D is for Dog (skeleton)

 

Excavation at Ōtūmoetai pā on Levers Road, 2005. Image courtesy of Tauranga Museum.

In 2005, archaeologists made a significant discovery at Ōtūmoetai pā on Levers Road - an intact dog skeleton, or kuri, buried in a grave at the highest point of the pā. Such finds are highly unusual in New Zealand archaeology. According to the country’s leading expert on kuri, Dr Geoff Clark, this suggested something out of the ordinary, possibly ritual in nature and associated with a person of high status. 

A mounted kuri. Image courtesy of Otago Museum 

Kuri were descended from Polynesian dogs, which accompanied the first people to Aotearoa in the thirteenth century. Medium-sized and long-haired, kuri are often described as being roughly the size of a modern border collie. They arrived as part of wider voyaging traditions, with waka travelling from Hawaiki carrying a variety of animals and plants, many of which did not survive in the cooler climate of Aotearoa.

Dog skeleton found at Otūmoetai pa. Image courtesy of Tauranga Museum.

Kuri were valued not only for food but also their bones, which were used for making fishhooks. Several hooks dating to before 1600AD were unearthed during the Heritage New Zealand excavation at Ōtūmoetai pā. Archaeologist Ken Phillips who led the dig was reported as saying that “to be buried intact is pretty unusual considering most of his mates probably ended up as fishhooks.” 

Matau made from dog's jaw bone. Image courtesy of Tauranga Museum

It is generally believed that interbreeding with European dogs led to the extinction of the kuri by the 1860s. This period coincided with major upheaval at Ōtūmoetai pā, which was caught up in the confiscation of 50,000 acres of Tauranga land by the government in 1865, following the New Zealand Wars.

The Mōtiti Road Rail Ferry

 

Two maps of Mōtiti.  Neither is contemporaneous with Brain’s work on the island, but the coloured image shows the settlement pattern of the island’s residents in 1929; the black and white sketch map shows the route (dashed line) of the tramline that once led to Orangatea Bay.  Images: (left) Western Bay of Plenty District Libraries, SAK 34A, digital only; and (right) Te Ara, An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, ed. A. H. McLintock, 1966

I first began researching the people who lived in the Brain Watkins House back in the early 2000s  when I was working for NZ Historic Places Trust (now Heritage New Zealand).  Among the listed achievements of Joseph Brain was “a tramway on Mōtiti Island to transfer cattle to a ship waiting off shore”.

George Alexander Douglas, An Irishman, originally from Derry, moved down from Auckland to Tauranga and received a Crown Grant of a piece of land in 1867. He became a successful storekeeper when he arrived in Tauranga.

He had begun working in Auckland as a commissariat contractor supplying the military forces in the country and was elected a member of the Auckland Provincial Council from 1869 to 1873. G A Douglas leased a portion of Mōtiti Island from a local chief Tupaea, probably commencing in 1867 but he did not move there to live until 1870. He improved the breeding of cattle and Clydesdale horses on Mōtiti. He was also responsible for the introduction of the Bumble Bees that were essential for the fertilization of the Red Clover flowers. The clover had been introduced to boost the quality of the stock food but could not flourish without the bees. The soil on Mōtiti was fertile, water was abundant from numerous springs, but it lacked a natural harbour. 

S.S.Staffa   Image: Te Ao Māramā – Tauranga City Libraries Photo 04-593

To ensure transporting stock and goods, Douglas bought a small coastal steamer S.S. Tauranga in 1870. From 1876 to 1881 he had the S.S.Rowena and S.S.Staffa. The difficulty created by the lack of a harbour was loading the stock onto his ship before he could send the cargo to Tauranga.

In Orangatea Bay Douglas built a system of stock yards, and tramline. The late local historian Alister Matheson, in his book Motiti[1], tongue in cheek, named the project “The Motiti Road Rail Ferry”. The stock yards held the stock until they were loaded on a punt that could hold twenty cattle. The punt sat on a cradle or bogie that ran down the tramline, gaining speed, and was attached by a rope on a winch on land. When the punt reached the steamer it was secured and the rope wound back by the winch. The cattle were individually lifted by slings on to the steamer, which then sailed to Tauranga.  Douglas was helped in the construction of the tramline system by Joseph Brain, the experienced ship and bridge builder of Tauranga.

Hoisting fat cattle from the wharf to a steamer for shipping from Auckland to Sydney, Australia, 1902. 

Image: Supplement to the Auckland Weekly News, 14 August 1902, p. 10

In an interview with Mrs Elva Brain Watkins, the youngest daughter of Joseph, Matheson learned that Brain’s practice was to row across the harbour to Mount Maunganui then walk along the ocean beach until he was opposite Mōtiti Island where he would signal his arrival.  A boat from Mōtiti would then pick him up from the beach. In his boatyard on The Strand Brain employed Māori men from Mōtiti who would stay at the Mōtiti Hostel across the street.

J. D. Brain, Brain Watkins House Collection.  Image: Shirley Arabin

At the time that Matheson wrote the book the only remnants of the Mōtiti Road Rail Ferry were decaying puriri posts at the site, so it is unlikely that there will be any evidence left of this project today.

When George Douglas visited Napier in 1892 to purchase sheep he fell ill and died there.  He had not married and in his will the beneficiaries of his estate were his nieces and nephews.

 [1] Matheson A.H.,Motiti,pub. Whakatane & District Historical Society P O Box 203, Whakatane 1979.

