The Origins of Taihape: A Study in Secondary Pioneering

Abstract

As far as we know the Maoris were the first to imprint "a way of life" on the Taihape District. Physically, it interfered with little more than the animal life, and left the natural vegetation virtually untouched. It was a way of life which conformed and lived in harmony with nature, and not one which would dictate its apparent needs and remodel nature according to its desire. There were no sawmills, railways and roads supplying the "secondary" wants of man, but only man supplying his own basic needs. Yet the Maori history is a story of human courage and achievement, albeit some of it is marked by human selfishness and conquest, qualities which were characteristic of the race of pioneers who followed them. The Maori history of the Taihape area is ancient. The first inhabitants were a people known as the Ngati-Horu whose origin is still uncertain, but it is probable that they were a mixture of fleet Maoris of the 1350 A.D. migration from the Pacific and of the early Tangata-whenua, (or pre-fleet Maori), who were the descendants of forgotten migrations. Towards the end of the fifteenth century these Horu people were pushed westward across the district to the opposite side of the Moawhango River by the Ngati-Tama, a tribe under the leadership of Tama-Kopiri, who had migrated from Turanganui (as the Gisborne district was then called). More than a century later another tribe, the Ngati-Whiti, also from Turanganui, joined the Ngati-Tama, and together they drove the ancient tribe of Horu from the district. Whitikaupeka, the leader of the Ngati-Whiti, built his kainga (village) at Te Awahaehae, just a few miles down from the valley below the junction ot the Moawhango and Rangitikei rivers.