Title: Ngā Tohuwhenua Mai Te Rangi: A New Zealand Archeology in Aerial Photographs

Author: Kevin L. Jones

Publication details: Victoria University Press, 1994, Wellington

Digital publication kindly authorised by: Department of Conservation

Part of: New Zealand Texts Collection

Conditions of use

Nineteenth-century sites

The river flats had quite extensive settlement away from the coastal strip throughout the nineteenth century. At Tolaga Bay, Waiapu and on the Gisborne plains, there were important stretches of settlement along the lower courses of the river within 5 km of the coast, including papakainga at Manutuke and Matawhero (the latter no longer settled by Māori). Tapui, already illustrated, was also the site of nineteenth-century settlement. ²² From the 1830s the river valleys were the locations of important Anglican Mission settlements at Waerenga ā Hika and also at Rangitukia in the Waiapu valley.

Waerenga ā Hika continued to be the location of Māori settlement in the nineteenth century. In 1865 combined European and Ngāti Porou and Rongowhakaata page 146

Tapui, a pā created by multiple ditches and banks on interlocking bends of the old course of the Te Arai River, near Manūtūke

The banks of the river are slightly obscured by young willows in this 1948 aerial photograph. Two curved, interlocking points have been defended by ditches and banks. On the left (west) a rectangular section of double ditch and bank has been constructed enclosing the point and some additional area. Three separate lines of ditch and bank enclose the point on the right bank of the river, the innermost obscured by willows. There is a further rectangular section of ploughed-out ditch and bank to the north of the easternmost defences (top right). There may also have been defences on the broad point to the south among the regular array of white blobs. The road is 6 m wide and the total area of the pā (including the enclosed water) is about 300 by 200 m. The water in the river-bed is ponded and its light colour is caused either by a surface-growing weed or muddy floodwater, compounded by the loss of grey-tone variation in the archived transparency from which the photograph is taken.

page 147 kūpapa fought against Pai Mārire forces from Rongo-whakaata and Te Aitanga a Māhaki. ²³ The exact location of the pā occupied by the Pai Mārire forces in this battle has proved to be a puzzle, which can be solved using aerial photographs. James Cowan visited this locality in the 1920s when a good proportion of the extended fortification may have been intact. ²⁴ However, his sketch is almost certainly a reconstruction based on the full eyewitness accounts of this battle. It is speculative in much of its detail and cannot be readily squared with the aerial photograph evidence.

A pā survived at Waerenga ā Hika up until the early 1950s, when it was destroyed by ploughing. Showing clearly in a vertical aerial photograph of 1948, it was a typical rectangular enclosure of the former ₍river bank, offering a natural defensive scarp 6 m in height, with a single defensive ditch and bank. Pā like this were starting to be built from at least the early seventeenth century on the Waipāoa River and elsewhere. ²⁵ Another feature indicating a pre-European origin is its location at the down-river end of a cut-off loop of the Waipāoa River. The upper end of the loop was higher, filled with silt from floods from the period after the loop was cut off, and therefore dry ground. Near the pā, in contrast, was a narrow lakelet with swampy margins. Eels would have lived in it, providing an ideally placed resource base for the pā.

However, in the cemetery close to ²⁶ Saint Luke's Anglican Church, about 200 m from the fortification describable from the 1948 photograph, is a further fortification. The modern graves, with their markers, flowers and children's plastic toys, lie towards the road. To their rear, towards the old river bank, the ground is bare of visible markers. This area is separated from the rest by the faint trace of a ditch and bank, parallel to the old river bank and 1 to 2 m wide—the rifle trench of the original fortification. ²⁷ The enclosed area is the site of the graves of the many dead of this battle, since the Māori dead were buried in the fortification itself. In the 1948 aerial photograph, in the field between the graveyard and the pre-European pā, the corresponding area is also fenced off and lies in tall grass. The two areas so delineated comprise an area consistent with the size of the original fortification, and more or less adjoining the pre-European one. It is probable therefore that there were two adjoining pā here, and that the pā showing in the 1948 aerial photograph is not the one occupied by Pai Mārire in 1865. ²⁸ The true pā attacked by European and kūpapa forces was immediately to the north and in the area of the modern cemetery.

