Historiography in Te Puna

It’s popular right now for historians to emphasise the “story” aspect of history.  Neat, straightforward, direct.  Everyone has a story.  Historians who are serious about their profession know, however, that every story has a story.  This is one.

Title page of Keepers of the Faith

A somewhat battered copy of the book compiled to commemorate the centennial of St Joseph’s Church, Hatu Hohepa, in Te Puna, titled  Keepers of the Faith, has come to the Te Puna Archive. [1]  Its provenance is reasonably clear: it was initially acquired by the Te Puna Community Library, had apparently sustained water damage, in which state was withdrawn from the library’s holdings and came into the possession of the Gravits (Peter Gravit was for a time a member of the Community Library Committee).

Peter and Jen Rolleston authored the book.  Peter died in 2007, [2] but Jen is still very much with us, and was very willing to talk about the way this very local history was brought together.  As a direct consequence of the work she, Ellen Nicholas and Peter did to research the Pirirākau Claim: WAI 227, Peter Farrelly of the Parish Council approached them on behalf of the Church Centennial Committee for a publication to support the celebrations attendant on the little wooden church’s one hundredth anniversary.  The first service there was held on 1 January 1900.

Compared to the work required to support WAI 227, this job seemed, and was, Jen says, relatively straightforward.  It took between six and nine months to write; photographs were readily available, and the community it described were all people known to each other, or whose memory was still well alive among them.  Most people came forward with their recollections of the church and its place in the Te Puna landscape.

Jen Rolleston

Compared to the gaps and contradictions that had to be resolved for the raupatu claim, Jen told me, getting material for the St Joseph’s book was far easier.  “People had papers, photos and bits and pieces about the church in all sorts of places – for instance, [co-builder with Werahiko Borell] Hone Bidois’s papers were put together in a box held in the Tuhakaraina homestead.”  Hone was the grand-uncle of Martin Tuhakaraina, Chairman of the Centennial Committee. 

Despite these advantages, writing a local history is not always easy.  Jen called it “interesting” when I asked her if it was fun to do.  Peter, who, she said, “Put his heart and soul into the WAI 227 claim”, was a serious historian whose work entailed deep analysis and careful assessment of the evidence.  “It’s hard for us to really understand how things were then,” Jen muses.  “We think we know but we don’t really.”  Nevertheless, the experience gained by the team from the raupatu claim – Peter doing the narrative, Jen and Ellen ferreting out the information needed to fill the gaps – has clearly shaped Keeping the Faith.  It’s a book that, quite deliberately, has almost no conflict.  But it does have a clear historical arc, situating the story of St Joseph’s into a wider context, and balancing the secular forces of history with a moving account of a miracle, set out in an (ahistorical) Appendix.

A careful reader of this local history can, however, detect the threads of tension through the stories.  This is one of the great skills of good local historians: to let past voices speak so that people can, later, make their own minds up.  This short book, citing primary sources, oral accounts and memoirs, is foundational for deeper, more scholarly explorations of the way spirituality and institutional religion contend with and complement each other. [3]  It also offers very practical insights into the life and work of missionary fathers: the St Joseph’s complement were mostly from Holland, speaking te reo with a noticeable Duch accent, authoritative, hands-on and pragmatic.  The Convent school, which ran from 1958 until 1980, was staffed by the Sisters of St Joseph of Cluny in Ireland, [4] another missionary order. Furthermore, the function of evangelism itself is illustrated: once the Church determined that there were no new converts to be gained, the priests were withdrawn and the school was closed. The Little Sisters of Carmel, under the chaplaincy of the combative Father Jordan, lived in it as a retreat for the next decade, until “the effects of a Priest shortage had a direct and dramatic impact upon the Parish”.[5] The response to this crisis came directly from the devout within the Te Puna Catholic community. The book includes an account from the Guardian of the Sacred Sacrament, Rosina Borell.

I am happy to confirm that – quite aside from the rough dealings that resulted in the return of St Joseph’s bell to that church [6] - another conflict reported in Keeping the Faith [7] has also been resolved.  Father Jordan’s cottage, controversially located, in 1982, “squarely in front of the Church, almost completely obscuring [it] from the road frontage”, was at some stage moved to another position, behind the church, and in the background of this photo.

St Joseph’s site, looking southeast

Although Jen cannot remember when, exactly, her book was thus rendered out-of-date, we agree that the cottage’s removal was probably tactfully managed by the Centennial Committee to make way for the welcoming waharoa that bears the plaque and blessings made in the new millennium, January 2000.

References

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[1] Kindly deposited as part of the Gravit Collection, 7 March 2024.

