Ohawe Beach
By global standards, human history in New Zealand is short, but what it lacks in length it makes up for with richness. In many parts of New Zealand it’s possible to visit sites relating to one period or another, but, occasionally, there are places that have it all. Ōhawe Beach is one such place.
Ōhawe is a small village at the mouth of the Waingongoro River, about 5km west of Hāwera in South Taranaki. The village is overlooked by the distant but ever-present Mt Taranaki and the multi-layered eroding cliffs, which show the deeper geological past. The history of the area, including Māori oral traditions, could easily fill a book, but here I want to focus on the amazing archaeological record in the area.
The cliffs to the south of Ohawe Beach
The earliest archaeological discoveries at Ōhawe were made by Rev. Richard Taylor in 1843. Taylor identified a number of ovens and moa bones near the beach, he subsequently shared his discoveries with other Europeans including Governor George Grey and Walter Mantell. Mantell was a prolific collector of moa bone specimens, many of which he sent to the (in)famous naturalist Richard Owen in London. Owen was the first to identify the bone as that of a bird and describe moa as an extinct bird of similar size to an ostrich.
Over one-hundred years later in the 1960s Hāwera doctor and avocational archaeologist Alistair Buist carried out a series of excavations near the beach. Although much of his work occurred in the mid-to-late twentieth century, Buist’s writings still form the basis for much of the archaeological understanding of the Taranaki past. Buist identified hangi and the remains of a number of bird species other than the moa, including the extinct Haast Eagle, as well as fish and shellfish, which indicated early Māori occupants of the village were exploring and utilizing both the coastal and forest environment.
Artefacts found at the site also allow us to connect the tipuna of Ōhawe with the broader community of first colonists in Aotearoa and further afield. Obsidian (volcanic glass) provided a general-purpose cutting tool for early Māori and, usefully for archaeologists, it can be traced to its source using its geochemistry. In 2019 my colleague Dr Derek Pitman and I scanned a number of obsidian flakes from Taranaki coastal sites including Ōhawe. This work found the obsidian had largely been bought from Mayor Island in the Bay of Plenty but also came from various sources in the Coromandel or Taupo. The obsidian was most likely left by the early settlers as they swept down the west coast or, perhaps, was passed on through the string of settlements that existed along the coast of the North Island during this time. Artefacts, such as adzes, were also found and were of a style that clearly connect the first occupants of Ōhawe to Polynesia.
So, after all this work what can we say about this early village and the people who lived there? The village was occupied about 700 years ago (around AD 1300) during the first settlement period of Aotearoa by the ancestors of Māori. Given this early date, the occupants were either born in Polynesia or had parents or grandparents that were born there. Far from being an isolated community, the early Ōhawe residents were connected to many other settlements around the North and Upper South Islands, including at the nearby Kaupokonui Stream mouth. They hunted, fished and foraged around the village and may also have looked to establish gardens nearby. Ultimately, after a decade or so the people moved, probably to the next inviting coastal location.
A 'moa-hunter' oven with a an articulated moa leg inside.
From an archaeological perspective, relatively little is known about Māori occupation around the Waingongoro Stream in the decades and centuries following the initial settlement period. A number of pā are adjacent to the Waingongoro including Te Rangatapu and Te Kawau on the high ground on either side of the stream mouth and storage pits sites are also visible in historical aerials but many have been destroyed by agricultural development, quarrying and erosion. A beautiful wooden bowl was discovered during drainage works beneath what is now the soldier’s cemetery. These sites and finds point to a thriving set of settlements with associated gardens and storage sites.
Missionaries and naturalists like John Skevington, Richard Taylor and Walter Mantell frequented the Ōhawe area in the mid-1800s, their accounts provide details about the location of Māori settlements at this time. Ōhawetokotoko, a village located above the cliffs to the east of the Waingongoro mouth, was initially settled by followers of Skevington from Waimate pā; the kainga gives its name to the modern settlement in the area. In 1844 Rev. Richard Taylor recorded the construction of ‘Rangatapu’ (also known as Tukekau) to the west of Ōhawetokotoko on what was probably an older pā site. Both Rangatapu and Ōhawetokotoko kainga had a church and were regularly visited by missionaries throughout the 1840s. In 1849, William Woon counted 130 people living at Rangatapu, but by 1866 the area was under military control and both sites were abandoned. In a letter to his father, Walter Mantell provides two sketches of the Ōhawe Beach area. In these sketches, both settlements are identified and a clear perspective of the landscape at that time is provided.
Mantell’s sketche map of the location of villages (top) and the landscape of Ōhawe from sea
In March 1865, a British force under General Duncan Cameron marched north to Ōhawe and erected two redoubts on each side of the Waingongoro Stream. The first redoubt was located on the cliffs near the village of Ōhawetokotoko, a 1902 survey plan of the area shows a small remnant of the redoubt remaining, although most had been lost to erosion. The second redoubt was located on the western side of the river, and may have remodelled aspects of the former Rangitoto pā. By April 1865 Cameron and much of his army had returned to Patea, leaving around 150 men from the 57th West Middlesex Regiment of Foot (known as the diehards) to garrison the two redoubts on the Waingongoro. The 57th was later replaced by the 18th Irish Regiment of Foot. The Waingongoro redoubt served as part of a network of fortifications during the campaigns of Chute and McDonnell in 1865-66, but was abandoned in 1868 early in the campaign against Titokowaru.
An early survey plan of Ōhawe showing the remains of Cameron’s redoubt in the bottom left corner
In the years following the wars many of the sections surveyed for soldier settlement were sold off and a beach community grew up at Ōhawe, although the land immediately adjacent to the beach remains in Māori ownership. In the 1960s Te Rangatapu pā was mined. Several metres of aggregate were removed and with it went the last traces of the pā. The sea has also claimed historic sites. The redoubt on Ōhawe terrace has now been lost, so too has the former area of Ōhawetokotoko kainga; Te Kawau pā on the cliffs to the west of the Waingongoro Stream has also been severely eroded.
Despite all this loss, Ōhawe remains a fantastic cultural landscape, where many of the threads of our history intertwine.
