Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

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

Volcanic landscapes

page 104

Volcanic landscapes

Because of their landscape prominence, the pā, pits, terraces and gardens of the volcanic cones are easily recognised. The lava fields and ash soils of the northern volcanoes attracted pre-European Māori because of their horticultural potential. The principal areas of good soils are in the inland Bay of Islands, in localities just to the west of Whangarei township, and on the Auckland isthmus itself. In some other places in Auckland, the volcanic products turned to sticky clays, unsuited to horticulture. The land south of the Manukau Harbour was not settled, providing a great contrast with the settlement on the surrounding fertile soils. 19

Polynesians would instantly have recognised the potential of these cones because of their familiarity with the high-island volcanic cones of Eastern Polynesia. The soils are of recent origin, dating from the last 10,000 years or so, and have not been in existence long enough to have been leached of their fertility. They are produced from lava flows and localised ash showers that weather over time to friable, fertile soils. 20 The soils also tend to be quite stony, offering the natural properties activeb sought by Māori gardeners. Because they are stony, the] cannot be readily ploughed and their original Māori land use patterns have survived in good condition in several localities.

In the Bay of Islands, the large terraced cones am lava fields of the Taiamai plains (lying from Kaikohe t( Kawakawa) are good examples of this landscape. Again as at south Manukau, the contrast between these soil: and the adjacent clay country is striking. 21 Pouerua, one
Pouērua, a volcanic cone pā in the inland Bay of Islands

Pouērua, a volcanic cone pā in the inland Bay of Islands

A volcanic cone typically splits open to one side as it approaches its mature form, with a new vent forming outside the split. This has happened at Pouērua. The pā has been built in a number of defended segments around the rim and has a total perimeter-length of some 600 m—about the same size as the larger ridge pā in other regions such as Taranaki or the Bay of Plenty. The view is to the north. The interior of the cone is about 350 m across.

page break
One Tree Hill, Maungakiekie, Auckland City

One Tree Hill, Maungakiekie, Auckland City

The soft scoria slopes of the volcanic cones have been extensively terraced. The scarps were probably defensive while the upper flat areas held houses, storage pits and other living space. A ditch and bank has been constructed on the level ridge immediately to the left of the tihi (summit platform) where the obelisk has been erected. The broad lower terraces in the foreground and at right were probably for gardens which would have spread well out into the built-up areas of today.

of the most spectacular of the volcanic cones, was closely settled by Māori. The cone and its immediate vicinity have recently been studied by Doug Sutton 22 who found the area was first settled 500 years ago. His work has shown that the cone was extensively terraced before the present form of the defensive ditches and banks was created in the early fifteenth century. The most recent occupants of this pā were hapū of the Ngā Puhi subtribe, Ngāti Rahiri. 23
The cones provide a unique opportunity to see distinctive patterns of fortification. Usually, the cones have a crater, where the volcano originally erupted. These are often breached in the course of successive eruptions, so that the crater is open to one side. The horseshoe-shaped rim that resulted was treated by the Māori much the same as the ridges in hill country elsewhere. Its exterior slopes page break
The Ohaeawai battlefield of July 1845 and St Michael's Church, Bay of Islands

The Ohaeawai battlefield of July 1845 and St Michael's Church, Bay of Islands

In the watercolour by John Williams (top right), the British troops are advancing across the centre of the field. In the left foreground is the British camp and slightly forward of that again is a lengthy breastwork of which no trace is to be seen in the modern photograph (above). (It would lie at about the line of the old Ohaeawai Maori School, the prominent white building with a wide verandah.) St Michael's Church is on the same location as the original stockade—where it commanded the field forward (north of) a shallow gully (filled with many dark trees in the photograph). The British troops attacked the near right (northwest) corner of the fortification from the north and from a position in the gully running towards the camera viewpoint about 100 m west of the churchyard. Both painting and photograph are oriented to the south-east.

page break
St Michael's Church, Ohaeawai

St Michael's Church, Ohaeawai

The enclosing stone wall was built not long after the church in 1871 and probably followed a depression or other outline left by the original stockade and perimeter rifle trench. Traces of the trench could be seen until recently in the vicinity of the small stockyards in the immediate left foreground. The parallel lines running away to the upper right from the stone wall are the result of ploughing. The view is to the north-east, and the walled enclosure is 85 by 50 m in extent.

page 108 were intensively terraced and scarped, partly for defensive reasons. Across the ridge were built successive lines of defensive ditches and banks. In places, the ditches encircle a segment of the rim, with other terraced segments lying outside the heavily fortified centre. The largest populations probably gathered on the cone in certain seasons, in autumn and winter perhaps, or when war threatened. The total population centred on a cone may have been as large as 1,000 people, but was generally fewer than this. 24

Below the cones lie undulating volcanic stonefields— the prime horticultural lands. Although the cone defences just discussed were probably built by hapū or iwi, the gardening would have been done by whānau living in small settlements around the cone and as much as 5 km from it. 25 Further away from the cone, they may have found it convenient to align themselves with other kin on another cone or in another area. The stonefield gardens are marked by concentrations of stone gathered from the fields and placed in mounds; occasionally the stones were placed in rows. There are also stone-faced terraces and stone-edged pathways. Other features related to horticulture are field boundaries, in the form of trenches, and storage pits. The trenches lie at the foot of the volcanic cone slopes and the bottoms of the small, fertile valleys surrounding it. As discussed in chapter 4, they may have been not only garden boundaries, but also simple forms of irrigation with water or moisture concentrated at the bottom. Open rectangular storage pits were dug on the cones or on low ridges or hillocks in the garden areas.

The areas on the stony country around the cone were also the site of much nineteenth-century Māori settlement. The Te Waimate mission house, site of a model farm established by the Anglican Church in 1831, was established in this general area to be near such Māori settlement, 26 and will be described in some detail in chapter 16.

Cones were also occupied in Auckland where the stonefields are smaller, but with much greater numbers of the cones themselves. Mangere, Maungawhau (Mt Eden) and Maungakiekie (One Tree Hill) are three such cones. Other examples are Orākei, Mt Roskill, Mt Wellington (Maungarei) and Mt Albert (Owairaka). 27 Many other cones have been and are being, sadly, ruined by the extraction of scoria for industrial aggregate. The radiocarbon ages for the gardens in the Auckland isthmus tend to be slightly older than those for the inland Bay of Islands. The ages are as old as 700 years, 28 in contrast to the inland Bay of Islands, reflecting perhaps the accessibility of the isthmus from the sea. The Hauraki Gulf also has one island created by volcanic activity, Browns Island, with significant pā and stonefield gardens.