Old Tea Towel in Brain Watkins House

Lying on the  kitchen bench at Brain Watkins House is an old tea towel which seldom receives attention. Yet on closer examination, this item is very interesting. It is an ecru colour, and printed on it are a list of Maori proverbs, surrounded by a border of Maori-related pictures.

There are no distinguishing marks on this article to give a clue as to its age or place of manufacture, except that the cloth is made of natural flax linen.

It would be interesting to learn of any other similar article, and any other identifying features that would give a clue as to the towel's place of manufacture, and approximate era in which it was on sale.

Were the proverbs well known to the Maori? Several of my Maori octogenarian friends who have inspected it, can cast no light on the sayings. For those who find the wording on the article difficult to read, I have printed out the sayings.

Youth talks, age teaches
Little dogs make the most noise
Wishing never filled the game bag
A fine food house doesn’t fill itself
An idle young man - an unhappy old man
A bad thing usually costs a lot
A pigeon won’t fly into an open mouth
Great griefs are silent
The widest mouth has the widest grave
Time to dream when you are dead
Chase two Moas, catch none
Never be late for a battle to win it
An obedient wife commands her warrior
Beauty won’t fill the puku (stomach)
A wise man knows pain
One rotten fish, one fresh fish - two rotten fish
The god of evil and the god of fear are good friends
A warrior without courage has a blunt taiga (spear)
The brighter the clearing the darker the shadows
Todays meal is better than tomorrow’s tangi (feast)
No twigs on the fire - no flame

Kaimai Road (Part 3)

Pile for new Hairini bridge, 80 feet long, weighed 13 tons,
fallen off its trailer on the Kaimai road, c 1950s
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Library Ref. 08-018

When the Minister of Public Works in the first Labour Government, Robert Semple, addressed the Kaimai road labourers in March 1937, he was greeted with enthusiastic applause. And no wonder: he had just told his audience that one navvy was worth ten bankers. (Exceptions to this praise were those the Minister called ‘dissipators’, i.e. drinkers and gamblers, who would be an unwelcome influence in the work camps.) Rather than struggling as relief workers on a stingy dole, the navvies – 40 of them, with the likelihood of an increase to 100 – were being paid a decent wage, and were acknowledged to be doing essential work. Perhaps as a result, progress on the road was described by the Bay of Plenty Times on 19 March 1937 as ‘excellent’ and ‘wonderful’. In December of the same year, the paper stated that the estimated cost of the Kaimai Road would be £63,000, £5,500 of which was to come from Tauranga County Council, and that the works would take about two years to complete.

Kaimai Road, taken by the Richardson family, 17 Nov 1947
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Library Ref. 02-022

This sounds like a happy ending to the story of the Kaimai Road. However, its steep and winding sections, its elevation, and its gravel surface continued to challenge motorists right through the 1960s and 1970s. Even in the 21st century it can be daunting to the timid driver. State Highway 29 now carries heavy freight to and from the Port of Tauranga, and traffic volumes that Bob Semple and his contemporaries could not even have imagined. Closures and delays due to adverse weather, rock falls, or serious crashes still happen. Travellers, take note:

While a novice was driving a car
Down the Kaimais, his son said, “Papa!
If you drive at this rate
We’re bound to be late.
Drive faster!” He did – and they are.

(Please contact us if you know who is responsible for this verse, as we would love to make proper acknowledgement.)

New cutting at the top of the Kaimai road, 1963
Image courtesy of Tauranga City Library Ref. 04-037

The Te Puna Patriotic League stands up for itself – Mary Munro and Florence Lochhead

Plummers Point. Image courtesy of WBOPDC

Uncertainty, fear and controversy characterised not only military issues during World War I.  They were at work on the Home Front as well.

