of the Europeans the 1840s highlighted the meeting of two distinct cultures.
‘Ōrua Paeroa’ kaika was once located close to where the Taiora QE11 Recreation centre currently exists. This area a very large wetland/lagoon fed directly by the sea and an ideal place at certain times of the year for mahinga kai (working the natural resources for food) to be taken for storage back in the kaika or larger pa (village), to see through the winter.
The Travis Swamp is a fraction of what is left but gives an idea how rich in resources it was including fern root (aruhe), flax and whitebait (inake).
The whares (huts/houses) of Ōrua Paeroa were burnt down in 1862 by the European receiving this grant of land from the Crown.
Further south near the current Pleasant Point wharf and yacht club was another mahinga kai location and typical of the area utilised by hapu (extended family) for many years. Up to about 1920 one could still see the remains of the manuka eel traps sticking out of the water (ultimately removed by boating clubs).
Along the Southshore spit several Maori middens (clumps of domestic waste like bones and shells) have been discovered and known by the early Waitaha as ‘Te Karora Karora’ (seagulls chatter) and ‘Te Kai o te Karora’ (food of the seagull).
Former librarian and historian Richard Greenaway is somewhat of a legend for his knowledge of Christchurch family history and renowned for feats of memory of obscure facts and names of early settlers, and he tells the story of the last of the inhabitant continuing to work the estuary to gather the food as per a long tradition.
His name was believed to be Ahi-tora Ngahiri (Ngahuira and Ngahoira) but the colonials coming into Canterbury from the First Four Ships in the 1850s called him ‘Maori Joe’.
Although getting on his years, Ahi-tora continued to cross the Otakaro-Avon estuary from Bromley with his catch of tua (eel), aua (mullet) and patiki (flounder) and row his little green boat upriver to the Fitgerald Av bridge and walk to the city to sell his kai.
Road and river frontages were being sold off and this suddenly became a barrier to Ahi-tora when he found he could not access his own land when one wealthy colonial landowner invoked a trespass order. He eventually got help from a sympathetic accountant who took his case to the Heathcote Road Board, but before a decision could be made, Ahi-tora did not survive the winter of 1866.
Maori Joe was missed by many early settlers known to him not only for the quality of his fish and eel, but a very good sense of weather forecasting (much lacking in those very early Christchurch days) obviously embedded in his knowledge passed down of the night sky and Matariki.
He became one of many Maori who traversed a time of pre-european life and faced the challenges in his way of life brought about by the new colonial culture.
“Whatu ngarongaro he tangata, toitū te whenua” (Man disappears but land remains).