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innovationsinillustration · 7 years ago

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About my location:

The two names of this hill: Pukeahu and Mount Cook, reflect its rich history. Māori have had a long association with Pukeahu, from pre-historic times until the present day. European settlers, recognising its prominent position, began using and changing the hill from 1840.

What does Pukeahu mean?

In the Māori language ‘puke’ means hill, and ‘ahu’ is an altar or stone platform, or the central stone of a marae. So Pukeahu (sometimes spelt ‘Puke Ahu’) suggests the idea of a ‘sacred hill’ – a sacred place to perform rituals. We know the name Pukeahu was given to this hill by the Ngāi Tara iwi (tribe). However, there is no record of why they gave it that name.

Why Mount Cook?

With the arrival of European settlers, Pukeahu was renamed Mount Cook, after British explorer Captain James Cook, who first voyaged to New Zealand in 1769–70.

Between the ridges

Pukeahu sits between two dominant ridgelines. The first, known by Māori as Te Ranga o Hiwi, extends from Point Jerningham (Orua-kai-kuru) up to Te Mātairangi (Mount Victoria), and finishes between Island Bay and Lyall Bay. The other ridgeline runs from Te Ahumairangi (Tinakori Hill) through to Te Kopahou (Red Rocks) on Wellington’s south coast, extending to Te Rimurapa (Sinclair Head) in the west and the Tawatawa Ridge between Island Bay and Ōwhiro Bay.

Beside the flats

The flat area between Pukeahu and Wellington Harbour was called Huriwhenua. It extended as far as what is now Newtown and included what is now called the Te Aro flat. The peak of Pukeahu, rising from the Huriwhenua flat, was by some accounts once ‘as sharply conical as Mt Victoria’. The Waitangi Stream flowed through the valley to the east of Pukeahu, with the Waimāpihi Stream to the west. The area where Basin Reserve is now was a swamp known as Hauwai.

Vegetation

The area from the harbour to the south coast was once wooded, with tall trees including pukatea, tōtara, northern rātā, rimu, kohekohe, tawa, hīnau, mānuka and many other species. Many paths ran through this area, and Māori from the earliest settlements cleared much of the land for gardens.

New Zealand company draughtsman Charles Heaphy, recalling his first visit to Port Nicholson (as Wellington was then known by Europeans) in 1839, before the arrival of European settlers, said Tinakori Hill was, ‘densely timbered ... the rata … being conspicuous’. Wellington Terrace (where The Terrace is now) was ‘timbered chiefly with high manuka’, some trees 12 metres high. Te Aro was covered in high fern and tutu, and Hauwai was a ‘deep morass’.

A changing landscape

The 1848 Marlborough and 1855 Wairarapa earthquakes both changed the landscape of the area. Most notably, they raised the land around the harbour and allowed Hauwai (Basin Reserve) to be drained.

Maruiwi

According to ethnographer Elsdon Best and others, the first settlers of this area, who they call Maruiwi, were said to have originally landed in Taranaki (from Polynesia) before moving to other places. Others have used the terms Kāhui Tipua or Te Kāhui Maunga for these early people. They were less tribally organised than later Māori, and are sometimes referred to as the moa hunters.

Ngāi Tara

The first of the tribal groups to settle this area was probably Ngāi Tara. Possibly as early 1250 AD, the Ngāti Hinewai hapū (subtribe) established the major pā (fortified villiage) of Te Akatarewa on the slopes of Mount Alfred, around where Wellington College is today.

Ngāti Rangi and Ngāti Ira

Ngāi Tara were displaced over time by a related group of Ngāti Rangi. They were in turn displaced by Ngāti Ira – the descendants of Ira-kai-pūtahi – who lived in the Huriwhenua flat area and in some other places around Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington Harbour).

Taranaki iwi

Ngāti Ira were displaced from Te Whanganui-a-Tara by iwi from Taranaki; firstly Ngāti Mutunga and Ngāti Tama, and then Te Āti Awa and other Taranaki peoples. These migrations were prompted by Ngāti Whātua and Ngāpuhi war parties making forays into Taranaki from 1818 to 1821, during the intertribal musket wars. The waves of migration came first to the Waikanae area, and Te Whanganui-a-Tara and Huriwhenua were among the later areas settled. It is thought that Te Akatarewa pā and the area around Pukehu was probably not occupied at the time of the arrival of the Taranaki iwi.

Te Aro pā, which was on Wellington’s waterfront, around where Manners Street and Taranaki Street now meet, was first established by Ngāti Mutunga in 1824. They vacated it in 1835 when they left to settle in the Chatham Islands. The pā was then occupied by Ngāti Tupaia and Ngāti Haumia along with their Te Āti Awa kin.

Te Āti Awa occupied much of the Wellington area, with coastal settlements at Paekawakawa (Island Bay), Ōwhiro, and Waiariki and Ōterongo, both on the coast between Sinclair Head and Cape Terawhiti. They also were located around the harbour at Kumutoto (present-day Woodward Street), Pipitea (Thorndon Quay), Kaiwharawhara, Ngauranga, Pito-one (Petone), Hikoikoi/Waiwhetū and along the Pencarrow coast.