Men of the Farmers’ Union, galvanised by Te Puna settler Tom Lochhead, were not slow to review their stocks of “waggons, horses, and forage” [1] in August 1914. The townspeople of Tauranga, however, seemed reluctant and slow [2] to commit to putting civilian society on a war footing. Ad hoc activities – local committees [3], private donations [4] - got under way, but it was not long before these voluntary efforts came under scrutiny from central authority. Against a background of increasing pressure to recruit volunteer soldiers, and then conscripted ones, the powers that be also bent their attention to the proper regulation, control and “unification” [5] of volunteers running patriotic funds. The War Funds Act 1915 constituted the National War Funds Council to supervise the process.

While the realities of war became starker [6], so the practical energies of the community gained focus. As another Te Puna settler, Mary Munro, was later to say in public, the work of the patriots at home came to be a curious mixture of jollity overlaying more sober emotions, including the constant threat of bad news. In July 1916, the same month that Mary’s son Niol was wounded and her second son Robert went to camp, the Te Puna Patriotic League announced its intention to have regular socials, “as near as possible to the full moon each month”.

Mary became President of the League. The socials took place in the Te Puna Schoolroom, by permission of the School Committee (Tom was its Chairman). Tom’s daughter Florence, known to her family as Flo, became League Secretary. Two of her brothers were now at the Front. And due to the status of the Lochhead home as Te Puna’s Post and Telegraph Office, Florence and her mother Elizabeth were always the first to know of telegrams. The solid community network that existed in Te Puna was put to work, not only on the emotional drain of sustaining morale among its families, but also on maintaining the League’s independent existence.

For the forces of centralised bureaucracy were gathering. In November 1916 a charm attack from a pair of Auckland ladies - Mrs Gunson, Mayoress of Auckland and President of that city’s Patriotic League, and Secretary Miss Spedding - had their invitation to ‘affiliate’ the Tauranga League as a branch of a larger, Auckland, whole accepted after some misgivings [7]. But the Te Puna League was less easy to convince. They were in any event deeply involved in organising their first, very successful, Monster Picnic and Sale of Work on Mr Plummer’s paddock at Te Puna Point (now known as Plummer’s Point). It will have done their cause no harm to show that they were capable of a feat of organisation on a scale that involved stalls, games, raffles, competitions, refreshments, at least one bag-piper, and a launch service from and back to Tauranga [8].

Pressure to ‘affiliate’ continued through 1917. Poor Florence battled gamely on, sometimes calling Te Puna a branch league in advertising its meetings and fundraisers, other times not; a third brother, Tom Junior, went to war in April. By August she had had enough. Te Puna farmer A D Bear took over as secretary of the League.  But by then the implications of s. 40 of the War Legislation Amendment Act had filtered out to Te Puna. This allowed the Minister of Internal Affairs to approve separate, stand-alone funds rather than compelling them to be part of a larger whole.

No doubt impressed by the joint efforts of Mary, Florence, and possibly Mr Bear, the Minister issued the Te Puna Patriotic League with just such approval in October 1917. This was in good time for the organisation of a second Monster Picnic six months later, along similar lines to the first, but bigger and brighter than ever.

Image courtesy of Papers Past

At some point during the tumult and the shouting, Mary Munro was invited to speak. With still a trace of a Tyneside accent [9], she thanked “those present both for their attendance and for the manner in which they had contributed to the sale. All had hoped last year that it would not be necessary to hold another sale, but unfortunately it was still necessary, and maybe again next year. They had to blend pleasure with duty and she felt sure all would help to make the effort a pronounced success.”

Mary’s point was entirely lost on the editor of the Bay of Plenty Times. Without apparent irony, he congratulated her League on exceeding the total raised at the previous event, abjuring them: “Keep at it Te Puna! Next year we shall not let you off with less than £150, so save up your pennies.

It proved, after all, to be unnecessary to hold another sad gala. About June 1919 the Te Puna Patriotic League wound up, as all the other Patriotic Leagues were doing. Work on hand went to local hospitals and homes for the returning servicemen. Niol Munro’s wounds never healed, and both William and Tom Lochhead died in France.  Both Niol and Norman Lochhead died young. Robert Munro was not demobilised until 1920, and he stayed on the farm at Te Puna for the rest of his life.

