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.

Colin Maungapōhatu Bidois and Te Hokingamai o Mauao

Colin Maungapōhatu Bidois and Te Hokingamai o Mauao [1]

The Orange Folder

The yearning felt by the Nameless One for his beautiful maunga, Puwhenua, was matched in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by the iwi of Tauranga Moana as they saw Mauao taken out of their kaitiakitanga “through Crown breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi, through Crown manipulation and laws which were aimed at dismantling the social and political infrastructure of Maoridom, laws such as the New Zealand Settlement Act 1863, The Native Land Act 1873, The Waste Lands Act 1876, The Public Reserves Act 1854, The Harbour Act 1878 and other statutes.” [2]

C.M. Bidois' Grave

The words quoted are those of Colin Maungapōhatu Bidois, a kaumatua of Ngāti Ranginui whose archive of papers relating to his work for the iwi of Tauranga Moana has passed into the keeping of the Te Puna Memorial Hall Society. This blog is a very preliminary acknowledgement of his generous gift and a humble, necessarily brief, exploration of just one aspect of this remarkable man’s life – his part in the return of Mauao to the tāngata whenua. I am indebted to Wikitoria Bidois for permission to access these particular papers.

Maungapōhatu would be the first to say that he was one of many. His submission, quoted above, opens with a gracious acknowledgement of another eminent kaumatua, Kiritoha Tangitu, who had, Colin said, promoted the possibility of the return “approximately 10 years ago.”

That takes us back to another document in his papers: the well-marked and flagged pages of Roimata Minhinnick’s Report on Mauao/Mount Maunganui, WAI 540, received at the Waitangi Tribunal on 13 June 1999. [3] Colin’s interest in this document was intense. From his highlighted sections and Post-it notes the researcher can see his mind at work and the threads of argument being woven into a firm fabric to enfold him as he took his seat before the Maori Affairs Committee. Like Kiritoha, he was a Pirirakau man. He was determined to assert their agency in the confusion and collusion that followed the so-called “Pacification Hui” that followed the battle of Te Ranga. He stood the Pirirakau claim up against the convenient Crown fiction that Governor Grey’s Promise to Tauranga Iwi [4] (actually, a deal struck only with Ngai Te Rangi) had settled (pun intended) all arrangements [5] between the Crown and tāngata whenua.

But Colin was also wise enough not to pursue only narrow interests. Elsewhere in his collection I found a faded orange folder with a mysterious label in his handwriting. In order, I list the first four documents it contains.
 
First, a draft Deed of Trust of the Mauao Trust, undated but for the year (2007 [6]) and unsigned, but intended for signature by eminent representatives of Ngai Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui and Ngāti Pukenga as well as Colin himself as Chairman of Te Rūnanganui o Tauranga Moana. Colin has marked several elements of the draft in an evident effort to guide discussion to his salient points – phrases like, “stand possessed”, “receive and hold” “protect and preserve.” A question mark appears alongside clause 3.3, “Objects and Purposes Independent.” He endorses processes around appointment and removal of Trustees with the simple word, “Iwi.” Administrative details concerning bank accounts and use of the Common Seal are marked with arrows. Tax, remuneration and liability references are circled.

C.M. Bidois' Grave

Colin had prepared carefully for what the next document suggests was a hui to take place on 16 July. It is a handwritten list of significant dates, absences and appointments, and three heavily-scored items for lawyer Spencer Webster’s attention. Touchingly, the last entry on the page is a note to self: “Thank Rahera [probably, Rahera Ohia] for letter.”

The third item is another handwritten list, undated, but headed, “Set Adgenda [sic].” Once again we get a glimpse into the mind of a master of situations: an orderly sequence of topics for korero, attention to cost implications, a note lining Rahera and Spencer up for a rewording of a specific clause, and a firm conclusion: “then Response to MoMA [Minister of Maori Affairs].”

Most telling, perhaps, is the fourth item: a newspaper clipping dated 29/05/07 in Colin’s handwriting. The Herald had invited the chairman of the Ngāti Whātua o Orakei Trust Board to write an article it headlined, “Ngāti Whātua to move forward minus theatrics.” Colin has underlined the first sentence of the second paragraph: “Any Treaty settlement is going to involve claims and counter-claims ...” and has marked at the margins other remarks warning of the arduous and adversarial path – the hard yards – that lie ahead of the “real negotiators.”

And this, in reality, was just the beginning. There are 30 more documents in the orange folder, evidence of face-downs, stand-offs and compromise as Mauao stood tantalisingly in the shadows. But the last item, a folder in its own right, contains the introduction copy and associated speech notes and press statement for the Mauao Historic Reserve Vesting Bill. The patupaiarehe had vanished into the night and the light of legislative scrutiny shone on the return of the maunga. The Act was passed in May 2008. Even so, ten more years went by before the Mauao Historic Reserve Management Plan [7] was concluded.  Three other sets of documents, largely unexamined, detail Colin’s part in this protracted negotiation.

Researchers of the future will find much to value in this archive. Those of us who knew Maungapōhatu can feel privileged to get glimpses of his personal approach to public life. Those who will now never meet him will find a mother lode of insights and narrative on aspects of iwi development and tenacious purpose in te rohe o Tauranga Moana. Just as he wanted.

References

[1] As Chair of the Rūnanganui, Colin preferred the term “The Vesting of Title to Mauao Historic Reserve.”  See letter, 2 August 2007, to Huata Palmer, then Chairperson of the Ngaiterangi Iwi Incorporated Society.

[2] Colin Maungapohatu Bidois, Submission to the Maori Affairs Committee re Mauao Historic Reserve Vesting Bill, 27 February 2008.

[3] Roimata Minhinnick, Report Commissioned by the Waitangi Tribunal for the Tauranga claim (Wai 215), endorsed WAI 540 – A2 and WAI 215 – A49.

[4] AJHR 1867, A20.

[5] In the words of the Tauranga District Lands Act 1867: “all grants, awards, contracts or agreements”.

[6] Colin had begun the process in 2003: see email, Ngāti Ranginui Iwi to Spencer Webster, November 3 2003.

[7] https://www.tauranga.govt.nz/Portals/0/data/council/plans/files/mauao_reserve_management.pdf