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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 14, Issue 6 (September 1939)

Koputai — (The Very High Tide)

page 38

Koputai
(The Very High Tide)

(Rly. Publicity photo.) Otago Harbour showing Port Chaimers Peninsula, in the centre of the picture.

(Rly. Publicity photo.)
Otago Harbour showing Port Chaimers Peninsula, in the centre of the picture.

Late one evening, many years before whalers or immigrant ships had sailed past Tairoa's head into the harbour beyond, a band of Maori warriors wearily beached their canoes near some caves in the vicinity of a point of land which we now know as Boiler Point (near Port Chalmers). Darkness had already enveloped the land, and the myriads of pigeons frequenting the trees which grew almost to the water's edge at last were silent, as the warriors, wearied by their long journey up the harbour, flung themselves down to rest on the warm sands at the mouth of the cave. Before long all were sleeping soundly; only the gentle lapping of the water as it crept over the sand broke the silence. Not a man stirred as wave after wave broke on the shore, each time nearer and nearer to the canoes beached, as all had thought, far above high-water mark. Farther and farther up the beach crept the waves. Hour after hour passed and gradually they lapped round the prow of the canoes. Now the canoes were surrounded, and, as if gentle hands from the sea were lifting them, they floated out into the bay. Up and down they bobbed as each little ripple caught them, mocking the sleeping men who had launched them so lovingly and so carefully. Ere break of day the braves stirred; the time for the attack was at hand. As each stretched his magnificent body, or reached for the weapons lying by his side, his gaze turned towards the rising sun with its promise of victory; and so the discovery was made—the canoes were gone. Wildly they looked around in search of the enemy who had surprised them, but none was visible. The sun rose over the peninsula hills on the opposite side of the harbour taking with it the warriors’ chance of a surprise attack, but the daylight, flooding the water with light, revealed the canoes bobbing about in the bay some distance away from the caves. “Koputai!” “Koputai!” exclaimed the Maoris as they swam out to regain their canoes.

Satisfied that Tangaroa, the god of the ocean, was pleased with their venture and had shown his interest by sending such a remarkably high tide, these Maoris, in accordance with their custom, proclaimed this part of the bay tapu. Thus, according to tradition, the peninsula, known to us as Port Chalmers, gained its name—Koputai, signifying the remarkably high tide.

Before the immigrants of the John Wycliffe and the Philip Laing had been a year at Otakou, they showed a marked dislike of the Maori name Koputai, and, wishing to honour the memory of the Rev. Dr. Thomas Chalmers of Free Church fame, they changed the name to Port Chalmers. Only the bay, devoted to-day to the shipping activities of the port, is now called Koputai. The dense bush is gone and the native birds are few in this haunt of industry, but this name remains one link with the land as it was before the white man claimed it as his own.