 

Editorial note: Readers may be interested in finding an extended photo-essay on Mōtiti Island life in the 1960’s by Tony Ahern, editor of Tauranga Photo News, Issue No. 34, April 3 1965:

https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/101354 

The Pilot House on Mauao

 
Pilot House on the slopes of Mauao, Mount Maunganui, c. 1950s
Collection of Te Ao Mārama  - Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Photo 99-243

Access by sea has always been important to Tauranga since the first European ship, the Herald, entered the harbour in 1826. The barriers of the Kaimai Range and a swampy strip of land between hills and sea prohibited any form of transport except on foot for many years.

By the time the Land Wars ceased, there had been an increase in the number and size of ships entering the harbour, and several had been wrecked or grounded on sand banks. In December 1864 the Auckland Provincial Government appointed Thomas Sparrow Carmichael as pilot for Tauranga and provided him with a tent to live in on Maunganui, as Mauao was generally referred to in those days. He had two boatmen to row him out to the ships as they waited offshore.

By 1866 the Provincial Government built a house for the pilot and another for the boatmen. Little is known about these buildings and their exact locations. One theory is that it might have been uphill above the Pilot Wharf, where they would have access to their boat, and the more likely theory, nearer to the location of the second pilot house built above the present camping ground, with a view out to sea. Ships needing a pilot would fire off a gun to signal their presence. The pilot then raised a flag to notify the townspeople that the entry of a ship was imminent.

With the end of the Land Wars, the decline in provisions and other goods needed for the military noticeably reduced the volume of ships into Tauranga and, after six years, Carmichael’s position was terminated. The money saved from upkeep was spent on building wharves on The Strand. However, after a few years, and growth in population of the town, an official decision was made to re-establish the position of pilot and in 1873 an experienced master, Captain Hannibal Marks, took over. By then, the original pilot house was in a state of “rack and ruin”.^[i]

Pilot House, Mauao, Mount Maunganui, April 1955
Collection of Te Ao Mārama  - Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Photo 04-625

The Auckland Provincial Council approved payment of £200 for a new Pilot House in June 1874 and a second house for the son and family.^[ii] Captain Marks and his son, also called Hannibal, were drowned when the pilot boat capsized in the harbour in August 1879. Following the death of Hannibal Marks the Marine Department appointed Captain Best, formerly of Thames, to the position of Harbour Master and Pilot.^[iii] He appeared to have occupied the Pilot House in the Domain, as the newspaper recorded the Presbyterian Picnic as gathering on the beach behind Captain Best’s house. During all of this excitement, the pilot himself was watching for the arrival of the Lady Jocelyn, the first immigrant ship to arrive directly at Tauranga.^[iv] Stormy weather caused the loss of the “iron chimney” on the Pilot House in 1881. This was probably a chimney made of two facing sheets of corrugated iron inside a timber frame, a style common in early buildings.

Grace Earle & Violet Petheridge seated on a cow, Mauao, Mount Maunganui, 1920
Collection of Te Ao Mārama  - Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Photo 05-456

With the cessation of the pilot service, the house fell empty, and it was suggested that it be handed over from the Marine Department to the Tauranga Improvement Society to use as holiday accommodation for visitors to the beach. The idea was even floated that Mount Maunganui become a destination for invalids like the sanatoriums at Te Puke and Rotorua.^[v] Although there was some enthusiasm for transferring ownership of the Pilot House reserve to the Borough Council, it eventually became the property of the Harbour Board like the nearby Mount Drury (Hopukiore). The Harbour Board repaired the roof and part of the house several times, and the Pilot House reserve was fenced, with some camp sites made available. Various people leased the Pilot House and reserve for raising poultry, solely for the accommodation or, as occurred in March 1933, for a returned soldier from the First World War and his family with their four donkeys.^[vi] The cottage had been described as kauri, having five rooms with electricity and a tank water supply with a four-roomed second cottage alongside. The whole property totaled one and a half acres.^[vii]

Pilot House and Mount Drury (Hopukiore), c. 1950s
Collection of Te Ao Mārama  - Tauranga City Libraries, Pae Korokī Ref. Photo 99-244

The new tenant Fred Davies, with his family, and the donkeys called Smithy, Murphy, Brownie and Snowy, were to be a drawcard for the Mount Main Beach for the next twenty years. Fred named the donkeys after his mates who died at Gallipoli. He also built a corrugated iron shop opposite the Oceanside Hotel selling ice cream and soft drinks. The Davies sons supervised the donkey rides and when they left school their mother took over, until 1952 when she moved out of the Pilot House to her new home in Marine Parade.^[viii] The visit of the young Sel Neal in 1951 shows a building with a rusting roof and deteriorating cladding. Thus ended occupation of the Tauranga Pilot House. The house stood for a few more years but is missing from images taken in the 1960s, and the second house is recorded as being demolished in 1964.^[ix]

Sel Neal, age 9 with a donkey, at the Pilot House, Mauao, Mount Maunganui, 1951
Collection of Justine Neal

References

---

^[i] Bay of Plenty Times (BOPT), 9 May 1874

^[ii] Daily Southern Cross, 13 Jun 1874

^[iii] BOPT, 4 Sep 1879

^[iv] BOPT, 4 Jan 1881

^[v] BOPT, 25 Jul 1887

^[vi] BOPT, 5 Mar 1933

^[vii] BOPT , 9 Sep 1930

^[viii] Neal, Justine, The Donkeys of Ocean Beach, Historical Review, Bay of Plenty Journal of History, Vol 64, No.1, May 2016, p19

^[ix] Cunningham, B. & Musgrave, K., A History of Mount Maunganui, Commissioned by Mount Maunganui Borough Council, 1989, p. 18