[2] See Elisha Rolleston’s essay for Te Mahi Rangahau, https://temahirangahau.wordpress.com/2022/05/01/peter-rolleston/ also published on the Tauranga Historical Society blog, 7 June 2022, https://taurangahistorical.blogspot.com/2022/06/peter-rolleston-1949-2007.html

[3] See, for instance, Cameron, G B: That you might stand here on the roof of the clouds.” The development of Pirirakau theology from encounter to the end of conflict, 1839-1881, Master of Theology thesis, University of Otago, 2015

[4] http://sjc.ie/

[5] Rolleston, P and J: Keeping the Faith, p.55, quoting Rosina Borell

[6] Ibid, p.36

[7] Ibid, pp.48-49

History of Karewa Island - Part 2

The Tuatara Collectors
(contd from Part 1)

Karewa Island is a pest free wildlife sanctuary, administered by the Department of Conservation. Inhabited by fur seals, tītī (mutton birds) and other seafaring birds. It is also the home of tuatara (Hatteria punctata).  For Tauranga’s iwi, the island was an important, traditional harvesting place for tītī, paua and koura (crayfish). Karewa’s tuatara were, and remain, creatures of great cultural significance for Tauranga Māori. Viewed variously as mythological ancestors and kaitiaki or guardians of knowledge, misfortune, calamities and death might also be attributed to tuatara, which during the 1800s, often horrified the Māori who saw them.¹

Departing Tauranga for the Bay of Islands on the little schooner Glatton in March 1838, the missionary William Wade said of tuatara:

The island Karewa, off Tauranga, is said to swarm with them. Although perfectly harmless, the lizard is held in great abhorrence by the New Zealanders, who say it is the form or resemblance of Wiro, the evil Spirit.²

Karewa, as seen by voyagers approaching the Island and Tauranga from the north-east

Karewa’s tuatara were frequently collected by visiting overseas scientists as specimens for study, and for exhibition in public and private museums, and zoos. As noted in Part One, German naturalist Ernest Dieffenbach failed to personally obtain a tuatara from the island due to bad weather in June 1841. He eventually acquired a specimen in Auckland, originally obtained from Karewa by Rev James Stack who was based at the Te Papa mission station.³ Dieffenbach later gifted the ‘Tuatera’ to the British Museum, though whether alive or dead is not clear.

Twenty tuatara were taken to Europe by the German geologist Julius Von Haast, who, along with fellow geologist Ferdinand Von Hochstetter, visited Tauranga in May 1859. All are believed to have been taken from Karewa Island, and all survived the homeward voyage. Six were presented to the King of Belgium and fourteen placed in the Berlin and Vienna Zoological Gardens.⁴

Ferdinand Von Hochstetter

In 1873, Tauranga resident and colonial soldier Gilbert Mair sent two tuatara from Karewa to the British Museum, though sending them by post was not without its risks.⁵ In 1868, Major St John of the 1^st Waikato Regiment reported from a sunny hillside overlooking Tauranga harbour.

Lying lazily on the clover covered ground, and well shaded by a big "rimu," we had a perfect panorama before us. Tauranga harbour and the coast line, northward and southward for many miles could be all taken in at almost one glance; and out at sea rose several islands: the Great Barrier, a mountainous mass; Motiti, or Flat Island; and, nearest of all, Karewa, a rocky islet abounding in obsidian, and the home of a peculiar lizard, something like a small iguana. They are not handsome beasts these lizards, but they are pretty tenacious of life. One was sent a long distance by post, and arrived safe at his journey's end; another, I was assured, had eaten nothing for three weeks, and I was invited to go and look at it; in this case however, the fast had proved too protracted, and, when the box was opened, the brute was as dead as Julius Caesar.⁶

Major John Henry Herbert St John of the 1st Waikato Regiment

Andreas Reischek, an Austrian taxidermist, naturalist, ornithologist and collector, undertook extensive collecting expeditions throughout New Zealand. He was also notorious for robbing Māori graves and the treasures of their occupants during his expeditions. Living in New Zealand from 1877 to 1889, the specimens of fauna and flora that he collected for New Zealand and overseas museums and private collections included tuatara, on which he reported:

On all the larger islands they live principally on insectivorous foods, such as beetles, grubs, wetas, grasshoppers, flies, etc., which I found on dissecting. I think where such food — which they prefer even in confinement — is plentiful, they will not prey on birds.

But on my visit to Karewa Island, at the beginning of 1885, I saw many young birds with their heads off, and I followed one of these lizards with a bird of considerable size in its mouth, which tried to escape in a burrow, but got stuck at the entrance. They catch the bird by its head, and then chew until it is devoured. My opinion is that, as this island is small, and these lizards so numerous, this is the reason they prey upon birds.

On December 10, the boatman informed me that we should have to leave these islands, as bad weather was expected. I left unwillingly, for time had been all too short.⁷

Andreas Reischek

Māori were not alone in finding tuatara strange and sinister creatures. In May 1876, the Evening Post recorded considerable public interest in thirteen recently acquired living tuatara at Wellington’s Colonial Museum:

Some were almost two feet in length, described as ‘having an exceedingly sinister aspect, strongly resembling crocodiles with spiky backs and extensive smiles. However, they are quite harmless and very gentle, the thirteen living peacefully together; quite a happy family amongst their artificial rockwork, grazing pastorally on the worms, with which they are liberally supplied.’ People were startled by their sudden movement after seeing them completely motionless.⁸

While safe from the introduced pigs and ships’ rats that killed off their mainland relatives, Karewa’s tuatara were regularly captured by well-meaning locals and amateur naturalists.