There is little doubt Pukeahu was used for settlement in ancient times. However, there is no oral history of specific pā (fortified villages) on the site.

Cultivations

Much of the land around Pukeahu was occupied by ngakinga (gardens) for the Te Akatarewa pā. This was a major pā for the Ngāi Tara iwi, so they developed numerous garden sites, including on Pukeahu. These gardens were also used by the Taranaki iwi from Te Aro pā centuries later.

The earliest gardens were for the cultivation of bracken ferns for their edible roots. This simply involved clearing the forest and allowing the regrowth of ferns. Māori then terraced the hills for growing kūmara (sweet potato). Later, potatoes, melons and corn were planted. These garden clearings extended into Aro Valley and Newtown, and were in active use when the New Zealand Company surveyors arrived in 1839.

The Hauwai cultivation area bordered the Hauwai swamp and ran up the hill to around where the entrance to Wellington College is today. Hauwai swamp was a mahinga kai (food-gathering area), where eels and other fish from the swamp streams were gathered.

Ngā Kumikumi clearing was an old cultivation area in the bush around what is now lower Nairn Street. Nearby, around Central Park, was the Te Āti Awa kāinga (village) known as Moe-i-te-rā or Moe-rā.

Wāhi tapu on Pukeahu

There are few, if any, known wāhi tapu (places of spiritual significance to Māori) directly on Pukeahu. However, because of its height and proximity to Te Akatarewa pā, it is likely that burials were conducted somewhere on the site.

Cultivation in this area was less formal than in some regions, where gardens had stone walls and feature stone or wooden mauri (carved figures believed to maintain mauri or life force). While gardens round Pukeahu may have had mauri stones associated with them, these would have long since been removed.

Since European settlement in the 1840s, Pukeahu has been heavily modified, leaving little of the pre-colonial landscape. The cone-shaped hilltop was flattened off and lowered by some 30 metres, and so any remnants of Māori use and occupation are likely to have long since been removed.

Early European visitors

From the early 1800s European whalers and sealers worked the waters around New Zealand and established numerous stations around Cook Strait, and on Mana and Kapiti islands. The first recorded visit by a European vessel into Te Whanganui-a-Tara was in 1823, when, around the middle of that year, Captain John Day visited in the sealing brig the Wellington, a ‘curious coincidence’ given the name of the city that later arose.

By the 1830s Cook Strait was full of whaling ships but there are no records of any ships visiting the harbour, with the exception of a small missionary schooner. There are reports of Europeans living with local iwi, possibly operating trading posts, before formal settlement began in 1840.

The New Zealand Company

In 1839 the sailing ship the Tory arrived with representatives of the New Zealand Company, who intended to purchase land and prepare settlements for the British emigrants the company was recruiting.

Te Āti Awa chiefs Te Puni and Wharepōuri signed a deed of purchase with the New Zealand Company in September 1839. The validity of this transaction was later contested. The deed promised that Māori would retain their pā, kāinga, cultivations and mahinga kai, and, ‘A portion of the land ceded by them, equal to one-tenth part of the whole, will be reserved by … the New Zealand Company … and held in trust by them for the future benefit of the said chiefs, their families, and their heirs for ever.’ The ‘native reserves’ included ‘Cooks Mount’ (Pukeahu) and two neighbouring acres.

The New Zealand Company’s first settler ship, the Aurora, arrived at Pito-one (Petone) on 22 January 1840, and set up a community there. However, after the settlement was flooded in early March, the settlers moved across the harbour to Thorndon and Te Aro. By the end of the year 1,200 British settlers had arrived in Wellington.

The New Zealand Company parcelled up the land into sections for settlers, who were to get one town acre (0.4 hectares) and an accompanying 100 country acres (40 hectares). There were 1100 one-acre town sections in the plan for Port Nicholson. The New Zealand Company surveyors paid no attention to the sites Māori had been promised and, over time as the city grew, Māori moved away.

With the arrival of European settlers, Pukeahu was renamed Mount Cook, after British explorer Captain James Cook. In the years since, a range of functions have shaped the hill’s form and identity.

The impact of European settlement

New Zealand Company surveyor Captain William Mein Smith recognised the strategic advantage of the hill. By late 1840 a prison was situated on Mount Cook, even though the land was still a native reserve. In 1842 it was reported that about 60 prisoners were held there, though the building was described as ‘a wretched maori building, large enough for twelve or fifteen human beings at the most.’

Today Pukeahu/Mount Cook is most associated with the Dominion Museum building, a high school, a university and the National War Memorial. However, since the 1840s Mount Cook has been the site for a succession of prisons and a police station, served numerous military purposes, accommodated brickworks, and housed a number of educational institutions.

Lesser-known uses include being the site for an official observatory for the 1882 transit of Venus and the home of Wellington City Council’s dog pound.

Source: https://mch.govt.nz/pukeahu/

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