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Making New Zealand vol 01 no 02: The Maori
Men and Women Worked Hard for Supplies of Food
Men and Women Worked Hard for Supplies of Food
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In 1842 Charles Heaphy sketched this provision house at Otumatua Pa, Cape Egmont. The house is on piles to keep out rats, and because the Maori appreciated the value of foods, it is heavily ornamented with carving. Piles of kumara baskets are seen to the right. A notched pole gives access to the stored foods.
The old-time Maori had to work hard for the food that he ate. The climate of his New Zealand home was not so favourable as that of the sunny tropics that he left behind him. In the northern part of the North Island he could grow the yam, though with some difficulty. Elsewhere his staple vegetable food was the sweet potato. And in high and cold districts where the sweet potato would not grow, he-had to live on the root of the bracken fern. Planting time for the sweet potato was governed by the stars and phases of the moon. The ground was worked over with a simple digging-stick.
Before the general planting, the priests planted a few seed tubers with appropriate ceremonial and incantation. This was to secure the favour of the gods and to make sure that a good crop would result.
Each family owned its own plantation and provided the seed tubers. But all the members of the village group worked together co-operatively —chiefs and commoners, men and women—at cultivating, planting and harvesting. Thus the work was lightened and all enjoyed themselves in the picnic fun of a working bee.
When the star Vega arose in the early morning, the sweet potatoes were harvested and carried in baskets to the semi-underground storage houses or pits. There they were carefully picked over and stored until needed.
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De Sainson, an artist who illustrated Dumont d'Urville's 'Voyage Pittoresque Autour du Monde' (1839 shows a Maori party hoeing up potatoes. Food is also being temporarily stored on a platform at the left of the picture.
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Comapre Heaphy's version of storehouse with this one from Angas, described as a 'Storehouse for food, belonging to the chief Te Heuheu, at Taupo.' As before, carvings decorate this house. Two empty gourds used for storing birds are seen to the right, and at the left a Maori woman is beating fern root.
Bracken root was dug in spring or early summer and stacked in the shade to dry. Then it was sorted and stored away. By pounding the roots with a beater, a thick dough was obtained which was considered a nourishing and sustaining food.
Taro was grown in favoured districts. The taproot of the cabbage tree, the heart of the nikau palm, the roots and yellow pollen of the bulrush, and various edible berries were all used as additional vegetable foods.
The Maori cooked his food out-of-doors or in a rough cook-house away from his dwelling house. Cooked food was considered particularly contaminating as far as tapu and mana were concerned, and thus it was removed from tapu persons and places. Fire was made by rubbing two sticks together. An excavated pit was filled with wood, and when this had been lighted and had burnt down, the food was placed in the pit and covered with flax mats and earth. Some hours later it was removed from the oven perfectly cooked.
For his plate the Maori used a flat basket of plaited flax. For his knife he used a flake of obsidian. To hold his food he used vessels of wood, plaited baskets, vessels of bark, or gourds. When he held a great feast, he built huge pyramidal wooden scaffoldings which he loaded high with food of all sorts. And the tribe gathered for fun and feasting and dancing. Food and feasting were central interests for the Maori, as for all people.
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In 'The Story of New Zealand,' Dr. A. S. Thomson, a Surgeon-Major, shows a 'Stage for Hakari or Feast given to Governor Grey in 1849 at the Bay of Islands to celebrate the peace between the two races.' Food was piled high on the stage platforms and the Maori visitors would comment on the generosity of their hosts as they gazed at the abundant supply.