Queen Charlotte Sound, New Zealand: The Traditional European Records, 1820 9780773595989

Table of contents :
Cover
Title
Copyright
Acknowledgements
Table of Contents
Editor's Preface
CHAPTER I: Ivan Mikhaylovich Simonov as an Informant for the 1820 Visit to Queen Charlotte Sound
CHAPTER II: Plus Ca Change: The People and Their Culture
CHAPTER III: The Ethnographic Value of the Soviet 'Queen Charlotte Sound Collections'
CHAPTER IV: Settlements, Sites and Structures Around Ship Cove
CHAPTER V: Queen Charlotte Sound: Aspects of Maori Traditional History
CHAPTER VI: Artefacts and People: Inter-Island Trade Through Queen Charlotte Sound
APPENDIX A: A History of the Middle Island, as Given by Walter Mantel, 1848-49
APPENDIX B: The Russian Text of I.M. Simonov's Description of a Visit to New Zealand
BIBILOGRAPHY
NAME INDEX
PLACE INDEX

Citation preview

QUEEN CHARLOTTE SOUND, NEW ZEALAND: THE TRADITIONAL AND EUROPEAN RECORDS, 1820

Edited and introduced by

Glynn Barratt

CARLETON UNIVERSITY PRESS OTTAWA, CANADA 1987

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data Main entry under title: Queen Charlotte Sound, New Zealand: the traditional and European records, 1820 Includes index. Bibliography: p. ISBN 0-88629-057-0

I. Maoris - History. 2. South Island (N.Z.) - History. I. Barratt, Glynn.

@

Carleton University Press Inc., 1987

ISBN 0-88629-057-0 (paperback) Printed and bound in Canada Distributed by: Oxford University Press Canada 70 Wynford Drive DON MILLS, Ontario, Canada M3C IJ9 (4 1 6) 44 1-294 1 Distributed in New Zealand by: The Dunmore Press Ltd. 109 Napier Road Palrnerston North, New Zealand Acknowledgements Carleton University Press gratefully acknowledges the support extended to its publishing programme by the Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Social Science Federation of Canada, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Acknowledgements Michael Trotter wishes to thank Beverley McCulloch for valuable research assistance; the Marlborough Sounds Maritime Park Board for boat transport; Josie Laing for interloan materials; Davina Hodgkinson for assistance with translations; the Alexander Turnbull Library for access to manuscript material and for kind permission to quote from the Crawford and Barnicoat journals in its keeping. Gratitude is also expressed to the New Zealand Department of Lands and Survey for leave to reproduce aerial photography. Glynn Barratt thanks Rudol'f Ferdinandovich Its, Director, and Tamara K. S hafranovskaya, Curator and Archivist, Australia and Oceania Division, for unstinting help during a research visit to the Peter-the-Great Museum, N.N. Miklukho-Maklay Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography, Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Thanks are also due to Nikolai A. Butinov, of that same Institute; to the staff of the Drawings Division (Otdel Risunka) of the State Russian Museum in Leningrad; and to A.S. Guryanov, Librarian at Kazan' State University, Kazan', USSR.

Table of Contents CHAPTER1 Glynn Barratt (Ottawa): Ivan Mikhaylovich Simonov as a n Informant for the 1820 Visit t o Queen Charlotte Sound .........................

9

CHAPTER11 D.R. Simmons (Auckland): "Plus C a Change: the Totaranui People and Their Culture" ............................. 37 CHAPTER111 Glynn Barratt (Ottawa): "The Ethnographic Value of the Soviet 'Queen Charlotte Sound Collections"' .................................. 75 CHAPTERIV Michael M. Trotter (Christchurch): "Settlements, Sites and Structures Around Ship Cove" ............................ 105 CHAPTERV Stephen O'Regan: "Queen Charlotte Sound: Aspects of Maori Traditional History" (Victoria University)

....................

139

CHAPTERVI D.R. Simmons (Auckland): "Artefacts and People: Inter-Island Trade Through Queen Charlotte Sound" ........................ 159

APPENDIX A "A History of the Middle Island, as Given by Walter Mantel in 1848-49." ................................... 187 APPENDIX B "The Russian Text of I.M. Simonov's Description of a Visit to New Zealand" ......................... 189

Editor's Preface The ethnographic value of materials collected in Queen Charlotte Sound, New Zealand, by the BellingshausenLazarev Antarctic Expedition of 1820, has been recognized for many years. In itself, and in conjunction with the evidence of Cook's earlier voyages, the Russian record well deserves attention. When the late Frank Debenham showed a preliminary English version of the Bellingshausen narrative to British anthropologists before the start of World War 11, they were most complimentary. However, they did not pursue the evidence; nor have successive generations of ethnologists in Western Europe, North America, or even Australasia given more than passing glances at the 1820 narratives and drawings. As for "1820" Maori artefacts now held in Soviet museums, they were totally neglected by the Soviets themselves until the 1960s, and continue to be more or less ignored in the West. It is in hopes of rectifying this unhappy situation that the present (joint Canadian-New Zealand) study has been written. All kinds of surviving evidence of Maori life and culture in Queen Charlotte Sound (Totaranui) as it was in 1820 are considered here: manuscript and printed journals, Cook Voyage accounts and drawings, Russian illustrations, artefacts taken to Russia from the Sound over the fifty years preceding and on Captain Bellingshausen's visit, artefacts found in the district in 1981-82, which the Russians had examined long before, and, last, traditional Maori history. Quite disparate though these varieties of evidence may be, they are in essence complementary, one source lending perspective and increased value to others. My own contributions to this book deal with Russian primary accounts of the Vostdk's visit to Cook's Ship Cove, Cannibal Cove, Little Waikawa Bay, and Motuara Island forty years after the great explorer's death. While analyzing records that were left by the astronomer Ivan Mikhaylovich Simonov (1794-1855), on the basis of the manuscripts now held by the Kazan' State University Main Library, I also summarize the ethnographic value and significance of other primary materials

held in Soviet museums that bear on Bellingshausen's visit to New Zealand. Simonov's complete description of his dealings with the Maori of Totaranui (Queen Charlotte Sound) is translated into English for the first time here and considered in conjunction with the better-known account of the Vosr6k's and Mirnyy's visit left by Bellingshausen personally. Russian textual and illustrative evidence (the Vostbk carried an artist, Pave1 Ni kolayevich M ik haylov, whose large portfolio remains in Leningrad today) is complemented by the physical - Maori artefacts taken to Russia in early fall of 1821 and now held in the Peter-the-Great Museum of the N.N. Miklukho-Maklay Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography, also in Leningrad. Accordingly, I include a paper on the Soviet "Queen Charlotte Sound" collections in Kazan' (where I.M. Simonov was Rekror in the later 1840s in succession to the mathematician N.I. Lobachevsky) and in Leningrad. Those two collections are described and discussed, incidentally, in English for the first time in the context of New Zealand "culture studies," to adopt a phrase of Elsdon Best. Maori clothing, weaponry, ornaments, figures, feather boxes, paddles, adzes, fishing gear, and other sorts of artefacts are looked at, first, from the perspective of technology, and second, as essential evidence for the development of culture in a certain place and period and - more importantly - for the parameters of inter-tribal trade and other intercourse. Taken together, Cook's and Bellingshausen's evidence throws crucial light on the position of Queen Charlotte Sound and its inhabitants within a mesh of trade relationships and kinship ties extending certainly to Hawkes Bay, Wairarapa, and the coast of Horowhenua. Because the Sound was at the nexus of communications (peaceable and otherwise) between the North and South (formerly Middle) Islands of New Zealand, Cook's and Bellingshausen's data are important for the study of the whole question of inter-island trade, exchange, and "deep communication" in the eighteenth and the early nineteenth centuries. Traditional Maori records play their own important part in any proper understanding of the people of Queen 2

PREFACE

Charlotte Sound, their origins, activities, and contacts. One can hardly over-emphasize the value of those records in conjunction with the 1820 Russian narratives, as indispensable documentation (if that word may be extended to the oral) of a group that was to perish at the hands of other Maoris in 1827-28. The arrival of the European musket in the hands of the invading Ngati Toa, Ngati Raukawa, and Te Ati Awa led, as Stephen O'Regan notes below (see Paper 5), to "almost total devastation of the tribes then living around Raukawamoana" and to something close to genocide within Queen Charlotte Sound itself. In his paper, "Plus Ca Change: the Totaranui People and Their Culture," David Simmons views Queen Charlotte Sound as a historical, natural gateway or connecting point between the Islands. He makes use of Cook Voyage and Russian data to assess both population and particularly trade movements and kin affiliations. Both the Soviet "Queen Charlotte Sound" assemblages of artefacts, he emphasizes, differ in indicative and even major ways from the collections formed by Cook's men in the same locality. Furthermore, the Russians picked up wooden artefacts showing the carving styles we associate with widely separated regions of New Zealand, e.g., Gisborne, Bay of Islands, Taranaki. But above all, woven articles offer us clues to the identities of Maori groups living at Motuara, Ship Cove, and adjacent bays over the first half-century of local contacts with the European world (1770-1820). David Simmons uses Russian and the antecedent British evidence in harness, to contend that Bellingshausen was not dealing with the same group Cook had met when he last called, or, more precisely, that the men were not immediate descendants of that group. T o the ethnologist, taniko style and traditional weaving technique within an area or group is basic evidence and can be read. The group that Bellingshausen met, it bears repeating, was destroyed within eight years of the Russians' own departure. For that one reason alone, the Russian ethnographic evidence has value. As Professor Michael Trotter shows us in his PREFACE

3

contribution to the book, however, Russian evidence is much enhanced by archaeology, and vice versa. Michael Trotter made productive excavations, in 198 1-82, on the supposed site of the Maori settlement (Little Waikawa Bay) that the Russians visited in 1820 and described in words and pictures. He was able to employ the Russian narratives and watercolours by Mikhaylov as on-site guides. As he informs us in his paper, Russian data complement those of Cook's men and enhance the ethnological significance of Cook's own findings and opinions. Together, Cook Voyage and Bellingshausen narratives and drawings make it feasible to piece together quite a comprehensive picture of traditional, pre-contact life and culture in the Sound. Specific features of the Maori settlement, and even buildings that the Russians saw in 1820, were identified by their remains in 1982. Even a shattered group of people, though, may leave more than their homes and bones behind them as a legacy; and in his paper "Queen Charlotte Sound: Aspects of Maori Traditional History," Stephen O'Regan makes good use of Maori Land Court records, of unpublished manuscripts of other provenance, and of informants, to present various aspects of the Maori account(s) of the Totaranui people. His conclusions are in no important way at variance with the results of David Simmons's work, although the two approach the same questions from different directions and with different techniques. All the collaborators on this project have interpretations of the complexity or totality of evidence adduced. But it is left to David Simmons, in the last paper, to push the interpretation in the direction indicated by the sum of Michael Trotter's, Steve O1Regan's, and my own work: the direction of communications theory. In one way or another, all the contributions to this study indicate that trade, exchange, and human movements were traditionally heavy through the channel of Queen Charlotte Sound. All, moreover, lend support to the contention that the Sound (and the adjacent areas) had long been liable to takeovers and group-based dominance, as other 4

PREFACE

Maoris strove for control of raw materials, prestigious or essential goods, or merely management of valuable commerce, when the British first arrived. It is apparent, from traditional Maori sources and from S. Percy Smith's seminal work (Smith, 19 10: 427-29), that Ngai Tahu moved in strength into the Sound and far beyond it, to control the nephrite sources inter alia, and were succeeded by small waves of Ngai Kuia, their relatives and allies Ngati Apa, and - in relatively recent times - by Rangitane from the coast of Horowhenua. Cook's men saw evidence of local warfare, waged, it seems, between essentially related groups for mastery of the locality in which Endeavour and Discovery were anchored. Even cursory inspection of the artefacts collected in Queen Charlotte Sound by Cook's and Bellingshausen's people points directly to a theory of regional affiliations. For the cultural identities of artefact assemblages of first, second, or third Cook voyages or of 1820 provenance, are all distinct, showing admixtures to a basically South Island culture. Taniko and weaving style, as observed, are of particular significance in this respect; and there were articles acquired by the Russians in the Sound in 1820 that, to judge by carving style, had been brought from distant parts of the North Island. Thus, the composition of the Maori group (or groups) that had temporary, dangerous possession of Queen Charlotte Sound had changed, several times, during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; and so had their political alliances; and so, as is apparent from the Soviet collections, had the scope, indeed the whole nature, of trade. Even the British and especially the Russian officers who were obtaining Maori artefacts and local foodstuffs in the Sound well understood that by supplying local chiefs with European manufactures, they were strengthening their influence and mana. Nor were Cook, o r Bellingshausen, or their gentlemen of science unaware that they were stimulating earlier-established Maori trade routes and (the dominant variety of trade now operating in the Sound being not Maori to Maori but Maori to pakeha) enhancing centres of production. After all, there was a European market for the "images called ee tigis" (hei tiki: Beaglehole, 1967: 1,001). Culture changes that immediately followed upon European contact have been adequately studied (Firth, 1972). What PREFACE

