Kurahaupō: Unravelling the Hitching Post Knots

Abstract

The Kurahaupō waka was a primary migration vessel of the ancestors of the Māori. Lineages of descent from the crew of Kurahaupō can be found scattered throughout Aotearoa New Zealand amidst many iwi and hapū, but divergent tribal historical discourse ensures that there is no orthodox voyage account. Nonetheless fragments retained in literature allow comparative analysis of the various tribal histories. The historical study of the Kurahaupō is structured within a mātauranga Māori framework and uses a theoretical methodology especially devised for this thesis. The Wā-ātea methodology was developed in order to aid the analysis of Kurahaupō history. This methodology utilises the various mnemonic tools used and retained in mātauranga Māori to frame history. These tools are classed as Whakapapa: being markers of genealogical time; Wāhi-ātea: or situated spaces; Pū Whakamahara: mnemonic keys like waiata, whakatauākī, place names, personal names and suchlike; and Kōrerorero: or narratives. These components aided the structure, research and development of the thesis. As an academic study of the history of an important migration waka, this thesis examines the complete vessel from a mātauranga Māori perspective. That is, as a vessel with an identity encapsulated in its name (or names), the various disputed) sites associated with the Kurahaupō, and the people who sailed the waka. Moreover this thesis proves that the Kurahaupō was a primary ancestral vessel whose crew founded aristocratic lineages encompassing a myriad of tribal formations. Even though there is an abundance of literature material enabling this historical study, it is impossible to ascertain an 'authentic' version of the voyage of the Kurahaupō. Hence the need for gathering all the various accounts into one body of text in an attempt to not only critically examine the literature history of the vessel, but to also aid in the dessimination of knowledge for the Kurahaupō: the canoe broken at sea.