Florence married George Chapman at the Te Puna Memorial Hall in 1931. Mary Munro was a wedding guest; A D Bear played the music for the ceremony.

References

[1] Meeting at the Farmers’ Trading Agency,  https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19140812.2.6
[2] Letter to the Editor, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19151014.2.6
[3] Tauranga Ladies Hospital Ship Committee, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19160117.2.15
[4] Close Bros of Te Puna’s donation of horses, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19160122.2.4
[5] Speech by J H Gunson, Mayor of Auckland, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19151027.2.13
[6] Letter from hospital ship “Lan Franc”, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19160422.2.5
[7] https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19161117.2.14
[8] Advertisement, https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BOPT19161120.2.3.6
[9]  Mary was born in Newcastle-on-Tyne on 26 June 1865.  She died in Tauranga in 1951.

Early European Vessels and Visitors To Tauranga - The Brigantine Haweis and John Atkins, May 1829

A brigantine in sealing waters, 1820s
The sealing brig ‘Williams,’ artist Roger Finch, ‘The Poynter Journal, 1940: 13,’
The Turnbull Library Record, Vol 30. Papers Past, natlib.govt.nz

Originally built as a Church Missionary Society vessel, the 110 ton Haweis was purchased by the Sydney trading house Campbell and Co. for the New Zealand trade. The brig made regular visits to the Bay of Plenty during 1828 and 1829, where it bartered muskets, powder and general trade goods. The Haweis returned to Sydney with standard New Zealand cargoes for that decade: dressed flax, live pigs or salted pork, potatoes and toi moko (smoke cured tattooed heads). The latter items were entered in the books of Sydney Custom’s under the general heading ‘Imports,’ and the sub heading ‘Baked Heads.’ [1]

The missionary Henry Williams saw the Haweis' busily trading muskets and powder at Motiti Island during his visit to the Bay of Plenty on the Herald in April 1828. Anchoring alongside to exchange news and to trade with the Maori provisioners, Williams complained that they offered the Herald not ‘a single basket of potatoes.’ Entering Tauranga Harbour on 14th May, after visiting Whakatane and Opotiki, Williams noted ‘the Haweis is here’, and how Ngai Te Rangii, again ignored their missionary vessel, preferring to trade for powder and muskets with the brig. The few Maori provisioners who did barter with Williams, demanded ‘twice the price’ when exchanging their pigs and potatoes for his axes and blankets. [2]

In November 1828, the Haweis left Sydney for the southern sealing grounds. After landing gangs  at the Antipodes and Bounty Islands, Captain James and the ship’s mate John Atkins took the vessel on a trading voyage to Tauranga. Unlike other New Zealand locations where European mariners and Maori had clashed, Tauranga was then ‘under the government of a chief (Hori Tupaea of Ngai Te Rangi) who, we were informed, was of a more friendly disposition.’ The Haweis anchored under Mount Maunganui where the crew began bartering muskets and munitions. They soon accumulated a cargo comprising ‘five tons of potatoes and five tons of cleaned and cured meat.’ [3] Charmed by the picturesque harbour and its environs, John Atkins later wrote:

Towrenga is a very good harbour for small vessels, with three fathoms in the channel at low water. The country is hilly, and much diversified with woods, not of any great extent, but so numerous and so delightfully dispersed as to present the appearance of a park, arranged by a tasteful hand. The hills in the distance are covered with verdure, and through every valley runs a beautiful stream, sometimes meandering in graceful silence, and at others rushing over the opposing fragments of rocks and trees in cataracts without number. [4]

Hori Kingi Tupaea of Ngai Te Rangi at Tauranga
Hori Kingi Tupaea, watercolour attributed to Henry Harpur Greer, courtesy of Tauranga Library

Sailing on to Whakatane to complete their cargo, Atkins said that Ngati Awa approached the ship in large canoes filled with pigs, all of which the captain purchased.