Two specimens taken from the Island were donated to the Auckland Institute by H. T. Clarke, almost certainly Henry Tacey Clarke (1825-1902), the son of missionary George Clarke. Henry ‘served in the military, spoke fluent Maori, was a registered interpreter, a Native Land Court Judge, and Commissioner of Tauranga’.⁹ The anonymous writer, who contributed an article titled ‘A North Island Trip’ in the Cromwell Argus in 1880, mentioned that in 1873 he had visited Karewa Island, ‘home of the giant lizard,’ to obtain specimens.¹⁰

Tuatara were also taken from Karewa by some of Tauranga’s early European settlers, who kept them as novel garden pets and conversation pieces - sometime held  in place with a light chain around their necks.¹¹ As late as 1908, the New Zealand Herald reported how a Mr G. Norris, who had kept ‘a large collection of these strange pets’ at Tauranga had moved to Dunedin taking some of his tuatara with him.  Mr Norris ‘stated that he had kept tuataras ever since he could remember and had so many in his possession at one time, that he was in a position to speak with some authority about their habits’.¹²

Sketched by J. Ernest Tinne, an English tourist at an unidentified location in 1873, these tuatara have been chained in place in a garden

In January 1914, the Herald reported on another ‘gentleman at Tauranga [who] has had a number of tuatara in his garden for many years, brought from Karewa’.¹³ An Auckland naturalist once took 12 tuatara from Karewa Island, for study and as pets for his Ponsonby garden. They caused a short lived, local sensation one morning in March 1887, when they were seen and reported by a panic-stricken milkman who mistook them for snakes.¹⁴

 

In 1895, tuatara were protected by law, one of New Zealand’s first native species to be so safeguarded, but they were still poached and continue to be poached for private collections.¹⁵ Today, Karewa’s predator free 3.5 hectares are administered by the Department of Conservation (DOC) in close co-operation with Tauranga tangata whenua, who own the island. In recognition of its important cultural values and status as a pest free wildlife sanctuary, landing on the island is prohibited without a DOC permit. Additionally, access is by boat and visitors must be accompanied by DOC staff after going through biosecurity checks.¹⁶

A Karewa Island tuatara from Andreas Reischeck’s book Yesterdays in Maoriland

References

 

¹ Thomson, Arthur, The Story of New Zealand, Vol 1, John Murray, London, 1859: 29. Best Elsdon, Maori Religion and Mythology, Part 1, Wellington, Government Printer, 1982: 460.

² Wade, William, Journey in the North Island of New Zealand, George Rolwegan, Hobart, 1842: 178.

³ Von Hochstetter, Ferdinand, New Zealand: Its Physical Geography, Geology and Natural History, J.G. Cotta, Stuttgart, 1867: 442.

⁴ Bay of Plenty Times, 4 May 1936: 2.

⁵ Tinne, J; The Wonderland of the Antipodes, Sampson Low, Marston, Low, and Searle, London, 1873: 84.

⁶ St John, J.H.H. Pakeha Rambles in Maori Lands, Robert Burrett, Wellington, 1873: 123.

⁷ Andreas Reischek, Yesterdays In Maoriland: New Zealand in the Eighties, Wilson and Horton, Auckland, 1930: 100.

⁸ Evening Post, 12 May 1876: 2.

⁹ Edwards, Vivien, A Dinosaur From Karewa, Friday, 18 October 2021, Tauranga Historical Society

¹⁰ Ibid.

¹¹ Tinne, 1873: 84.

¹² New Zealand Herald, 11 November 1908: 5.

¹³ Ibid: 31 January 1914: 1.

¹⁴ Auckland Star, 1 March 1887: 3.

^{15 Tuatara: New Zealand reptiles DOC. https://www.doc.govt.nz › nature › reptiles-and-frogs}

¹⁶  Site 68. Karewa Island Risk Ranking, https ://www.boprc.govt.nz › media › karewa

Images

Sladden Bernard, 1879-1961, Karewa Island, Ms 33/5/84, photographic collection, Pae Koroki, Tauranga City Libraries.

Photographer unknown, Ferdinand von Hochstetter, circa. 1865, Website Naturhistorisches, Museum, Wien, Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_von_Hochstetter

Photographer unknown. Lieutenant-Colonel John Henry Herbert St John. Ref: 1/2-028459-F. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.

Photographer unknown, Andreas Reischeck, 1902, Wikipedia, http://wikipedia.org/wiji/andreasreischek

Tinne, J; The Wonderland of the Antipodes, Sampson Low, Marston, Low, and Searle, London, 1873: 84.

Reischek, Andreas, Yesterdays In Maoriland: New Zealand in the Eighties, Wilson and Horton, Auckland, 1930: 100.