Colonial and kūpapa forces also fought against Te Kooti Arikirangi at Ngatapa, in steep hill country about 40 km south-west of Gisborne, in December 1868. The encounter was preceded by an engagement at Makaretu near Rere, 7 km to the south-east. Ngatapa was developed from an earlier pre-European pā occupying the sloping triangular summit of a hill. ²⁹ The steep slopes and cliffs that have been so often remarked upon, the lines of defence and the offensive saps, can all be seen in the aerial photograph. The site has five defensive rifle trenches, totalling some 300 m in length, excluding a natural scarp which may also have had defensive value. The pā was occupied by as many as 250 men, so this defensive capacity was well used. A direct assault up the south-east slopes was not possible because of the defensive firepower that could be mustered. The attacking forces therefore out-flanked the pā from the southwest and north, and built narrow saps from the natural scarp at the southern foot of the fortification to gain the opportunity of enfilading fire along and entry to the defensive trenches. Mortars were brought up to the natural scarp but could not be used because of the close range— page break

A pā with many pits near Tūpāroa, Waiapu district

Described by the original site recorders, Anne Leahy and Wendy Walsh, as 'magnificent', this site demonstrates the degree to which pits are sometimes found packed into pā. The pits are about 5 m long by 2 m wide and most are of the raised-rim variety. In this view, the defensive elements of the site are not pronounced but there is a transverse ditch on the level ridge on the right. Elsewhere the potential defensive perimeter of the site is sharply delineated by the relatively steep sides of the ridges. Towards the centre of the site, on the broad ridge running towards the camera, the larger open rectangular areas with no rims are probably house platforms. The view is to the east.

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Raised-rim pits on a ridge near Patutahi, Gisborne Plains

The pits are large (up to 5 m square) and lie on one arm of a large pā, Hanganui a Tara. At the foot of the pā are the fertile, well drained soils of the fan created by the Whakaahu River {left, out of picture). Shell from a midden on the flats here has given a radiocarbon date of 1300. The view is to the north-east.

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Garden stone rows on the Pōtikirua Block, near Cape Runaway

The soils near Cape Runaway are stony, quite unlike those in most other areas of the East Coast. The steep inland hills confined gardening to a very narrow strip. Plots were arranged by placing stones from the cleared soil down the slope in rows. The topsoil between the rows on this coastal strip is very deep, as much as 40 cm, and the slopes face due north. They would have warmed very rapidly in spring and ensured a long growing season. Small settlements consisting of pits and terraces typically occupy the edges of the gullies in this landscape, but are not obvious in this photograph.

the bombs over-shooting the pā and landing amongst the attacking troops on the south-west slopes.

For several days of rain, the two forces lay within 15 m of each other. Te Kooti Arikirangi and others eventually escaped over the north-eastern cliff, leaving weaker members of his force behind. The people who escaped and were caught in the chase were summarily shot by the kūpapa force. Those in the pā (mainly women and children) were taken prisoner. I recorded this pā in the course of a visit in 1990, and I noted that it was an outstanding surviving example of the Colonial and kūpapa forces' wish to engage Te Kooti Arikirangi, and to force a finish to his armed campaigns. He suffered a punishing defeat here—it can be felt at the site because it is so close to the condition it was in at the end of the fighting.

The pā at Waerenga ā Hika, scene of fighting in 1865

The photograph was taken in 1948 after severe flooding, with the iagoon' showing as a silty lake bed. The ditch and bank of a pre-European pā, forming a rectangle about 90 by 60 m in plan, shows clearly. The bank is far higher than that shown on contemporary photographs of the pā of 1865, however. The other, second pā extended some 150 m to the north, covering part of the modern graveyard, top right, extending from the road to the river bank. The Anglican mission station and school was at middle right, east of the road. The road is about 18 m across, and the modern Anglican Church, Saint Luke's, is the large building with the distinctive curved driveway to its rear.

Ngātapa, site of Te Kooti Arikirangi's defeat in January 1869

Two sides of the triangular defended area were cliffed, offering strong natural defences. The third sloped down to the south-east with only a natural slump-scarp offering a potential defensive line. This line appears to have been too long and to have enclosed too large an area for practicable defence. This outer defensive line was abandoned early in the fighting. The main defences were the three or four prominent lines of ditch and/or breastwork at the summit of the hill. The attacking forces cut off the escape from the rear by putting in two lines of trenches on the narrow northern ridge, which otherwise offered a natural escape route, and occupied the south-western slopes below the cliff. Saps show in the centre of the slump-scarp (scrub-dotted), traversing uphill and to the west of the first defensive rifle trench. The saps brought the attackers over the exposed crest of the natural scarp up to the defensive lines. A second sap or communication trench runs from the intermediate defensive line to the double ditch near the summit. The photograph was taken in 1952. An oblique colour photograph is on page 204.