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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 13, Issue 10 (January 2, 1939)

“When Men Were Stones.”

“When Men Were Stones.”

The story of Hauturu (the name means a fair and steady wind) in Maori tradition goes back several centuries, and many a time it was a rendezvous for war-canoes in the days when every Maori tribe's hand was against its neighbours. For generations it was the home and refuge place of the Ngati-Wai, who—as was solemnly sworn to by the ancient Paratene te Manu in the Native Land Court in Auckland in 1886—had occupied the island from a period “when men were stones.” The Judge dryly remarked of this legendary era that it was “a period unknown to the Court and to modern science”; nevertheless, Ngati-Wai were awarded possession of the island as against the other claimants, the Ngati-Whatua tribe of the mainland. Our present-day landing-place was not safe for canoes, but on the western side of the flat there is a cut in the boulder bank where a passage was made to haul the long war-craft up safely beyond reach of the surf. Pomare, the Bay of Islands chief, whose pa at Otuihu was destroyed by British troops in 1845, once occupied Hauturu; and in the early days of colonisation he seems to have offered the place to an Auckland man, in return for a schooner. But he reckoned without his Ngati-Wai, the tangata-whenua, who decidedly objected to parting with their ancient home. It was a strange, solitary spot that surf-girt home, yet Ngati-Wai loved it as the Western Highlander loved his lone shieling on the misty island.

Later came the pakeha coastwise smuggler, who found the unfrequented part of the south-west corner of Hauturu, despite the awkward landing, a convenient and safe hiding place for un-Customed liquor and tobacco.