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concerns us in this volume is the use of British, Russian, and traditional or Maori materials in the attempt to understand the basic nature of relationships, that is to say, communications, between Maoris within the Sound and far beyond it, north and south. Suffice to note here that David Simmons both elucidates the nature of traditional and earlier post-contact trade, with special reference to mana-bearing nephrite artefacts, and - on the basis of the European evidence surveys the kinship/ marriage aspect of that trade. As Michael Trotter's archaeology and Steve O'Regan's whakapapa studies also indicate, Totaranui people were in essence (as their balanced geographical position might suggest) a border people, in terms of status, mana, and descent within an overall society and as a people on the South Island's far rim, in easy contact with the North. As border people, they exported raw materials and finished items to the North, and they imported manufactured items, luxuries, and foodstuffs from the North - whence intermittently came also danger and the risk of sudden death. As border people, they were deeply interested in the maintenance of military balance between tribes of north and south. Within that context, they were relatively free to trade with pakeha, and so provide future museums with convincing evidence that, notwithstanding later movements and invasions from the North Island, the culture of the Sound of 1820 had retained the stamp of first colonization from the Wanganui-Rangitikei-Horowhenua coasts. As for tribal links and/or affiliations, they had obviously changed between the visits of Endeavour and Vost6k. But this, as seen, had not prevented them, with the assistance of their women, from preserving their material and social culture more or less intact over that period. Does this perhaps illuminate the variance between traditional Maori records for the Sound, as offered here by O'Regan, and the culture that the artefacts in Leningrad and London well reflect? Or are traditional accounts replete with biases to be expected of a temporary victor? What is evident, in all events, is that Queen Charlotte Sound was always a communications nexus. What political o r

6 PREFACE

cultural developments occurred there (and the presence of so many Europeans on a number of occasions made it sure there would be various developments) were of significance for all Maori tribes, to the north or south. Taken together, European and traditional accounts of early European-Maori connections in the Sound, and of the culture that the Europeans saw only to alter or destroy, comprise a major contribution to our knowledge of the trade-and-kinship system and, in Sahlins' phrase, the "deep communications" of the Maori in other times. We make use here of oral history, New Zealand legal and administrative papers, archaeology and aerial photography, Russian and British naval journals and reports, and nineteenth century pen-sketches, aquarelles, and published Voyages, as well as of the Cook voyage materials well known to scholars round the world. It is the view of the collaborators on this book that Cook's and Bellingshausen's records gain significance in apposition to each other: as a group, they nudge us closer to the truth, casting a beam into the darkness that would otherwise have swallowed up Ship Cove, Cannibal Cove, and "Hippah Island" as they were in 1820, on the eve of the attacks to be unleashed by Te Rauparaha and his Ati Awa allies. Glynn Barratt Ottawa 1987

PREFACE

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Ivan Mikhaylovich Simonov as an Informant for the 1820 Visit to Queen Charlotte Sound G. R. Barratt The value of the primary account lies in its authenticity as an immediate, unaltered record of experience. Considered in this light, no record of the 1820 Russian naval visit to Queen Charlotte Sound is more important than the one left by the expeditionary astronomer, Ivan Mikhaylovich Simonov (1794- 1855).' There are, indeed, other significant manuscripts relating to that visit; but without exception all are less reliable, as ethnographic documents, than Simonov's. The journal ("Pamiatnik") that Leading Seaman Yegor Kiselev maintained so conscientiously, for instance, and which was happily discovered in the town of Suzdal' fifty years ago (Tarnopol'sky 1941: 40-41), is undeniably as fresh and pungent now as ever; but the man was not an educated or especially astute observer of the Maoris, on whom in any case he jotted down only a dozen lines. Ship's Surgeon Nikolai A. Galkin of the Mirnyy (Captain-Lt. Mikhail P. Lazarev) was, by contrast, a perceptive, highly educated man; but like his comrade in that ship, Lieutenant Pave1 Novosil'sky, he was basically intent on entertaining literati with an interest in travel literature. Scientific objectivity was good and he respected it, but local colour also had its place. In short, his "Letters Concerning the Voyage of the Sloops Vost6k and Mirnyy in the Pacific Ocean" (Syn Otechestva, St. Petersburg, 1822: vol. 82, pt. 49: 97-1 15, 157-70) were the products of a semi-popular and unofficial manuscript, deriving only indirectly from an 1820journal. As for Novosil'sky's journal, it has not yet come to light, though it was formally submitted to the Russian Naval Ministry in August 1821 and is no doubt in Leningrad. From similarities between the ordering and manner in which incidents that had occurred in the Pacific were described by Bellingshausen [Russian: Bellingsgauzen] (I 83 1 text) and by Novosil'sky, it is

patent that the latter's comments were available to his commander between 1821 and 1824. But, in the absence of the manuscript itself, it is impossible to say whether or not his semi-popular account, Iuzhnyy polius . . . The South Pole: from the Memoirs of a Former Naval Officer, rested on notes taken in youth, perhaps "improved." The organizing of material by date offers encouragement but, on the other hand, there is the unfortunate fact that Novosil'sky used derivative material to fill in gaps left by his own yellowing sheets. It is all the more regrettable, under these circumstances, that the Bellingshausen notebooks, all submitted to the ministry in April 1824 as noted earlier, cannot today be found. Bellingshausen had expected that his journal, which he kept punctiliously from the first day of his mission to the last, would be required of him promptly. But in fact he had some eighteen months, on his return to Russia, to examine all his officers' accounts and to reflect (and change) his own earlier statements. Bellingshausen was an honest man. The seizure and imprisonment of a subordinate, Lieutenant Torson, late of the Vosrbk, for implication in an anti-autocratic, secret movement (the Decembrist cause) did not induce him - as it might have at the outset of the sullen reign of Nicholas I - to state that Torson had been wanting in his earlier performance of his duty. It is true that, had he wished to, Bellingshausen could have "rearranged" events and altered emphases. But there are reasons for believing that the changes that he did make, in the Baltic, were essentially stylistic and that, in making them, he was at pains to see that truth as he perceived it was adhered to. There were, in any case, assorted witnesses to what he wrote; and some had influence, like Lazarev and Zavadovsky. On submitting his narrative in 1824, Bellingshausen asked that the imperial authorities finance a first edition of 1,200 copies. Nothing came of the request and months elapsed. Then came the Guards-directed rising of 14 December 1825 and the arrest of Torson (and at least three other naval officers connected recently with South Pacific voyages, Mikhail K. Kyukhel'beker of the Apollon and brother to the poet, 10 GLYNN BARRATT

Pushkin's friend; Dmitrii I. Zavalishin and Fedor P. VishnCvsky, both of the frigate Kreiser). Torson's role in the Decembrist insurrection altered Nicholas 1's attitude towards the Bellingshausen venture and the Fleet. A mental door shut with a click. Another twenty months went by. Bellingshausen sent an open letter to the chairman of the Naval Scientific Committee of the Russian Naval Staff, Rear-Admiral Loggin I. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, Cook's admirer and diligent translator. Would the Government not print 600 copies of his narrative? Kutuzov sympathized and the request was granted. Not without more difficulties from officious editors named Chizhov and Nikol'sky, who cut and altered as they pleased for many months, the Bellingshausen narrative appeared in St. Petersburg in 1831. The two volumes were not illustrated, but they were supplemented by an Atlas, which included 19 maps, two views of icebergs, 13 other views, and 30 drawings by the competent Mikhaylov. Both the 1949 (A.I. Andreev) and the 1960 (E.E. Shvede) Soviet editions of Repeated Explorations . . ., and the late Frank Debenham's and Edward Bullough's English version ( I 945: Hakluyt Society), have rested squarely on the 1831 text. E.E. Shvede provides a factually solid introduction to the 1960 Soviet edition. T o conclude: the Bellingshausen holograph of 1821-22 cannot be found but, notwithstanding tampering of 1827-28 and Bellingshausen's inability - being on duty in a Russo-Turkish struggle on the Danube - to inspect even the printers' work, it would appear that the published text of 1831 correctly mirrors it. Where Simonov's remarks about Vostbk's and Mirnyy's sojourn in New Zealand are concerned, conversely, we are spared all discomforts and suspicions. His own, careful reworking of his manuscript journal of 18 19-2 1 is now held in the Manuscripts Department of Kazan' State University Main Library, Kazan'. The "New Zealand passage" covers five pages ( 169-74) and is presented here in translation. First, however, we may survey Simonov's persistent and deliberate activity as propagandist for the Russian expedition to Antarctica and Polynesia. That activity included publication of two early and IVAN M I K H A YLOVICH S I M O N O V

11

popular accounts of his experiences with Vos~6k,and of two scientific papers: ( R BS, 18: 490-9 1). Both the popular accounts were soon reprinted or translated. Thus, his personal impressions of the Maori and of New Zealand reached a sizeable Swiss, French, and German readership some seven years before Bellingshausen's narrative appeared. Simonov had been Extraordinary Professor of astronomy and mathematics at Kazan', his alma mazer, at the time of his appointment to Vostbk. His career had been marked by precocity and had been greatly favoured by the friendship of the German-born astronomer who was his teacher, JosephJohann Littrow (178 1-1 840). He remained in friendly contact both with Littrow and with others who had travelled to the infant university from German-speaking regions, and he was fluent both in German and in French: (ES, 33: 56; Sovremennik, 1855,52: 159-62). In New Zealand, he collected artefacts intelligently, paying heed to technique, as shown in half-completed articles. Returning to St. Petersburg in 1821, he had a store of zoological, botanical, and ethnographic specimens, all packed in boxes, and a set of well-crammed journals that would serve him for many years. On the basis of his scientific work in Oceania, he was in 1822 given a permanent position at Kazan'. There, on 7 July, he gave a major public lecture on his personal experiences in Vosz6k and on the Bellingshausen expedition generally. It was entitled, modestly, "A Word on the Successes of the Voyage of the Sloops Vostbk and Mirnyy," and was printed as a pamphlet that same year in Kazan'. Here are extracts from its 450-word New Zealand passage: On 29 May we dropped anchor in Queen Charlotte Sound, in the lee of Long and Matuara [Motuara] Islands and facing Ship Cove. No sooner had the natives there seen us than they came out towards the sloop in their little craft. Appreciating that our attitude was a friendly one, they boarded us confidently and supplied us with a good quantity of fish. They bartered their own artefacts, such as woven material, wooden spears, stone

12 G L Y N N BARRATT

chisels, and bone and shell fish-hooks and the like, for our nails, knives, axes, mirrors, and other things of lesser value. These New Zealanders were of middling height and solid build, with swarthy expressive faces on which we observed various designs. They showed much animation and a fire full of martial spirit shone in their eyes. With us however they proved to be well behaved and even quiet, recognizing the superiority of our force and knowing the effectiveness of our armament. We, for our part, were well aware of their treacherous nature and so went ashore and visited their dwelling places only under armed escort. These were, after all, the same barbarians who had perfidiously killed and eaten Marion, the French captain who had entrusted himself to them, as well as ten of the crew of Cook's campanion, Furneaux, who had merely landed for water. The New Zealanders stand in greater need of clothing, because of the moderate climate of their country, than do the natives of New Holland or of hot climes generally. That being so, they weave material from the so-called New Zealand flax and cover their bodies with it, Their winter clothing is very coarse in manufacture, with large filaments, rather like our own heavy coats. A palisade ran round their village and their huts were roofed with tree leaves or grass, the roofs being supported from beneath by posts. Of these interior posts, some were ornamented with carving, though certainly of a crude variety. The shore by which we stood had a truly majestic aspect. There were large hills, enveloped by an impenetrable forest and filled with birds, whose song delighted . . . Slovo o uspikhakh (Kazan' 1822): 8-9.

It was understandable that Simonov should wish to draw advantage from his voyage, speaking publicly to a receptive audience among whom there were friends and men of influence within his university. His "Word" was calculated to appeal to the majority of educated listeners, being, essentially, an oral form of travel literature. Already, though, he was at work on astronomical and physical data collected from VostGk, preparing courses, and surveying the resources and equipment IVAN M I K H A YLOVICH SIMONOV

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of the university. The latter left a lot to be desired. What respect the 28-year-old astronomer and publicist had earned already is apparent from his university's now sending him (June 1823) to purchase physical and astronomical equipment in Vienna. Simonov left Russia with his colleague, Adolph Theodor Kupffer (1799-1 865), and remained abroad for sixteen months. Even in 1822, he had initiated or, in some cases, resumed a correspondence with a half-a-dozen scientists of European reputation. These included the astronomers who had most closely been linked with the preceding Russian naval expeditions round the globe, or with the ordering of Bellingshausen's enterprise, or both: Johann Caspar Horner ( 1774- 1834) and Baron Franz Xaver von Zach ( 1754- 1832). With Zach, especially, he corresponded heavily from 1822 to 1824. The Austrian savanr was widely known in Russian academic circles as the former head of the Seeberg Observatory at Gotha and was personally friendly with such grandees as Counts Nikolai P. Rumiantsev and A.R. Vorontsov. He was also the moving force behind two major learned journals of the day, to which both Simonov and Kupffer had subscribed of necessity: Monatliche Korrespondenz . . . (Gotha, 1800- 13) and Correspondence asrronomique, gkographique, hydrographique (Genoa, 18 18-26). Lastly, and most significantly, Zach and Simonov shared common interests in theoretical astronomy and practical geodesy: (ZMNP,1855, Apr: 32-40; ibid., 1828, 22: 44-68). Shortly after his arrival in Vienna, where he stayed with Littrow, Simonov made a German translation or, rather, paraphrase of his "Word." This, in turn, was sent to Zach, who edited it in the form of letters and printed it in his Correspondence astronomique, early in 1824. A copy of the issue was presumably sent to Kazan', to which Simonov had lately returned after a lengthy stay in Paris and a briefer but more hectic trip through Italy. We know, at all events, that he was able and disposed to edit or re-edit Zach's translation of a year earlier, giving his blessing to the "letters"' publication in Journal des Voyages, ou Archives gkographiques du XIXe si2cle (Paris, July 1824: 69 cahier: 5-26). While in Paris himself 14 GLYNN BARRATT

in 1823-24, Simonov had made numerous acquaintances, with Baron Alexander Humboldt, Cuvier, Guizot and other luminaries; had frequented the Acadtmie de Sciences; and had even been elected, on the basis of his "Word" in German colours, to the (Paris) Geographical Society. His name was thus familiar to many readers of the Journal des Voyages who, in 1824, were offered what had now become a "PrCcis du Voyage de DCcouvertes, fait . . . par le capitaine Bellingshausen dans . . . les Mers Australes." The "New Zealand passage" occupied one tenth of its epistle only (pp. 12-14), but presented Bellingshausen's visit to New Zealand to a vastly wider audience. Stylistic indicators demonstrate, moreover, that that passage was considerably closer to the manuscript original of 1821 than was the "Word." One final factor gives significance to the New Zealand part of "Prtcis du Voyage", despite the obvious and underlying similarities with the immediately corresponding section of the 1822 Kazan' text: I.M.Simonov himself was now responsible for all such differences, textual and otherwise, as were not patently fautes de copiste (as the Paris editor had put it: p.22n). Here is the short passage in question: On 29 May we dropped anchor in Queen Charlotte Sound, in the lee of the so-called Long Island, facing Matuara [Motuara.] Wc were pretty soon visited by natives who, since we invited them aboard in a friendly way, came up and bartered with us. They traded their products (a variety of cloth, wooden blades, stone chisels, and fish-hooks fashioned from bone and shell) for our nails, knives, axes, mirrors, small glassware, and other trifles. The New Zealanders are of medium height and robust build. Their faces, which are full of expression, are swarthy and touched by the colour of various tattooed patterns. They are extremely lively and their eyes gleam with a martial fire. Even though they behaved quite tranquilly with us, we being stronger than they, we remained unsure of them and always on our guard, lest they surprise us. We knew of their treachery and so always landed and visited their habitations with a strong escort. We had been told of quite recent acts of bad faith on their part, IVAN M I K H A YLOVICH S I M O N O V

