has named Cooper’s Knobs was called by the Ngai-Tahu conquerors Omawete, meaning the place where Mawete fell.
Beyond again are the peaks of Otuhokai and Te Tara o Te Raki-tiaia; below the harbour head curves into the bay of Te Rapu. Next as we go up to meet the hills of Banks Peninsula is the bold precipice of Te Pari-mataa, or “Obsidian Cliff,” with the great volcanic dyke of Otarahaka, and then our present pilgrimage ends, for we are right under the hugely parapeted castle hill of Te Ahu-patiki—Mt. Herbert—with its level top, where a lofty pa of Ngati-Mamoe stood three centuries ago.
Cooper’s Knobs Dog’s Head Pinnacle Hill
View from Cass Peak, showing Cooper’s Knobs, Dog’s Head, and Pinnacle Hill.
W. A. Taylor, photo
Te Whaka-raupo is the ancient name of Port Cooper or Lyttelton Harbour. The name sometimes has been given as Te Waka-raupo, which means “The Canoe of Raupo reeds,” otherwise a raft or mokihi of the type so often used on the South Island rivers. This, however, is not correct. “Whaka” here is the Ngai-Tahu dialectical form of “Whanga,” which is a harbour or bay, as in Whangaroa and Whanganui. Whaka-raupo, therefore, means “Harbour of the raupo reed.” The tino or exact place from which the harbour takes this name is Governor’s Bay, at the head of which there was a swamp filled with a thick and high growth of these reeds. It was here, at the head of Governor’s Bay, that the stockaded pa Ohinetahi stood; it was occupied by Te Rangi-whakaputa’s son after the dispersal of the Ngati-Mamoe tribe in these parts more than two hundred years ago.
Corsair Bay and Cass Bay, as the Kaumatua of Rapaki tells us, have Maori names which contain a reference not only to the ancient forests which clothed the slopes of the Port Hills and descended to the sandy beachside, but to one of the vanished practices of the native people, fire-making by wood-friction. Corsair Bay was named by Te Rangi-whakaputa, Motu-kauati-iti, meaning “Little Fire-making Tree-grove,” and Cass Bay was Motu-kauati-rahi, or “Great Fire-making Tree-grove.” The bays were so designated because on the shores and the slopes above there were plentiful thickets of the kaikomako (pennantia corymbosa), the small tree into which Mahuika, a Polynesian Prometheus, threw fire from his finger-tips, so that it should not be extinguished by Maui’s deluge. A myth which to the Maori quite satisfactorily accounts for the readiness with which fire can be obtained from the kaikomako by the simple process of taking a dry block of the wood and rubbing a groove in it with a stick of hardwood—with, of course an incantation to give more power to the elbow—until the dust and the shavings become ignited. The kaikomako wood is used as the kauati , the piece which is rubbed; the pointed rubbing stick which the operator works to and fro is the kaurima . Motu in these two names is a tree-clump or grove. There are none of the ancient fire trees on the bay shores nowadays; the pakeha’s pinus insignis and cocksfoot grass have long supplanted them.
Ri-papa is the full and correct name of Ripa Island, in Lyttelton Harbour. It is an historic and appropriate name, carrying one back to the ancient days when the brown sailors hauled their long canoes up on its little shelving beach. Ri means a rope, the painter of flax by which canoes were dragged up on shore, and papa is a flat rock. Ripapa is a white man’s fort these days, but centuries before a British gun was planted there it was a fortified place, though the weapons of its garrison would hardly carry as far as those of the present coast defence force. The Ngati-Mamoe three hundred years ago had a small village on this rocky islet, commanding the harbour-gate; it was defended with a palisade. But when the Rangi-whakaputa conquered the inhabitants of Te Whaka-raupo, he took the island and named it Ripapa—its first name is forgotten—and he built a pa on the spot where the fort of the pakeha artillery-men now stands.
Quail Island, the dark-cliffed isle of the lepers, is known by the Maoris as Otamahua. Herein is a reference to an era when the island was a birding ground of the olden race. Many sea-birds, gulls and puffins and divers, bred in the crannies of its fire-made rocky shores, and the mainland Maoris canoed across on fowling expeditions. The eggs (hua ) of the sea-fowl were esteemed delicacies, especially by the children (tamariki ), who were fond of roasting them on their island expeditions. Manu-huahua , or birds cooked and preserved in their own fat, and done up in sea-kelp receptacles, as is the way in the Stewart Island mutton-bird industry to-day, also formed a large portion of the native supply of winter food in these parts.