After stowing our decks with live-stock as thickly as convenient, and the wind suddenly changing to the S.E., we bore away again for Towranga, where we killed and salted our pigs; but not finding our quantity complete, we sailed again for Walkeetanna, where we arrived on Sunday, March 1st, 1829. The weather being very fine we anchored between the island of Matora (Moutohora or Whale Island) and the main, and we had not brought up ten minutes when the natives came off in great numbers as before, from whom we obtained 20 more hogs, which were all we required. [5]

The following morning, when Captain James and eight sailors were scalding pig carcasses at the boiling spring on Moutohora, the Haweis was attacked and plundered by the chief Te Ngarara Tenawa and the Ngati Awa people from Whakatane. Three sailors were killed, the vessel’s cargo plundered and the sails and rigging stripped. John Atkins and a Tahitian sailor were taken captive, both being wounded. At Maketu, the Danish Pakeha-Maori Phillip Tapsell, reported that Ngati Awa’s take or just cause for the attack was Captain James ‘gross mistreatment’ of Kape, one of the Haweis' Maori sailors. Unfortunately for the crew, Kape was the son of the Ngati Awa chief Te Kepa Toihu and one of Te Ngarara’s relatives. [6]

Caricature of the leading Ngati Awa chief at Whakatane, Te Ngarara Te Nawa
Artist unknown: Tenawa chief of  Ngatiawa New Zealand,’ [1830s-1840s]
A-237-043. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington

Captain James and his crew fled from Moutohora in the ship’s boat and at Tauranga, were taken aboard Captain Clarke’s New Zealand schooner. Clarke sailed for Whakatane, recovered the beached Haweis and towed it back to Tauranga. John Atkins was released and walked back to Tauranga under escort, after Clarke sent muskets and powder as a ransom. Atkins' Tahitian companion had meanwhile died of wounds. With the Haweis, now under jury rig, Captain James, John Atkins and the eight remaining crew, slowly sailed the vessel out through the Mt Maunganui entrance and on to the Bay of Islands in stages. [7]

From 1829 the Haweis proved an unlucky ship for Campbell and Company. Having been completely refitted and re-rigged in Sydney at considerable expense following the Whakatane incident, the brig disappeared during a voyage to Bay of Islands in 1830, and was presumed lost at sea. The passengers included the well known Bay of Islands missionary Charles Davis who was returning from England with his new bride. [8]

In August 1830, whaling vessels visiting the Bay of Islands reported that the Haweis had been piratically seized by its crew and ‘had been heard of in South America.’ In December 1832, another deep sea whaler confirmed the piracy and reported that the Haweis two women passengers (Mrs Davis and Mrs Hurt), had been marooned by the pirates on the most leeward of the Navigator (Samoan) Islands. The Sydney authorities, perhaps not trusting the reports, did not attempt to recover the women and they and the Haweis were never heard of again.

Endnotes
[1] Polack, Joel, Manners and Customs of the New Zealanders…Vol 1, 1840, Capper Press, Christchurch, 1976: 131. 
[2] Williams, Henry, The Early Journals of Henry Williams, Pegausus Press, Christchurch, 1961: 119-121.
[3] Atkins, John. Account of the Capture of the Brig Haweis at Walkeetanna [Whakatane] 1829, Sydney N.S.W. TS, sn 1907 46826829: 5.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Tapsell, Phillip, Reminiscences, ½-005486: 105. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington: 37.
[7] McNab, Robert. Historical Records of New Zealand, Vol 1, John Mackay, Government Printer, Wellington, 1908: 687.
[8 Ibid.
[9] The Christian Guardian and Church of England Magazine, Seely and Sons, London, 1832: 74-75, 317.