15

and this, together with our recollection of those cruelties they had perpetrated on the unfortunate French Captain Marion and on ten of the men in Captain Furneaux's company, who had been here with Cook, made such a precaution seem the more necessary. The spectacle of the coastline itself was most picturesque: high mountains completely covered by dense, even impenetrable forests make a delightful sight; and the weather was superb throughout our stay except on 2nd June, when a tremendous storm broke and so whipped up the sea that we had to drop a second anchor. But we remained in New Zealand only five days and busied ourselves checking the chronometers and making a survey of Matuara [Motuara] Island and part of Queen Charlotte Sound. These two islands [sic] form a single isle at high tide but are a pair at low tide, linked by a tongue of land or isthmus. When the water is at its lowest ebb, this is quite dry ...

How much material was still being withheld becomes apparent from collation even of the 1822 and 1824 New Zealand passages, that is, the "Word" and "PrCcis du Voyage." The latter lacks two whole paragraphs of the Kazan' text (between "avec le Capitaine Cook" and "La vue de7')that deal principally with Maori clothing and the physical conditions that contributed to its historical development. Still, it was Simonov's opinion that his 1819-2 1 journal should be a source to be exploited; it was not, he felt, a work to be presented whole and raw. It might offend; it had been written in a rough and ready way; besides, his time and energies were fully occupied with mathematics and, by 1828, administrative duties. He was corresponding member of the (then as now) conservative Academy of Sciences. His strictly scientific articles had been received with great approval. Then, in 1831, appeared Bellingshausen's narrative and Atlas. Simonov could see no pressing need to publish a more personal, less comprehensive treatment of the same Pacific-polar expedition. Intermittently over the next ten years, even so, he was reminded of his journal. Furthermore, he maintained his interest in seaborne exploration. In 1844, he even published a review of major voyages by European seamen from the 16 GLYNN BARRATT

sixteenth to the early nineteenth century: (ZMNP, v. 42: 92-1 15). Though Rektor of his university (1 846), he looked his youthful journal over and thought of editing its text; but neither energy nor time was now available to him - despite his talking to a likely publisher in 1848, (Barsukov, 1896, 10: 389). At last, he started work. The resultant manuscript, MS 4533 at Kazan' State University Main Library, was squarely based on and incorporated notes taken while Simonov was on the Vostbk in 1820. The presentation of material reflects an antecedent ordering by date. Specific dates can be ascribed, indeed, to given passages. Misspellings are preserved such as, for instance, "Wellnes" and "Belly" for Messrs. Wales and Bayly who had visited Queen Charlotte Sound with Cook. And simple differences of interpretation or asserted fact between the Simonov and other narratives (which had been published long before) show that nothing had been done to bring the data in his journal into line with those that others had presented. Here is Simonov's fullest account of the 1820 visit to New Zealand: In accordance with the instructions that Captain Bellingshausen had received, we made to pass to the north of New Zealand on our passage to the Society Islands. To do so, the captain wished to steer for Oparo [Rapa] Island, which Captain Vancouver had discovered, straight from New Holland. . . He did not manage to hold so direct a course, however, and for that reason, hopes of getting a favourable wind fading, he decided to pass through the Cook Strait. It was his intention to shelter from bad weather for a few days in Queen Charlotte Sound on the north shore of the southern island of New Zealand, that was, the island known as Tavai Posnummu [Te Wai Pounamu]. The shores of New Zealand soon came into view and it was without difficulty that we entered Cook Strait, but we could not quickly enter Queen Charlotte Sound itself. There, moreover, we met with an opposing current and strong headwind which obliged our leader to drop anchor more quickly than he had intended to, and before he reached the so-called Long and Matuara [Motuara] Islands. IVAN M I K H A YLOVICH S I M O N O V

17

We had scarcely let go anchor before two small canoes filled with natives came out from the shore and approached us. Most of the men in the craft were paddling with short paddles, each man for himself and without order. The first canoe havingcome near our sloop, one individual, probably the senior man among the natives present, stood up and began to address us in a singsong voice. He spoke at length, in a language incomprehensible to us but even so quite pleasant to the ear. We let out our white handkerchiefs in order to make our amicable disposition clear to him, then made signs to him to come right alongside the sloop without fear. Whether or not he understood these gesturings I cannot say, but in all events the natives did, after a while, begin to show more confidence in our intentions. They would not keep their canoes immediately by the sloop, though, and at first only the aforementioned elder would come on board. He shook our hands by way of greeting, and was again about to launch into a lengthy speech when the captain, wanting to cut the address short (since it meant nothing to us and promised to be long) gave him a few presents. These were a small mirror, a small pocket knife, and a few beads. The language of gifts is understood by every nation, and these ones eloquently enough conveyed our friendly attitude. The New Zealand elder was delighted with his presents but evidently wanted something else. With much earnestness, he explained to us that he really wanted fau, [whau] as he termed it; on this occasion, however, we failed to understand. Looking up the local word for fish in Captain Cook's Voyage, meanwhile, and finding that it was ika, we tried it on the elder or chief before us on the deck. He immediately realized that we were in need of fresh fish, turned to the people down in canoes, and shouted ika! ikaP The natives who were still seated in their craft then repeated after him, several times, ika! ika! It was our impression, at this juncture, that their gestures expressed satisfaction that they would be able to satisfy our want without trouble. The captain gave orders that the chief be given a small glass of rum. The chief drank off half of it but did not seem greatly enamoured of our drink and said a few words that we did not understand. Finally, with further gestures to convey his amicability, he went off with the other natives to catch the wanted fish, or ika, as they called it. These people had no

18

GLYNN BARRATT

weapons of any sort in their canoes with them - a sure sign of their trust in us. These were assuredly a quite different people from the New Hollanders. It seemed to us, indeed, that we saw the fire of intellect in their eyes and martial pride in their bearing. Their facial features were not unpleasant. Some individuals even recalled to mind the old Romans, depicted in prints, particularly when the New Zealand mantle hung from the shoulders and feathers fluttered on their heads. It is true that an undeniable wildness and tattoos combined to spoil their pleasing and regular countenances. Various parts of the body were carefully covered by these tattoos. Still, 1 was conscious of their relatively tall and very muscular build: they were bony, sturdy, and broad-shouldered, lean in the face. Face and body alike were so swarthy as to be nearly bronzed in hue. Their hair was long and black, straight in some cases, curly in others. They allowed the hair to descend in long locks at the back, but they cut it shorter at the front and either powdered it red or smeared some sort of red colouring substance over it. Natives of New Zealand certainly need to wear clothing. The part of the country we were in lies in latitude 41" 6'S., and there, in the Northern Hemisphere, it can get pretty cold. They have developed a material for the purpose. It is produced from the wide leaves of the plant known as New Zealand flax [phormium tenax].This yarn can be spun as finely as true flax and is woven into various stuffs, more or less fine or thick as needed. It can look shaggy, like our northern furs.3This material goes to make all the New Zealanders'clothing, which, of course, differs in the different seasons of the year. Their clothing consists, first, of a camisole which they wrap round themselves from chest level down to the middle. On top of this they wear another piece of woven material that falls, like a shirt, from the waist to the knee. Camisole and shirt are both held in place by a plaited girdle at the waist. Over all this underclothing goes a cloak, thin or thick depending on the temperature and weather, which is reinforced by a cord at the neck. Tattooing, or the placing of designs on face and body, is the principal embellishment and affectation of the New Zealand native. The necessary operations are performed from childhood on and commonly produce a fever that lasts for days. As among the natives of New Holland, small openings are later made IVAN M I K H A YLOVICH SIMONOV

19

through the central cartilage of the nose, so that little sticks may be introduced above the upper lip. Larger apertures are made in the ears, through which are passed not earrings proper, but bunches of bird's down. Nature or possibly the lack of inventive genius has deprived the New Zealanders of metals and, by extension, of such significant aids to life in society as derive from the use of iron. That being so, one can only marvel at their clothmaking and shipbuilding skills. We ourselves found them in craft six and a half sazhen long [14.8 m] and nearly two arshin wide [1.4 m], and Captain Cook declares in his work that he measured one canoe nine and three-quarter sazhen in length [21.7 m]. The hulls of these craft were in general scooped out of a single treetrunk. A pair of planks were attached to each of the upper edges of the hull, by means of cords, the planks themselves being half an arshin [35 cm] broad, and reeds were put in between these and the hull to prevent any leaks. The reeds were covered over by strips of bast about six-and-a-half vershki wide [28 cm]. By way of decoration, these canoes had carvings that represented the human face in caricature and, at the stern, a beam some two arshin high [ I .4 m]. The carved figures, stern beam, and upper strakes were all coloured red all over.4 At 8:00 a.m. the next morning [29 May], we weighed anchor and tacked against a headwind till midday. The night before, we had been at anchor quite a way from the shore. Finally, after 25 tacks, we dropped anchor again in an attractive haven, protected on all sides, between Long, Matuara [Motuara], and Tavoi Posnummu [sic] Islands. Two native canoes followed us all the while, and the natives seated in them were asking to be allowed to come on board. In the circumstance we could not welcome them and instead, by means of gestures, encouraged them to pay us a visit once we had anchored. Very likely, they did not understand our signs. They came now after us, now after Mirnyy for quite some time, but at last went off to the shore. Hardly had we dropped anchor and, our work done, sat down to eat before we were again visited by the New Zealanders; and this time, almost all of them came on board fearlessly. Only one man was left in charge of each canoe. The captain met the chief with all the courtesy of Oceania, embracing him and pressing noses, then, inviting him to take food with us, sat him at table in a place of honour between

20 GLYNN BARRATT

himself and M.P. Lazarev. The latter was dining with us, together with his officers. Everything on the table before him filled the chief with wonder, and he curiously examined every object. Not till he was sure that we were eating the same food, though, would he eat anything. It was our sweet dishes and biscuits that he consumed with the most evident relish. Wine he did not care for. His people having brought us a fair amount of ika [fish], in the meantime, he again began speaking of fau [whau] and toki. Our captain meanwhile was doing his very best, by means of word and gesture, to persuade his guest of his own friendly intentions towards the natives of the country. As proof, he finally made the chief a present of a beautifully polished axe. The chief received the gift, which was precious to him, with loud exclamations of toki! toki! and his face was a picture of joy. Now, he exhausted his means of conveying his feeling of gratitude towards the captain, whom he termed his hoa, or friend. It was in this way that we learned that toki meant axe. Unable to sit still at the table any longer, the chief rushed out to show his precious gift to his fellow-countrymen. We ourselves went after him onto the quarterdeck, dinner being over. On the quarterdeck, a regular market was being held. On the captain's orders, the commander of our sloop [l. Zavadovsky] exchanged a fair quantity of the nails, small mirrors, silk ribbons and other trifles that we had in store for no less than sevenpood [250 lbs.] of fish, among them cod, mackerel, trout, and flounder. There were other species of fish among them too, which we did not recognize but which turned out to be tasty, on the whole. We obtained this fish and delicious crayfish too at very low cost, considering the very slight cost to us of the objects that the natives took so willingly. Also by barter, the officers acquired New Zealand woven stuffs, made garments, weapons, domestic articles, fishing tackle, and other things of interest which might be trifling but were, even so, rare for us as Europeans. And we now discovered that fau [whau] meant nail. M y own bartering with the New Zealanders will have provided good indications of the value that they placed on our wares even when ignorant of their use: the very well-ground bone needle which 1 acquired from our chief, for instance, merely cost me a handle broken off a copper candlestick. The handle looked rather like a ring. The needle was of the kind with IVAN M I K H A YLOVICH SIMONOV

21

which these people make cloths. I saw the same fragment again, the very next day. It was serving as an ear ornament, for another man, that is, not the man who had had it from me! Another man let me have a bone fishhook for a tiny piece of red ribbon and jumped for joy. Yet another secretly showed me a nephrite chisel which he had under his cloak. It was obvious that he valued it, since he would not part with it for nails, or a bottle, or even a piece of red braid or a lock, the function of which I tried to explain to him. He let me have it in the end, after I had made numerous unsuccessful propositions, in exchange for a bit of 80-size writing-paper: 1 had offered it to him, at the last, in jest. Two of the New Zealanders present on this occasion had halfcoats thrown over their shoulders. These had flax sleeves, sewn on by cords. Our seamen got them through barter, one for an ancient handkerchief, the other for a rather threadbare canvas jacket. Our honoured guests were being entertained with coffee while this haggling proceeded. They liked it very well. The chief even requested a second cup, Finally, the bartering came to an end, and the chief sat his people down on our quarterdeck and proceeded to divide up among them the biscuit that he had obtained from us. To entertain them even further, the captain now had our ship's flautist play the flute while a drummer beat a drum. The New Zealand chief himself wished to try our both instruments. He found that the flute would not obey him; but loud and disconnected booms from the drum, produced by his many blows, quite delighted him. Wishing to repay us with a similar pleasure, our guests struck up a song. One man would first intone a couplet, then all would join in and shout it with all their might. The melody consisted of perhaps three notes in its entirety - indeed, the singing was mostly a matter of words and cries. However, the New Zealand natives do have music made by wind instruments. It was M.P. Lazarev who acquired from them a pipe made like a flageolet only much thicker and ornamented with carving. He showed it to me. It had one stop at the end, none of the sides. Such pipes are played like our French horn, and have a tone like our hunting horns.' Captain Bellingshausen had a few shots fired, as our guests departed, and sent a few rockets up during the evening. In this way, he announced our arrival in Queen Charlotte Sound to natives in the interior of Tavoi Posnummu [Te Wai Pounamu].

