PART II HAURAKI IWI
CHAPTER 1

NATURAL AND CULTURAL INFLUENCES UPON
HAURAKI IWI IN PRE-EUROPEAN TIMES

The Physical Setting

The traditional life of Hauraki people was much shaped by their environment. An underlying theme of Taimoana Turoa's account of iwi in that region5 is the pervading presence of the Tikapa moana, the inland sea we call today the Hauraki Gulf. Consider its elements: the Firth of Thames with its extensive shoreline, protected by that mountain wall called 'the Coromandels', and north of the peninsula its discontinuous projection (for this is a region of geological submergence) by the barrier of gulf islands, intricately embayed. With the sea ever present, both as challenge and opportunity, Hauraki people became mariners and fishers. Abundant seafood from gulf waters was supplemented from eel-rich swamplands (oozing northwards into the base of the firth), and from the shallows and wetlands of areas like the Miranda coast where birds no less than fish could be abundantly caught. And the temperate moist Hauraki climate, reflected in giant kauri and kahikatea on the lower slopes of the ranges, allowed prolific cropping of the region's alluvial flats, limited in size to be sure on the cramped deltas and alluvial flats of the Coromandel peninsula, but much less so on the Pacific-facing Waihi plain, or on the southern and western shores of the firth. 'Te Pai o Hauraki' was a justified proverb.

A Region of Convergence and Contention

But Hauraki, because of its riches and marine location (attributes it shared with Tamaki-makau-rau) was both blessed and cursed. Blessed because of the prodigality of nature. Cursed, since for Maori, waterways were the avenues of war as well as those of trade, Hauraki's wealth made it a prize to be contended for, and the surrounding sea offered the means by which covetous enemies could attack. Hauraki like the Tamaki isthmus became, so to say, a frontier of convergence, with tribal boundaries much subject to ebb and flow. (This shared destiny with Tamaki did not inhibit bitter fighting between the people of those two adjoining regions; Hauraki iwi waged war, first on Wai-o-hua, and later on Ngati Whatua once their dominance of the Tamaki isthmus began (c.1750).6 ) The lesson learned by Hauraki tribes was that survival depended on prowess in war. The dominant group, led by chiefs of the Marutuahu

5   Taimoana Turoa, 'Nga Iwi 0 Hauraki, The Iwi of Hauraki', Hauraki Maori Trust Board, 1997.

6 George Graham in John Barr (ed.), The City of Auckland, New Zealand, 1840-1920, Auckland, 1922, pp.17-19; and F.D. Fenton's Orakei Judgment in Important Judgments Delivered in the Compensation Court and Native Land Court, 1866-1879, Wellington, 1879, pp. 61-62, 67-68, 84-87.

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