22 G L Y N N BARRATT

The following day [30 May], I busied myself from early morning on seeking a suitable site for astronomical observation. I was at first inclined to make my observations from Gippa [Hippah] Island, on the spot where once stood the field stations of Wellnes [Wales] and Belly [Bayly] of the expedition with Captains Cook and Furneaux. I went round that island. It was clear that I would find it practically impossible to get on top of it with my instruments. When he had ascended the rocky cliff in question, Forster had found it climbable from one angle only and by one very narrow and awkward path. That was 47 years previously. We, for our part, managed to climb the islet only with the greatest labour and without any instruments. A small isthmus, which water covers at high tide, connects Gippa [Hippah] and Matuera [Motuara] Islands. The latter is more sloping than the former but is enveloped by dense bush. As our ships were not to remain long in Queen Charlotte Sound, we did not put up a shore observatory. I merely landed every day to make observations necessary to determine our exact latitude and longitude and, three times daily, checked chronometers. 1 found myself a very good spot for these purposes, right on the isthmus. We spotted a number of abandoned huts on the summit of Gippa [Hippah] Island. Perhaps they were the very ones that Forster mentions. New Zealand natives were often on board Vost6k and Mirnyy; and the commanders of both sloops, as well as all officers, went ashore quite frequently, to shoot birds, collect water, catch fish, or visit natives known and unknown to us. 1 too, when my occupations on the isthmus between Gippa [Hippah] and Matuara [Motuara] Islands were completed, saw no reason why I should lose such opportunities of getting to know this land and its people rather better. The first time I went ashore at Ship Cove [on 3 1 May], my ear was charmed by a most delightful blend of sounds: the song of many birds, the gurgling of astream that was flowing into the Sound. Thick and impenetrable woods covered the hills behind and, illumined by a setting sun, offered the eye a truly magnificent picture of wild nature. Captain Bellingshausen writes that this song of landbirds re-echoed with all the beauty of a piano accompanied by flutes; and Captain Cook also writes of the pleasure that these New Zealand birds' singing caused him. It was certainly long since we ourselves had had such a pleasure, nor do I remember IVAN M I K H A YLOVICH S I M O N O V

23

having listened to such a harmonious concert of songbirds in any one of the other five parts of this globe. Conditions seemed just like those of a marvellous spring evening. Yet we were here on the last days of May which correspond, in the Southern Hemisphere, to our northern November! The latitude of that part of New Zealand, though, corresponds with that of Rome or Barcelona. Forster, who had been in New Zealand with Cook also towards the end of May, in the year 1773, had found greens growing in gardens on Hippah Island which Captain Furneaux had sown on his previous sojourn there. S o they were able, as Forster observes, to regale themselves with European greens even though it was winter there. This was an unexpected pleasure. As well as phormium renax, that is, the New Zealand "flax" which I mentioned above (which is sent to England to produce a yarn as soft, fine and white as any silk) many very serviceable plants flourish in this country. The pine is noteworthy among large trees, for its leaves can be used as an anti-scorbutic remedy. But palms, breadfruit trees, and fruit-bearing trees are all missing. The natives use the roots of a plant called cabbage palm by Forster as a foodstuff, and also devour one species of fern, termed by them mamakga.6 This is full of a softish substance from which, when the root has been cut off, a sagolike, sticky sap oozes out. European vegetable varieties, including culinary roots and such greenstuffs as were brought to New Zealand by Captains Cook, Furneaux, and by Mr Forster, all do very well there. The natives have made use of the potato alone as a food, though. With regard to the larger quadrupeds, early navigators met with only two species in New Zealand: a wood rat and a barkless dog. It was always in human company, as dogs are in our countries. These dogs are in fact very like the sort called sheepdog by Buffon. All the fish and sea-creatures of the Eastern and Southern Oceans may be found in waters around New Zealand; and even penguins come there, too, from the Southern Icy Ocean. We ourselves saw a live penguin in Cook Strait. The natives of New Zealand eat them. We also sighted a kind of dove and some small green parrots, remarkably well proportioned, as well as a great number of songbirds. The latter fluttered ahead of us, on the shores of Queen Charlotte Sound. The mineral kingdom is well represented, as is the vegetable.

24

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The country is rich in quartz, basalt, and green nephrite, from which the natives fashion domestic tools, and there are also granite, jasper, and different volanic products. Forster thinks that iron deposits must surely exist in New Zealand. We were very hospitably received by the New Zealand natives in their rather unattractive huts. The village nearest Ship Cove stood on both banks of a small stream, both sides of which were edged with stones. These could hardly have been mistaken for a pavement of some sort, though, since they had been laid down without method or plan. The native dwellings were really huts, about twice as high as a man at the central point, much lower at the sides. They were supported inside by carved posts, which were painted red. The carvings were ugly human representations. Reeds formed the walls, and there was quite fine bast matting inside. The huts had two entrances, one at the front and one at the rear. A species of stone oven stood in the middle of the floor area, fires being lit both for the warmth and for cooking. More flax matting was laid along the side walls, and there the inhabitants sat during the daylight hours and slept at night. The chief whom we knew from previously lived in rather more style, and in a more cleanly fashion, than the others. His dwelling was small, perhaps, but it boasted an ante-chamber. Our collection of rarities was considerably enlarged in the course of this visit to a New Zealand village. By barter, we acquired spears and javelins, wooden war maces, and other things. The weaponry was often finished with carvings of fish, or birds, or a man with wide-open mouth and tongue sticking out, or simply lines and rings. The natives would not infrequently offer us the entertainment of watching the spectacle that is their war-dance, call the geyva [heava], while we were visiting them ashore or on the sloops. This dance was expressive of a sort of wild fury. It was uniform and strange to behold. When dancing, the natives would generally form a line, stamp their feet in time on one spot, raise their arms up over the head, and cast furious looks at each other. The song they then sung was a savage shout, and was rendered while they horribly distorted their faces. At the conclusion of a couplet, they would suddenly and all together stop, standing on one foot only. Lowering their heads and left arms, while shaking the right over their heads still, they would bring the couplet to a finale with a hoarse noise. By this dance, IVAN MIKHA Y L O V K H SIMONOV

25

.

26

they express something war-like. It appears that all the New Zealanders are passionately fond of it, and no sooner does one individual start such a dance than others are joining him. We took a special liking to one young native, led him into the wardroom, and fed him with various sweets while our ship's artist drew his portrait. Once the wild shouts of his countrymen announced to all that a war-dance was starting, though, this young friend of ours proved quite incapable of sitting still. Excusing himself, he went up on deck, grabbed a spear or something else from a canoe, and quickly joined the dancers. His muscles rippled and his eyes flashed. He went into a frenzy. By the time this dance was over, every participant looked like a hero rejoicing over the victory just won over his enemies. We continued to live in harmony with the natives of Tavai Posnummu [Te Wai Pounamu] until our seven-day stay drew to its close. This, however, was only the result of the fear they entertained for our hand guns and cannon. The natives made it apparent, even on their first visit to Vosrcjk, that they very well knew the effects of our artillery pieces. They pointed to the cannon and fearfully uttered the word poo! Even though they recognized our military superiority, though, we never visited their dwelling places without arms and an adequate escort. Stormy gusts of wind in Queen Charlotte Sound, meanwhile, were giving us no peace. The weather had held fair till 2nd June and, though there had been occasional cloudiness, the sun had never been long hidden from sight. But the barometer had been sinking, and its predictions were realized early on the morning of the 2nd, when black clouds covered the entire sky-and it poured with rain. The winds rose and the sea became quite audible. Its grey waves crashed against the sloop with such force that the single anchor by which we were then held was insufficient. A second anchor was dropped. The whole day was a worrying one, rainy and very tempestuous, lightning flashing and thunder rolling and reverberating in the mountains. Captain Bellingshausen gave the order to weigh anchor just as soon as I had finished my routine daily observations on 4th June and had returned to the sloop from my shore base. The New Zealanders were aboard the Vost6k for the last time and, by words and signs, their chief expressed his genuine sorrow. He could see that we were making preparations for a prompt departure. His sorrow was genuine, of course, because he was

GLYNN BARRATT

still hoping to exchange trifles for things that he needed. There were even some natives who would readily enough have agreed to come with us to Europe. But the chief kept a careful watch on them and made sure that nobody remained with us, at the end. One young native begged us to take him along, promising to work hard on the sloop. Our captain gave his permission, and we gave the youth to understand that the final decision to come or stay rested with him. Our consent delighted him; but the elders were quite aware of his ambition and almost forcibly obliged their enterprising countryman to return to shore with them. He pressed his nose on mine with sad vexation, slowly descending into his relations'canoe. We then weighed anchors, filled our sails, and moved out into Cook Strait. The sizeable flotilla of New Zealand craft around us made for the shore. . . .

Notes I . MS 4533 at the Kazan' State University Main Library. 2. The Vosthk carried copies of the Cook-King Voyage (London, 1784), Loggin Golenishchev-Kutuzov's Russian version thereof, George Forster's Voyage (London, 1777). and - of course - the Cook Voyages describing the First and Second Voyage visits to New Zealand. These and other works were bought from booksellers in London in August 1819: Novosil'sky, Iuzhnyi polius, pp. 5-6; Bellingshausen, Dvukratnye izyskaniia, p. 88. Beaglehole, ed., The Journals, 1: 286-87 & n., on Maori words collected by Endeavour in Jan-March 1770and available to the Russians. (Ika= Cook's "Heica," thc introductory particle having been incorporated into the noun.) 3. In rough rain capes wake: P. Buck (Te Rangi Hiroa), The Coming ofthe Maori (Wellington, 1949), pp. 160-61. Simonov's "skirt" is the kilt, tied with a dressed fibre belt (ibid.: 175-76.) On his "red colouring substance," body oil mixed with such ochre (horu), etc., see Elsdon Best, The Maori As He Was (Wellington, 1952). pp. 222, 233. 4. These were seagoing canoes (nvaka tete), mostly used for fishing or coastal skirting, with gunwale strakes (rauawa), upright stern piece (taurapa), and bow piece (tauihu) with grotesque carved head: classic craft of the Maori. Buck, Coming, pp. 203-04; Best, The Maori Canoe, passint; Haddon & Hornell, Canoes of Oceania, pp. 195ff. 5. This putorino, actually nearer to the alto bugle-flute than the European flageolet (see J .C. Andersen, Maori Music with its Polynesian Background, Wellington, 1934: 273). is missing from the modern Soviet collections. Bellingshausen records hearing a "fife-like" wind instrument, certainly a Maori flute (Buck, Coming, pp. 262-67,) and Novosil'sky writes of the Triton shell trumpet (pu tatara), though it is improbable that he himself

IVAN MIKHA YLOVICH SIMONOV

27

heard one blown. The Maori liking for drums - Vosfdk carried a flautist and drummer: Bellingshausen, op.cit., p. 63 - had already been noted by Cook (Beaglehole, ed., The Journals, 11: 118). so did not surprise the Russians. No bull-roarers, pahu gongs, or calabash whistles were noted in the Sound in 1820. 6. Mamaku, or tree-fern, produced an edible pith much used as food in the South Island. Simonov's "cabbage palm" is ti, o r Cordyline. The two foodstuffs were sometimes cooked together in earth ovens: see Best, Maori Agriculfure, pp. 14 1-42.

28

G L Y N N BARRATT

F i ~ o r eI . Ivan Mikhaylovich Sirnono\.. cil-c;~I840

I V A N M l K H A YLOVICN SIMONOV

29

I:ixtlre 2. I'addri lzadde?evicli I3cllingsll;ruscn. circa 1x23

30

GI. YNN RA R R A T7

Figure 3. Mikhail Petrovich Lazarev, circ;~1835 (Engraving by Thompson).

Figure 4. The Armed Sloop Mirnyy (Drawing, Based on Archival Materials, by M. Semenov).

Figure 5. Two Maoris Encountered by Simonov in Little Waikawa Bay. Queen Charlotte Sound, in .rune 1820 (Drawings by Pavel Nikolayevich Mikhaylov, now at the Russian Museum in Leningrad).

32

G L Y N N B A R R A TT

h

( .

.

# r*

Figure 6. "The Old Chief" and his Wife, Little Waikawa Bay, June 1820 (Drawings by Mikhaylov, unfinished).

IVAN M l K H A YLOVlCH SIMONOV

33

: '2 Figure 7. Nephrite adze (Kazan', 160-2) 17 cm long, collected by Simonov in 1820.

Figure 8 . Korowai cloak of light brown colour, 138 cm by 80 cm, collected by Simonov; now at Kazan' State University Museum (No. 160-7). 34

CL Y N N RA RRA TT

I , ,

:

I,: :,: ,, '

) ' 1,;; '

\;: I. ,

Figure 9. Maori Weaving commencement, collected by Simonov; now at Kazan'State University Museum (No. 160-10).

IVAN M l K H A Y L O V l C H S I M O N O V

35

-

-

Plus Ca Change: The People and Their Culture D.R. Simmons Totaranui, or Queen Charlotte Sound, has for about a thousand years been a natural gateway between the two main islands. The slight overlapping of the northern South Island and the southern North Island, and the relatively short distance between the two (13 miles), mean that one is usually in view of the other. The regions of immediate influence on Queen Charlotte Sound are the lands bordering Raukawa or Cook Strait. In the North Island, these are the tribal areas of Te Ati Awa of north Taranaki, the Taranaki tribe of central Taranaki, the Nga Rauru and Ngati Ruanui of south Taranaki, the Ngati Hau of Wanganui, the Ngati Apa of Rangitikei, the Muaupoko and Rangitane of Horowhenua, the Ngati Ira, Ngai Tara and Ngati Kahungunu of Wellington, Wairarapa and Hawke's Bay. These are complemented by the South Island tribes of Ngai Tumatakokiri, Ngati Mamoe, Ngai Tahu and Waitaha. In the period of recorded history, many of the North Island tribes from Cook Strait were also living in the northern South Island. A typical example were the Nga Puhi of Whakatu, now known as Nelson. They took their origin from a canoe blown off Puketutu at New Plymouth. The tribal group at Puketutu are Ngati Rahiri descended from Rahiri, who is also an important Northland ancestor of the Ngapuhi tribes, hence the tribal name of Nelson - Nga Puhi. These people were later taken over by Ngati Apa from Rangitikei and in the 1830s by Te Ati Awa (Simmons, 1976: 204). From the earliest settlement in the South Island, radiocarbon dates indicate a gradual movement from north t o south as the area was settled. With the discovery of the D'Urville-Nelson source of argillite rock, a substantial trade in rock and finished adzes developed. By the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries A.D. argillite was being traded over most

of New Zealand. Very distinctive large-gripped quadrangular adzes made from D'Urville-Nelson baked argillite are recorded from Twilight Bay near North Cape and Tuatapere in the south-west of the South Island. Obsidian from Mayor Island in the Bay of Plenty also reached Stewart Island and North Cape. The main gateway and nexus for this whole trade was Queen Charlotte Sound. The traditional history indicates which tribes were present in the Sounds, at least in the later period. After the arrival of European travellers in 1770, there are written records that can also be used. In conjunction with these can be placed the artefacts collected and taken back to Europe. The Captain James Cook Collection and Queen Charlotte Sound The artefact collections made by Captain James Cook and his men, together with the observations and pictorial records of his voyages, form an important documentation of Maori life, art and culture in the late eighteenth century. In one sense, prehistory was caught alive; in another, it ended. Prehistory was caught alive on the first voyage visits in October 1769 to Poverty Bay, Hawke's Bay, Coromandel and later, the Bay of Islands, but by the time Cook reached Queen Charlotte Sound in January 1770, the people there already knew about iron nails and were prepared to ask for them. Culture contact on the first voyage probably led to some movement of people to Queen Charlotte Sound but this could well have been happening without the attraction of European ships. First voyage artefacts taken back to Europe are of very great importance but suffer from a lack of precise information about the localities from which they were collected. The main collections are now in London and Stockholm. The second voyage of Captain Cook to New Zealand included a stay in Dusky Sound and three successive visits to Queen Charlotte Sound between May 1773 and November 1774. While the collections from the second voyage are no better catalogued, the places from where they may have been 38

D.R. S I M M O N S

collected are only two in number. On the third voyage, Cook called at Queen Charlotte Sound in February 1773 and the artist, Webber, made a collection, which is now in Berne. These collections comprise the majority of the artefacts that can be ascribed to time and place during Cook's voyages. The people observed in the Sound during Cook's first voyage would appear to have come from the immediate area. The visit to the Sound was paid between 14 January 1770 and 6 February 1770. This stay, of twenty-one days, gave little time for more distant groups to hear that Cook was there and actually make the journey to see him.

The First Voyage When Cook called at Queen Charlotte Sound on his first voyage on 14 January 1770, the pa (fort) on Motuara Island was occupied and all the inhabitants were in arms (Beaglehole, 1955: 234). Some men came up in canoes with the chief, an old man named Topaa being the first to come on board (Beaglehole, 1962, I: 460). They were dressed as in Tasman's record: "that is 2 corners of the cloth they wore were passed over their shoulders and fastened to the rest just below their breast but few or none had feathers in their hair" (Banks in Beaglehole, 1962, I: 453). On the 16th, three small canoes came with about one hundred people, including women. "The women in the canoes and some of the men had a piece of dress which we had not seen before - a bunch of black feathers made round and tied upon the top of their heads which is entirely covered" (Banks, ibid: 454). The inhabitants were not always peaceable, as on 15 January they brought a dried head to trade. The canoes are described as elegant and a few men as tattooed (Parkinson, 1784: 115- 17). Later, on 16 January, Cook and his men saw a not-long-dead woman floating in a cove and observed a "dog being prepared for eating and noticed picked human bones said to come from an enemy killed in an attack five days before" (Beaglehole, 1962, I: 455; Beaglehole, 1955: 236). On the 19th, a group came from another town (Beaglehole, 1962, I: 457). Cook records that on PLUS CA CHANGE 39

the next day they saw an oven with human bones and that on the 20th a canoe came with four heads to trade. Banks purchased one (Beaglehole, 1962, I: 237). More human bones were seen on January 21 on Motuara (Beaglehole, 1955: 239). Another small p a (on Long Island) was much like Motuara. Cook sent a boat to an island and while there the party saw a group of Maori come ashore near a group of houses. The women immediately started a tangi[lament] (Beaglehole, 1955, I: 242). On 4 February Banks records meeting a group of Maori in double canoe who reported that a small child with them had recently been eaten by enemies (Beaglehole, 1962, I: 462). The next day a party of seventeen people was met, led by a young boy of ten who stated he was the owner of the land where they were getting wood (Beaglehole, 1962, I: 463). In general, Cook notes that the inhabitants of the Sound hardly exceeded more than "3 or 400 people, they leive despers'd along the Shores in search of their daly bread, which were fish and firn roots, for they cultivate no part of the lands. . . . This people are poor when compared to many we have seen and their Canoes are mean and without orament, the little traffick we had with them was wholy for fish for we saw little else they had to dispose o f ' (Beaglehole, 1955: 247). There were two fortified pa, one on Motuara and one on Long Island. Though they had recently withstood attack, the two pa did not appear hostile to each other. Certainly the human bones seen on both p a would suggest that there was nothing to fear as no relatives were left alive to take revenge for the insult of seeing their kin eaten. The fact that the inhabitants brought the heads to the ship also indicates that they did not expect to see any relatives of the dead men there. If there had been, a war would have started immediately. The Second Voyage The Resolution and Adventure spent a long time in Queen Charlotte Sound, using the anchorage as a base for further exploration. The three visits between May 1773 and November

1774 included a total of eleven months spent in the shelter of the Sound. In these circumstances, the opportunity for people from more distant areas to reach the Sounds was greater. The importance of trade with visiting Europeans is recorded by George Forster in reporting the experience of the Adventure which had preceded the Endeavour to the Sound. "They had brought with them great quantities of their clothing, tools and weapons which they eagerly exchanged for nails, hatchets and cloth. . . The inhabitants of the Sound who amount to some hundred persons in several distinct and independent parties and were often at variance with each other, had begaun an intercourse with them, and paid them several visits, coming from the interior ports" (Forster, 1771, I: 198-99). The groups seen in Queen Charlotte Sound during this voyage could have been of six main origins: I. Local to the immediate area of Queen Charlotte Sound; 2. Local to the northern South Island, i.e., Admiralty Bay, Nelson, Golden Bay; 3. From other parts of the South Island; 4. From the Wanganui-Taranaki coast on the west coast of the North Island; 5. From the Wellington-Horowhenua coast on the south-west coast of the North Island; 6. From Cape Terawhiti, Palliser Bay on the east coast of the North Island. The groups who came to the ship, or were contacted, can be identified with reasonable certainty as being from one of these origins. 1. Groups local to the area 1. I. Two small canoes with five men (Forster, 1777, I: 204-206); 1.2. Several canoes, thirty people (Forster, 1777, I: 2 10); 1.3. Natives from another part of the bay (Forster, 1777, I: 468); 1.4. Peteree's people of Shag Cove (Forster, 1777, I: 455); 1.5. Natives of East Bay (Forster, 1777, I: 505); PLUS CA C H A N G E 41

1.6. A small group (Forster, 1777, I: 506); 1.7. Te Ringapuhi of Whekenui (Haghee-nooee), Tory Channel; (Forster 1777, I: 47 1-2) (who was fully tattooed as were most of his men). 2. Groups local to the northern South Island Cultural items from this area could be indistinguishable from Queen Charlotte Sound o r Wanganui-Taranaki artefacts. Traditionally, some inhabitants of the area originated in the Wanganui-Taranaki region. Cultural influences from across Cook Strait appear to have been strong at all periods even though the basic culture is very similar t o that of Queen Charlotte Sound: "A large canoe with twelve people from the north," (Forster, 1777, I: 208) and "seven or eight canoes from the north-west" (Forster, 1777, I: 508).

3. Groups from other parts of the South Island Two small double canoes like the Dusky one (Forster, 1777, I: 204) included Kollakh (Korako) later of Otago (Forster, 1777, I: 209); exchanged on return (ibid: 500) a great number of green nephrite chisels, hatchets. 4,s. Groups from the Wanganui-Taranaki coast or

Horowhenua Several canoes of different sizes (Forster, 1777, I: 217), three with sails, some double or outrigger, i.e., a narrow plank fixed to one side by transverse poles. Distorted human figure at head and high sterns (ibid: 218). Their paddles were sharp and pointed (North Island style). The name of the chief who was "marked in the face with deeply excavated spiral lines" was Tringho-Waya [? Te Rangihouwea or Taringahoowaea] (Forster, ibid: 220).

6. Groups from Cape Terawhiti Teiratu's (Te Ratu) people from Cape Terawhiti in the North Island were rich in kairaka cloaks, trumpets, and other items. As well as arms, tools, dresses and ornaments, "they had 42

D.R. SIMMONS

greater quantities of these things than any New Zealanders we had seen" (ibid: 229). These people had a double canoe fifty feet long with a high stern and a head curiously carved with spiral and fretwork lines. It also had a human figure in the front such as Cook had seen on his first voyage (Forster, 1777, I: 228). Captain Cook's Third Voyage Captain Cook returned to New Zealand in February 1777, staying thirteen days in Queen Charlotte Sound. The p a at Motuara which had been deserted on the second voyage visits had been newly repaired but it was uninhabited. Webber, the artist with the expedition, made a sketch of the main house, which had a carved lintel and doorposts. Unfortunately, he did not attempt a close-up of the carving (BM.Add.MSS. 17,227 f8 and 15, 513 f6). In another sketch of the whole pa, Webber added some human figures for scale. People in the Sound did not include Te Ratu, who had left the area, nor Te Ringapuhi of Tory Channel, whose tribe had been attacked five months before. Women of the tribe were said to have been taken to Admiralty Bay (Beaglehole, 1967: 67). One of the locals from the second voyage was Kahura, who had taken the Adventure's boat on the second voyage (Beaglehole, 1967: 62). Another was Pedro, or Matahouah, met at Grass Cove. He too was known from the second voyage (Beaglehole, 1961: 576), and was now married to Peteree's daughter (Beaglehole, 1967: 65). On 21 February, Cook was "visited by a Tribe or Family I had never seen before, consisting of about thirty person(s), men, Women and children; they came from the upper part of the Sound and were some of the finest people I have ever seen in this place; the chiefs name was Tomatongeauooranue [Tamatangiauuranui], a man about forty-five years of age, with a fine cheerful open countenance, two things more or less remarkable throughout the whole tribe" (Cook in Beaglehole, 1967: 65). Bayly the astronomer called him "the Raining (sic) chief of the Sound and with him 20 of the finest young men I ever saw" (McNab, 1914,II: 221). P L U S C A CHANGE 43

Anderson records the same group as being in seven canoes and bartering cloths, spears, clubs, etc. They went to live in a nearby small cove (Beaglehole, 1967: 801). This was on 2 1 and 22 February. On the 24th, Samwell records, two or three large canoes full of men arrived with many articles to trade (Beaglehole, 1967: 1001). One of these contained Kahura, who came from the south-east part of the Sound (Beaglehole, 1967: 68). Another group who were known were the Otago party, which included Korako. Two of the boys, Tawahirua [Te Wehirua] or Tiarooa and his servant Koa, agreed to go on board and accompany Omai to Tahiti (Beaglehole, 1967: 70). The several groups who came do not appear to have been hostile to each other, which suggests that either they were at peace or they were related. They were certainly all from the immediate area, as time was too short for more distant groups to arrive. Many collections were made on the third voyage but the only ones which can clearly be identified are those in Leningrad, given by Captain Clerke to the Governor of Kamchatka (Kaeppler, 1978: 46), and the Webber collection in the Berne Historical Museum. The Leningrad collection contains no New Zealand items; the Webber collection has only six.

The Bellingshausen Visit On May 27, 1820, F.F. Bellingshausen, commanding two ships of the Russian navy, dropped anchor in Queen Charlotte Sound. He stayed there ten days, then sailed without calling at any other port of New Zealand. The collection made during those days is in the Peter-the-Great Museum of the MiklukhoMaklay Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography in Leningrad. A further collection made by the astronomer, I.M. Simonov, is at Kazan' State University. Bellingshausen, like other officers in the Russian navy, saw the explorations of Cook as a model t o follow. The spirit of 44

D.R. S I M M O N S

Cook and the scientific emphases of his voyages were guiding lights. So were the volumes of Cook's Voyages. The call at Queen Charlotte Sound was no accident (see Barratt, 1979: 13). As Bellingshausen moved into Queen Charlotte Sound, he followed Cook's chart and anchored off Motuara. Two canoes containing 23 and 16 men rowed up. The canoes had "at the prow, open carvings with snail patterns and a representation of a human head with tongue protruding, the eyes being made with shells. The stern rose up about 6 feet - a beam set at right angles to the craft. The oars were shovel-like as are those of all the peoples of the South Sea" (Barratt, 1979: 30). The men, or rather the principal ones, were tattooed and dressed in cloaks fastened at the breast with a bone or piece of basalt. Over this they had a thick cloak like a felt cloak. Bellingshausen later moved to a spot near Cook's anchorage just off the south head of Ship's Cove. Two more canoes followed them and the same group as before traded fish and "articles of native manufacture" (ibid: 32). On May 3 1 Bellingshausen went to visit a small settlement in Cannibal Cove which consisted of three small, low huts. There, the chief presented the Russians with "a piece of cloth made of New Zealand flax, with a patterned borderW(Barratt,1979: 36). They then moved on to what is now Little Waikawa Bay to visit a chief who had called on them at the ship. This was a settlement with a palisade on the seaward side, and with a gate. Houses were set on either side of a stream, the edges of which were paved with cobblestones and which was crossed by a bridge. The chief's house was made with three rows of posts. "The central posts were twice as high as a man and on each of them an ugly human figure had been carved and decorated with red colouring. The wall posts were a fraction lower than the shoulders of a man. On the walls were matting, fine mats were on the ground and there were pikes 24 feet long on the walls together with a staff, various insignia of a chief, and human figures carved out of wood and painted red. The other dwellings were not so finished." On 3 June Bellingshausen went to explore the interior of the Sound. He saw some huts but no settlements. While he was away people came and bartered spears, various carved boxes, fishhooks, staffs, "insignia of chiefs," bludgeons of green stone,

PLUS CA CHANGE 45

axes, various clasps and ornaments of green basalt, and cloths" (Barratt, 1979: 40). "The inhabitants of Queen Charlotte Sound cover their bodies, from below the chest to half-way down the thighs with a piece of white woven material, tied round by a narrow belt. Round the shoulders they throw a deftly woven piece of white or red cloth, edged with a dark border. This is fastened at the chest by pins, four or five inches long, made of green basalt or of bone. . . When it is cool, the natives wear, over the outer clothing, a shaggy cloak" (Barratt, 1979: 4 1). The number of inhabitants did not exceed 80 in the month of June 1820. "The natives have now supplemented their former food supply with the splendid potato, not inferior to the English . . . which they grow in their garden plots" (Barratt, 1979: 44). The People and Their Artefacts The records from Cook's and Bellingshausen's visits to New Zealand span a period of fifty years. Some of the people met by Europeans were visitors from the North Island with a material culture to match; but that does not preclude subsequent settlement in the Sounds. The artefactual evidence provided by the Bellingshausen collection in Leningrad is an important one in this respect, as it took place some twenty-two years after Cook's last visit. Immediately preceding the Russian visits there had been some sealers or whalers who had used the anchorage following publication of Purdy's The Oriental Navigator (18 16). This compendium brought together earlier records of Pacific anchorages. Cook had recommended Dusky Sound, Queen Charlotte Sound, the Thames, and the Bay of Islands as harbours in New Zealand. The recommendations were all repeated in The Oriental Navigator; but vessels are recorded as having called at Queen Charlotte Sound as early as 1810 (McNab, 1914, I: 303). Artefacts that can be identified and that relate to Cook's voyages, together with the Leningrad and Kazan' collections resulting from the Russian expedition, offer a way of looking at

46

D.R. SIMMONS

the culture, history and people of the Sounds, their way of life and relations with people in other areas. Particular artefact styles can be identified which suggest the origins of the groups present. The written records for Cook's voyages are clear on this point. Collections made in 1770 on Cook's first voyage consisted of the following items (described in some detail in Simmons, 1981): Clothing 1 . Double-pair twine cloaks with no shaping by weft inserts at shoulders or buttocks. A South Island form of cloak. 2. "Canvas weaveWsingle-pairclose twine cloak with black and natural raniko, hem finished with braid and strips of dogskin. 3. Plaited cloak in South Island style. 4. Belts plaited or woven, decorated with brown cord. Weapons 1. Wahaika club in wood decorated with "Wanganui", i.e., Cook Strait style carving. 2. Patu paraoa, whalebone with definite handle area. 3. Patu onewa, stone club with flat pommel. 4. Taiaha staff with carved tongue in "Wanganui" style. 5. Pouwhenua staff with janus head in "Wanganui" style. 6. Tewharewha staff with "Taranaki" style decoration. Ornaments 1. Wood comb with manaia carving on side in "Cook Strait" style. 2. Black feather caps worn by women. Implement Shark-tooth knife with decoration in "Wanganui" style. Music I . Koauau flute decorated in "Wanganui" style. 2. Nguru flute decorated in "Wanganui" style. 3. Pukaea trumpet decorated in south Taranaki style.

PLUS CA CHANGE 47

Adzes 1. Greenstone quadrangular adze. 2. Greenstone chisel.

All these items clearly belong to the people of Queen Charlotte Sound, a people who had fairly close affinities with the other side of Cook Strait, particularly with the Wanganui people perhaps of the Horowhenua coast north of Wellington. This is evidenced by the "Wanganui" style carving decoration which is also found on the artefacts of Ngati Apa and Ati Hau. Artefacts from Cook's Second Voyage The artefacts collected on this voyage were nearly all from Queen Charlotte Sound. As with the first voyage collections, there is a quite distinct and recognizable local Sound variety to the Cook Strait culture. The Otago, or more strictly Kai Tahu, items are few. Except for the cross-hatching on a flute and a toggle, there is nothing that can be defined as Kai Tahu except greenstone adzes and mere. While the Wanganui-Taranaki groups shared cultural items with the northern South Island and the Sounds, there are distinctive items not recorded at this time for the South Island groups. This is more noticeable with Te Ratu and his tribal group, who had a number of items - combs, tokipoutangata adze, and trumpets - which were not collected from any of the other groups. The cultural status of this group would appear to be East Coast North Island but with affiliation with the west coast area, perhaps through Horowhenua, by trade, kinship or war. The few artefacts that we have make it possible to define the local material culture of the groups present in the Sounds on the second voyage. These items have been described in detail (see Simmons, 1981). What follows is a summary that illustrates the different cultural items of these groups. Local Croups Cloaks: Weft double-pair twine or single-pair twine (canvas weave); warp which includes spaced black and brown lines;

48

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sides finished with extra brown cord; bottom and top of weft cut off; brown and black braid used as a hem; strips of dogskin added t o the corners by half-hitching after the cloak was finished; shaping may o r may not be present; taniko where present sometimes finished with a braid; simply designed taniko with black and brown triangles, o r plain black as decoration.

Weapons I . Irregularly shaped greenstone mere. 2. Whalebone patu with definite handle area. 3. Basaltpatu with n o expansion of the butt o r with expansion and a flat "squashed" pommel. 4. Wood wahaika with carving in "Wanganui" style, manaia on butt. 5 . Taiaha club - eyebrows and mouth with pakati but n o spirals. Ornaments 1. Irregular greenstone ear ornaments. 2. Dentalium shell necklaces. Northern South Island Weapons 1. Patu paraoa short and heavy with slightly expanded butt. 2. Wooden wahaika carved in a Taranaki-Cook Strait style. 3. Taiaha with interlocking crescents o n the eyebrows and mouth. 4 . Pouwhenua club with carving in a Taranaki style. 5. Tewhatewha club. 6 . Canoe bailer with mask in Taranaki-Wanganui style (Note the closer relationship with Taranaki rather than with Wanganui).

Otago group 1 . Greenstone adzes. 2. Bone toggle with chevron lines. 3. Wooden flute decorated with diagonal lines.

PLUS CA C H A N G E 49

Wanganui-Taranaki group I . Chisel ear pendant in greenstone. 2. Kinky pendant in greenstone. 3. Hafted adzes and chisels. 4. Hei tiki with body wider than head. 5. Bundles of human teeth. 6. Shark tooth knife with manaia on it in Taranaki style (These include specifically North Island culture items). Cape Terawhiti (Wellington) Cloaks 1. Kaitaka cloak with red, white and black border (diamonds?). 2. Double-pair twine cloak with shaping. Cloak pins made of ivory and bone combs. A tokipoutangata adze carved in an East Coast-Horowhenua style.

Trumpets 1 . Pukaea. 2. A putatara shell trumpet with carved mouth piece in south Taranaki style. 3. A putorino trumpet-flute with carved head in East Coast style. Artefacts from Cook's Third Voyage A kaitaka cloak, two bone cloak pins, one ivory cloak pin, a basalt club, a nguru flute and some flax fibre. These are all the items which can clearly be identified as having been collected in Queen Charlotte Sound on the third voyage. The cloak has a Taranaki style taniko but the side braids and extra brown cord at the upper hem are similar to other cloaks collected in the Sounds from people local t o the northern South Island. This would suggest that in the cloak we are seeing an admixture of elements from both sides of Cook Strait such as would be appropriate to a group like that of Tamatangiauuanui. As we shall see, the style of the butt on the patu would also suggest influence from the other side of Cook Strait. The cloak pins are similar to those collected on the 50 D.R. S I M M O N S

second voyage from Te Ratu's group. Unfortunately, nguru flutes are not included in the second voyage collections. The 1820 Collection The collections made by the Bellingshausen expedition in 1820 are housed in the Peter-the-Great Museum of the Miklukho-Macklay Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography in the Academy of Sciences in Leningrad and at Kazan' State University. The Leningrad Collection Clothing No. 736.125 Korowai cape with natural colour tags. Made with double-pair twine 8 mm apart, shaping is provided by five inserts at the shoulders with a fine rolled cord of natural and black fibre. There is a fringe on three sides. Width 133 cm, depth 100 cm. No. 736.126 Korowai cape with natural coloured tags made with double-pair twine 1 cm apart (otherwise identical to 736.125). Width 140 cm, depth 100 cm. No. 736.128 Unfinished weaving, part of an aronui cloak. The bottom edge is a black and natural braid 1.7 cm wide. The weft is double-pair twine, 1 cm apart. Along the bottom edge, two weft lines from the edge and two weft lines wide, a strip of taniko is inserted for 28.2 cm in an alternate black and natural barred-triangle pattern. Two wefts further in, there is another strip one weft line wide with brown triangles outlined in natural on black. The warp includes spaced stripes of black and brown alternately five times. The top edge of the weft is finished with an extra brown line. Length 159 cm, depth 23 cm. No. 736.129 Close single-pair twine kaitaka cloak with double taniko borders on three sides. The upper hem is finished with an extra black and natural cord. The taniko has been woven in when weaving. The upper taniko ends some four or five centimetres above the upper edge of the lower taniko. This cloak may have been decorated with feather quillets as some weft threads have been stretched. Length 116 cm, depth 106 cm. PLUS CA CHANGE 51

No. 736.130 Kaitaka feather cloak. A single-pair twine, close canvas weave cloak, with double taniko on three sides. The neck edge is painted in brown and natural colour. All the taniko has been woven on the same warp threads as the body of the cloak. The cloak is decorated with quillets of pukeko, pigeon and possibly notornis feathers which have been laid on the weaving at six to eight centimetres apart and spaced in alternate rows, then woven across. In this cloak the natural colour is not golden but a pale cream-white, the fibre being very soft although the weave is like canvas. Length 110 cm, depth 170 cm. No. 736.13 1 Kaitaka cloak with taniko on base. The weft is double-pair twine 1 cm apart with shaping at the shoulder of five inserts and at the bottom of four inserts. The neck band is braided brown and natural. The sides have been finished with a narrow I-cm band of black, which has been cut off. Length 160 cm, depth 1 12 cm. No. 736.132 Pihepihe cloak made with double-pair twine I cm apart. The top is rolled, the sides are tied off, and there is a fringe on three sides. The body of the cloak is decorated with fine rolled strips of flax leaf with scraped and black dyed sections and some plain fibre tags. width 153 cm, depth 120 cm. No. 736.133 Pihepihe cloak. Weft double-pair twine 1.2 to 1.5 cm apart. There is shaping at the shoulders of five inserts and at the buttocks of six inserts. There are fine tag fringes on three sides. The body of the cloak is covered with fine rolled flax strips with scraped areas dyed black. Width 154 cm, depth 115 cm. No. 736.134 Rough cloak made with double-pair twine 1 cm apart. Shaping at the shoulder of six inserts and at the buttock, nine inserts. The neck band is rolled with a fine tag fringe. The body of the cloak is covered with thick black and natural rolled tags. Length 140 cm, width 116 cm. No. 736.135 Heavy double cloak woven as one piece with a fringe on the lower edge, made of brown coloured vegetable fibre. Length, top 157 cm, bottom 284 cm, depth 106 cm. No. 736.136 Rain cloak made with cordyline fibre with some Freycinettia Banksiistrands. Single-pair twine weft 3.5 to

4.5 cm apart. One line of shaping at the bottom. The neck band is rolled and the sides plaited off. (Kahu toi). Width 135 cm, depth 100 cm. Weapons No. 736.1 15 Taiaha, a two-handed club with face and protruding tongue at one end, decorated with two pairs of whorls. Mouth and eyebrow ridges decorated with pakati and small spirals. Carving style of Gisborne and made with iron tools. Length 210.5 cm, blade width 8.9 cm, head length 20 cm. No. 736.1 16 Tewhatewha or two-handed club of axe shape, with janus head in south Taranaki style, made with iron tools. There are split hawk feathers attached through the hole in the blade. Length 170 cm, width of head 21.5 cm. No. 736.117 Tewhatewha or two-handed club of axe shape, with a very rounded "blade" weight and barbs on the point. The barbs are grouped up t o 19 cm from the point with three on the left, three on the right, two on the left. Length 130.5 cm, blade width 11.2 cm. No. 736.262 Mere of Lake Wakatipu type green-stone. A flat mere with the butt expanded slightly into a dome shape. No defined shoulders. There is a perforation with rolled flax cord looped through with two knots. A South Island style mere. Length 37 cm, blade width 8 cm. Ornaments No. 736.268 Ear pendant, kuru type. A greenstone ear pendant of "bodkin"shape which could be mistaken for a cloak pin but is much too thick. It has a transverse hole and is slightly curved and pointed. Length 13 cm, diameter 1 cm. No. 736.269 Adze pendant with curved cutting edge and hole. Length 6.6 cm, width 3.2 cm. No. 736.265 Adze pendant with asymmetical outline, bevel and hole. Length 7.1 cm, width 3.8 cm.

PLUS CA CHANGE 53

Figures No. 736.118 Tekoteko, gable ornament figure, with a ridge for attachment with three holes at the back. A female figure which has a male spiral facial tattoo with a single cheek spiral on each side. In 1844 Shortland on his journey through Otago recorded: "1 afterward met with several other old women of this tribe (Kai Tahu) who had . . . engraved on their faces many of the marks, which in the North Island I have never seen but on males" (Shortland, 1851: 18). In the North Island occasionally male tattoos were put on females, in whole, or in part, to mark a maiden set aside from sex relations of any kind because of unequalled status. Such a female would not appear, as this figurine does, as a tekoteko, that is, an ancestress. This would indicate a South Island, and more specifically Kai Tahu tribal origin. The figure is carved with stone or iron tools. Length 70 cm, width 12 cm. No. 736.1 19 Tekoteko, gable apex figure of attenuated body form with an attachment hole through the back and an area cut out of the buttocks. The figure has a long body with thin arms, the left hand on the stomach, the right ending at the wrist on the hip. No sex is shown. It has a partial tattoo with forehead and mouth rays. Length 49.5 cm, width 14 cm. No. 736.120 A carving of four figures in Gisborne style made with stone tools. The figures are carved in the round and form a figure 7 with a figure with median crest on the top with feet to the head of the topmost of three figures. The upper figure of the three is a male copulating with a reversed female. There is an attachment point which has broken off behind the head of the lowest figure. No other attachments are obvious. The purpose of this carving was funerary. Length overall 84 cm, width 10 cm. This piece is believed originally to have been one of a set of supports or stays, used to hold firm the corpse of a paramount chiefess who was taken by canoe to her final (South Island) resting place.

54 D. R. SIMMONS

Feather boxes No. 736.121 Wakahuia, oval feather box with heads as handles but no bodies. Carved in Gisborne style with metal tools. Length 49 cm, width 11 cm, depth 10 cm. No. 736.122 Wakahuia, oval feather box with heads as handles joined to bodies on the end of the box. The box is carved with metal tools and is not completed. The carving style is that of Gisborne or the East Coast of the North Island. Length 53 cm, width 22 cm. No. 736.123 Wakahuia, oval feather box with heads as handles, either end joined onto female bodies on the end of the box. The box has been made with stone or soft iron tools and is in the carving style of Gisborne. Length 64 cm, width 26.2 cm, depth I 1 cm. No. 736.124 Papahou, flat feather box. This rectangular box, with heads as handles either end, is joined onto low relief bodies on the base. The heads and base carvings are carved with stone tools. The carving style is that of the Wanganui area, also found in the northern South Island. The lid of the box has been carved with metal tools. It has two figures on each end with heads on the top of the handles. The figures on the lid have domed foreheads and are carved in the same style as the decoration, that of the Hokianga area of Northland. The box was originally carved with stone tools. At that time the handles and base carvings were completed. At some later date a carver working in the Hokianga style completed the box with a metal tool, possibly a nail or something used to make a hard edge. The most likely explanation for the disparity in styles is that the box was souvenired by a northern raider who completed the carving. It later found its way by gift exchange to Queen Charlotte Sound. Such raids had reached as far as Taranaki as early as 1810 (Smith, 1910: 61). Length 60 cm, width 18 cm, depth 12.5 cm. Paddles No. 736.1 13 Hoe. A flat war canoe paddle with gymnast figure on the handle in Taranaki style. The style of this carving is clearly from the central to southern area of Taranaki as is the PLUS CA CHANGE 55

form of the paddle itself. Length 232.5 cm, length of blade 108 cm, width of blade 12.5 cm. No. 736.114 A canoe paddle with flat blade painted on one side with mangopare (hammerhead shark patterns). The butt of the handle was a round knob which is now broken. At the loom of the blade, a head is carved in Gisborne style with iron tools. Length 178.5 cm, width of blade 12.8 cm, blade length 87 cm. No. 736.168 A paddle with broad dished blade markedly concave-convex front and back. The blade ends in a blunt hook similar to, though not as large as, those on Mangarevan paddles. On the front of the blade, stretching from the loom of the handle to halfway down, carved figures have been roughly cut with stone tools. The figures are undecorated but the general style can be characterized as Wanganui-Horowhenua, i-e., a Cook Strait style. Length 200 cm, blade width 16 cm, blade length 110 cm, length of carving 40 cm. No. 736.173 A paddle with broad dished blade markedly concave-convex and ending in a blunt hook. There is a median ridge on the back. On the lower section of the back, stone tool marks show that the final dressing of the blade was from the ridge to the edge. The handle ends in an expanded flat knob. Length 197.5 cm, blade width 15.3 cm, blade length 1 10 cm. Adzes No. 736.263 Asymmetrical nephrite adze. Length 14 cm, width 6.4 cm. No. 736.264 Nephrite adze. Length 20.3 cm, width 4.7 cm. No. 736.267 Nephrite chisel of flat cross-section. Length 8.4 cm, width 2.4 cm, depth .7 cm. The Kazan' Collection Formed by Ivan Mikhaylovich Simonov

CIot hing No. 7 Korowai cloak of flax of light brown colour. Doublepair twine 1.5 to 2 cm apart. Decorated with self-colour tags 10-14 cm apart. Dimensions 138 x 80 cm.

No. 8 Specimen of hand weaving, shaped and ornamented with seven dark-brown parallel bands in the warp 17 to 20 cm apart. Dimensions 136 x 1 14 cm. No. 9 Unfinished weaving. Beginning of a cloak with striped warp lines grouped in threes and some single lines 20-25 cm apart, dyed dark brown. Eight lines of double-pair twine weft. Dimensions 136 x 6 cm. No. 10 Weaving, unfinished. Five rows of double-pair twine warp with five and six strips of alternate light and dark brown 26 cm apart. The two ends of this piece are dyed dark brown. A South Island striped cloak in the making. Dimensions 141 x 7 cm. Ornaments No. 3 Nephrite ornament in the form of a triangle. The edges have been rounded, the sides notched. A pendant of Otago type. Length 9.5 cm, width 8.2 cm. No. 6 Necklace of thirteen univalve shells threaded on vegetable fibre. Fishhooks No. 4 Composite circular fish-hook made of a bent piece of wood 24 cm long. Barbed bone point with serrated outer edge attached by twine. Twine around snood. Length 15 cm, width 9 cm. No. 5 Jabbing fish-hook made of a slightly bent piece of wood 10 cm long. Barbed bird bone point lashed on with twine. One outside barb. The base of the hook has a curved tail which projects past the lashing. Snood wrapping and line still attached. Length 10 cm, width 5.2 cm. Adzes No. I Rectangular sectioned adze of nephrite sharpened on two sides with cutting scar at side. Length 22 cm, width 5.5 to 2.5 cm. No. 2 Nephrite adze of almost rectangular cross-section. Length 17 cm, width 5.5 to 2.5 cm. The 1820 collections contain items clearly obtained by trade, PLUS CA CHANGE 57

gift exchange or war from areas outside Queen Charlotte Sound. These include the taiaha, the figure group, a paddle, and two wakahuia, all in Gisborne style from the East Coast of the North Island. They indicate a fairly close relationship of some sort with the East Coast, possibly by way of Cape Terawhiti and Palliser Bay. The papahou feather box with its curious mixture of tools and carving styles suggests perhaps that one of the Ngapuhi who went south with one of the early musket raids to Wanganui may have stayed there and finished a box which, by gift exchange, reached Queen Charlotte Sound (e.g., from Murupaenga's raid in 1810 - Smith, 1910: 61). There are other items that continue the influence noted on the third voyage from the Taranaki area, either directly or by way of the other areas of the northern South Island. The direction of this influence may be indicated by a striped aronui cloak with taniko inserted in the weft, collected by Dumont D'Urville in Tasman Bay, Nelson, in 1826. This cloak, which is closely similar to the unfinished pieces in Leningrad and Kazanr, is now housed in L7H6pitalde la Marine at Rochefort in France. Another striped aronui cloak with taniko on three sides with two larger blocks at the bottom corners is housed in Le MusCe des AntiquitCs Nationaux at St. Germain en Laye. This cloak, also probably collected by D'Urville in Tasman Bay in 1826, has Taranaki style taniko patterns, similar to those on the Webber cloak in Berne. The techniques of cloak manufacture would appear to have remained stable, although shaping in the cloaks of double-pair twine is common rather than rare. Cloaks with chestnut brown and black stripes in the warp are a feature of South Island weaving (Simmons, 1968: 10). Such cloaks are not part of the North Island repertoire. The single-pair twine canvas weave cloaks with taniko decoration were present in Queen Charlotte South at the time of the second voyage. Again, they are not known other than by the Cook voyage collections, the 1820 collection, and a few examples collected at about the same time, probably in Cook's Strait. For example, a cloak in Berlin (No. V1.490) has a 58 D. R. SIMMONS

canvas single-pair twine weft, taniko with brown and black triangles and feathers attached after weaving with halfhitching. The feathers had originally been white black-backed gull but were dyed pink with soaked-out dye from red cloth that was brushed across them. This cloak was collected by a Captain Hadlock and placed in the Berlin Museum before 1824. Except for one fragment collected in the North Island, which can be traditionally associated with a woman of the northern South Island, no cloaks of this type are known from later North Island collections. Sidney Mead (1969: 48-52) places examples of these cloaks as described by Roth (1923) in his D or dogskin class and in his K or kaitaka class, depending on whether the cloak is decorated with dogskin or not. Mead was unaware of a type of cloak such as Leningrad 7361 129, with canvas weave, taniko on three sides and feathers attached in quillets, which might be compared with a similar cloak in the Cook collection in Vienna (No. 25). That cloak has triangle taniko in brown, black and natural (white) at the base and feathers attached in quillets (illustrated in Kaeppler, 1978: Fig. 324). A probable Cook collection piece in the Hunterian Museum at Glasgow (E422) has base taniko, grouped feathers, and extra dogskin strips at the side. These would suggest a tradition of close single-pair twine cloaks as a feature of Queen Charlotte Sound, a tradition that continued until 1824 in terms of techniques even though the decorative element of the taniko had undergone change, new ideas being imported by way of other parts of the northern South Island from the Taranaki style. The Leningrad dished paddle with carving on the inside top of the blade and the unfinished example (7361 168 & 173) are not matched by comparable items in collections studied. However, two points can be made. The British Museum has one similar paddle (No. 1947.0c4.l), depicted in Sarah Stone's watercolours of objects in the Leverian Museum (Force & Force, 1968: Fig. 128), among them objects from Cook's second and third voyages (Kaeppler, 1978: 45,47). Another paddle of the same type is in the National Museum of Ireland. PLUS CA C H A N G E 59

It is from the second or third voyage (illustrated in Kaeppler, 1978: Fig. 406). This type of paddle is again a feature of South Island collections. Skinner illustrates a number of these and describes their characteristics thus: "In general the two sides of the blade d o not constitute a flat surface but are set at a wide angle to each other, and converge at the back on a median spine. The point of the blade is often so much thickened as to suggest a hook. The spine is a pronounced ridge prolonging the alignment of the shaft. In paddles where the blade tends to flatten, the spine divides in two and spreads outwards. In these respects the South Island paddle perpetuates East Polynesian features which have been lost in North Island Classic Maori" (Skinner, 1974: 133). A similar paddle is also recorded for Monck's Cave at Sumner near Christchurch (Skinner, 1924: 154). The greenstone mere is "irregular" in shape with no butt ridges as compared to North Island examples. These irregular mere would appear to be a South Island feature, judging by those in Canterbury and Otago Museums. Cultural influence in 1820 then, was not confined to trade and design.

Discussion The artefacts considered here include only those that can reliably be associated with Queen Charlotte Sound. There are many others that can indeed be documented as having been collected during Cook's voyages. I have considered only twenty-one cloaks out of a total of forty which can so be documented. Of these, fifteen have been taken which were collected in Queen Charlotte Sound or which correspond with others that were. Ten of these belong to the local area. In the Bellingshausen collections of 1820 there are fifteen cloaks or parts of cloaks, all certainly collected in Queen Charlotte Sound. The stability of the culture of the Sounds is perhaps best exemplified by the technology of cloak weaving. In the first voyage collections, there are certain cloaks that 60

D.R. S I M M O N S

fulfill the criteria for Queen Charlotte Sound but yet do not show the Taranaki influence noted in later ones. Cloaks are double-pair twine with no weft shaping, or single-pair close twine or canvas weave with self and black taniko with brown and black braid at top and bottom. The raniko is at the base of the cloak only. Rain o r rough cloaks are single-pair twine with no weft shaping. (The techniques of attaching dogskin to the corners of cloaks is the same as that used to attach decorative strips of dogskin to the body of the cloak.) One remarkable cloak is the plaited cape in Stockholm, which can be confidently identified as of South Island origin when compared with items in Otago Museum. The Banks cloak in Stockholm (1848.1.63) (Ryden, 1965), with its self and black "Greek key" taniko on a canvas weave base, can be allied with a cloak in Cambridge, England (D14.84). The latter has a canvas weave base with a self-and-black raniko in panels of vertical "herringbone" and horizontal "houndstooth" patterns. There is one other known cloak of this type which, unfortunately, has no provenance. It is in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford and was found in "Dr. Pope's box" (see Simmons, 1981). It is a canvas weave cloak with broad taniko at the base. The body of the cloak is decorated with quillets of long dog-tail hair half-hitched to the garment. These three cloaks, in Stockholm, Cambridge, and Oxford, are so similar in technique and design concept that they may reasonably be identified as the work of a single and very gifted artist. The items are outstanding; but there are other cloaks, of a more mundane nature, which are certainly the work of the same school or tradition. Such cloaks were available on Cook's first and second voyages. One cloak in Vienna (Vienna 25), which has a canvas weave body decorated with quillets of feathers pointing up, also has a taniko made with three rows of black and self, and black and brown triangles. It was probably part of the Leverian Museum collection (Kaeppler, 1978: 17 1) and could have been part of Cook's collection from the third voyage. (This attribution, if it could ever be proved, would link a Cook voyage piece with Bellingshausen cloaks, which show PLUS CA CHANGE 61

the same techniques.) Samwell, on his return from the third voyage, sold his collection (Kaeppler, 1978: 47). One of the purchasers in June 1781 was John Hunter, brother of William Hunter, whose collection is now in the Hunterian Museum in the University of Glasgow. Among the reputed Cook items are a number of cloaks, some of which are certainly from Queen Charlotte Sound. The second voyage cloaks are made with either double-pair spaced twine, single-pair close twine or canvas weave, or singlepair separated twine as in rough cloaks. The warp may include spaced brown and black lines in double-pair twine cloaks. Where the weaving is placed vertically, a brown and black braid may be used as a bottom hem. Braid is also used in taniko cloaks to start or finish the taniko. Shaping as insert is often not present though it may appear as a broadening of the base, to give a pyramidal shape to the cloak. Taniko is simple in design, with brown and black triangles or plain black. Dogskin is used as decoration, being added after the cloak is finished. The third voyage cloak in Berne is Taranaki in taniko style, with little to distinguish its weaving from North Island examples. It has, however, added dogskin strips at the bottom corners and braid at the sides, which would seem to be Queen Charlotte Sound features. The Bellingshausen collection cloaks, while exhibiting a much stronger Taranaki influence in style and amount of taniko, nevertheless also continue the technology of cloakmaking first seen in the items collected in 1770. But they also add much more: there are double-pair spaced twine cloaks often shaped in the weft in korowai, pihepihe tag cloaks, and rain cloaks. A notable 1820 form is the double-pair twine cloak with black and brown striping in the weft, vertical weaving and taniko worked between weft lines at the base. Black and brown braid is used as a hem. The most striking cloaks, though, are the close single-pair twine canvas weave cloaks with double taniko on three sides, in the Taranaki manner. The body of the cloak is decorated with feather quillets. These cloaks are 62 D. R. SIMMONS

technologically the same as the earlier ones but show a marked Taranaki influence in the raniko designs. This is not so evident in the other kaitaka cloak that has taniko at the base. An echo of the braid is seen in the black weaving along the sides. The design of this cloak is not composed of Taranaki chevrons. This discussion has so far centred around cloaks. They are, after all, the most numerous objects collected in terms of artefact class, and d o exhibit best conservation as opposed to innovation. As we have seen, technologically they tend to be conservative with minor innovations in terms of design. Cloaks were, and are, the work of women artists and craftswomen, and this fact could perhaps help to explain the conservatism. The other artefact classes, though, tend to be just as conservative, and this may reflect the nature of the trading. Those objects available to be traded were old, redundant, or no longer used. Surplus could mean just that in a rich community; but it could also mean easily obtained through war, and so not valued. New items could be those made for trade either to other Maori tribes or for the Europeans. The desire for spike nails or hatchets was certainly a strong motive in Maori trade in Queen Charlotte Sound. After cloaks, the most numerous artefacts collected were those associated with hostilities.

Weapons If all the collections under discussion here are taken together, there is, again, a remarkable consistency in the items collected: the range of weapons remains fairly stable and the "Wanganui" style of carving is represented in all the Cook collections. In the later Cook and 1820 voyages, though, we find objects from outside the area. The East Coast and other North Island groups so well identified by the Forsters on the second voyage ( 1 773-4) have become a permanent element in the population but have not ousted the earlier items. Ornaments Although the later Cook and 1820 collections contain no such wooden combs with manaia as are illustrated in the first voyage drawings, they are present, however, in the Gottingen and Vienna collections, probably dating from the third voyage, just conceivably from the first. The two collections in this case PLUS CA CHANGE 63

point out possible gaps in the well-provenanced collections.

Carvings In the 1820 collection of Bellingshausen there are two tekoteko or house finials. House carvings are non-existent in the well-documented Cook collections. One poupou (wall panel) in East-Coast style was drawn by J.F. Miller for Joseph Banks (ADD MS 23,920 f75) but cannot now be located, even though it must have been drawn either from a pre-existing drawing by Parkinson or more likely, from an actual piece. The Bellingshausen carvings can be compared with two reputed Cook carvings in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow (E328 and E329). Paddles and Canoes Bellingshausen's people collected three types of paddles: 1. Flat with Taranaki carving; 2. Flat painted, Gisborne carving; 3. Dished, with hook end "Wanganui" carving. We have shown that the third type is a South Island one and moreover, while not appearing in the provenanced Cook collections, was present the Leverian Museum pieces now in the British Museum. The Dublin collection also includes similar pieces ( 1894:352). Feather Boxes The feather boxes in the 1820 collections are all in styles more or less foreign to Queen Charlotte Sound. Leningrad box No. 736.124, with a base carved in the Wanganui manner, is fairly closely related in style to one in the British Museum, which perhaps dates to the first voyage (NZ 113). There is no record of earlier-style boxes; there are only two in the documented Cook collections (NZ 109 and NZ 113), the first carved in the Bay of Islands style, the second carved and with a painted lid. The carving style is a Wanganui one. (This box could be evidence for early feather boxes in Queen Charlotte Sound, if were proved to have been collected on the first voyage.) 64 D. R. SIMMONS

Lack of well-provenanced specimens is a constant drawback in the study of material culture. The Cook voyage collections we have studied include no fishing tackle. There are, however, hooks in the Gottingen collection purchased in 1782. That collection includes: 02377, a barracouta lure - a wood shank with bone point inserted of South Island type; 02327, 328 and 329, double inner barb hooks of East Coast Canterbury type. Lengths 3.6 cm, 3 cm, 3 cm; 02355, a bridled minnow lure of whalebone, with whalebone point known from the East Coast; 02338, wood and bone composite bait hook with heavy shank joined at bottom to a footed tripled barbed point. Length 14 cm; Six wood and bone composite hooks (02339,340,341, 342, 33 1, 332); One wood and wood composite hook (02336); and one Cook's turban shell one-piece hook (02330). These hooks indicate the range of material which must have been collected but which cannot now be identified in museum collections. They may be compared with the two composite hooks in the 1820 collection at Kazan', which closely resemble some of the Gottingen hooks. Conclusions Queen Charlotte Sound was a natural gateway between the two main islands. It was a nexus for trade in baked argillite, obsidian, greenstone, and the more perishable food items. As late as 1844, Edward Shortland recorded exchanges of canoes, clothing, and dried kumara for greenstone, mutton birds and taramea oil (Shortland MSS Middle Is. Journal) between the East Coast and Otago. Similar exchanges would have been routed through Queen Charlotte Sound. It is no coincidence that two of the Cook second voyage medals were recovered in Otago, at Katiki Point and Murdering Beach near Dunedin (Skinner, 1959: 221), or that tikiof Murdering Beach type have been recovered from the northern South Island (Skinner and PLUS CA CHANGE 65

Simmons, I966:20).The relationship between Queen Charlotte Sound and Otago is as evident from written records as from artefacts. Kollakh was one of the Kai Tahu party at Queen Charlotte Sound. He was Korako, later an important Kai Tahu chief at Waikouaiti in Otago, where he died at an advanced age in 1852 (Simmons, 1967: 55). The striped cloaks are Kai Tahu, but were also found in Admiralty Bay in 1826 by D'Urville. They are not found in the North Island. While they are best known from Kai Tahu, they may also be more common in the South Island and may have belonged to a wider tribal group. The dished paddles collected in 1820 likewise link Queen Charlotte Sound and Otago. The male-tattooed, female tekoteko figure would only seem to be possible from the Kai Tahu, though we have no information of this practice from other South Island tribes. One element of the population in Queen Charlotte Sound can be identified as Kai Tahu, possibly incorporating the earlier Kati Mamoe. The Kai Tahu hark back to the Rongowhakaata of the Gisborne area. Their culture is a variant of the classic Maori of the North Island. Specifically South Island elements in their repertoire could be the result of Kai Tahu development in the south, or, more likely, one part of the inventory taken over from Kati Mamoe, Waitaha, or other earlier South Island inhabitants. In the 1820 collection, two of the paddles, the figure carving group, and two feather boxes show this relationship with the Hawkes Bay and Gisborne areas. Traditionally, young Kai Tahu chiefs were educated at Turanganui o r Gisborne among their relatives, the Rongowhakaata tribe. The Ngai Tamanuhuri hapu of Rongowhakaata, who centre around Muriwai, still identify themselves as Ngai Tahu. The items collected from Te Ratu and his people on Cook's second voyage were of Wairarapa-Hawkes Bay provenance. Te Ratu, who was of Ngati Kahungunu and the Rangitane, may have initiated a takeover of the area. As Stephen O'Regan notes, the Wairarapa people have been variously known as Ngai Tara, Ngati Ira, Rangitane, and Ngati Kahungunu.

66 D.R. S I M M O N S

The other main influence in terms of artefacts is the "Wanganui" style evident on the collections ranging from 1770 to 1820, though in the later period the influence is more south Taranaki and Taranaki than Wanganui. The 1770-1820 canvas weave cloaks are a very distinctive local form, not found in other areas. They stayed in production until 1840 despite the devastating effect of North Island raids and settlers, North Island decorative features, and more standard North Island techniques. The basic cultural group of Queen Charlotte Sound, we can say in conclusion, is well illustrated by the women cloakweavers who continued their work even though apparently submerged by invading cultural groups. In such a situation, tribal names were probably a matter of convenience in line with prevailing political ties. We can speculate on the techniques developed by the local people of Queen Charlotte Sound to lessen the impact pf imported culture change. Warfare against invaders must have been necessary at times, but the population could never have been large enough to sustain a military effort over long periods. The material culture of the eighteenth century indicates that there were marked influences affecting the local people but that, somehow, the foreign elements were absorbed and, in a fairly short period, became part of the local culture. The introduction of Taranaki style raniko patterns is a good example. The basic (and very local) technologj) of cloakmaking was not submerged - only the decorative taniko elements were affected by the North Island imports. This was despite the fact that North Island technology for producing kaitaka cloaks was a less demanding one in time, and produced an equally handsome garment. The 1820 Bellingshausen collection illustrates the vigour of a local culture which had managed to survive the influx of people from other areas, to adopt a new economic base - potato agriculture, but to retain a material culture little changed since Cook's first visit in 1770. That there was a strong local culture or cultural form has emerged from this paper. This in turn may P L U S C A CHANGE 67

permit us t o identify a number of "possible" Cook-era cloaks as being certainly from the Queen Charlotte Sound area. The 1820 weapons are not as clearly defined but, nevertheless, show the same local culture as the cloaks. The presence of weapons from the North Island in the latter collections does not affect the range of weapons produced locally. Other material culture items collected on the voyages follow the same pattern, with the local culture re-emerging. The 1820 people seen by Bellingshausen were soon to be devastated by musket raids conducted by Te Rauparaha of Ngati Toa and his allies, Te Ati Awa. Some ten years later, an unfinished cloak was made by Mihiorangi of Queen Charlotte Sound. It is a canvas weave cloak identical to Cook voyage pieces collected some sixty years earlier. It is now in the Auckland Museum. Massive cultural change and the decimation of the Queen Charlotte Sound people in the earlier nineteenth century, soon followed by the Europeanization of the remnants and invaders, should have spelt an end to the distinctive culture of the Sound. Signs of a present-day renaissance among that people's Maori descendants suggest that a resurgence like that seen in 1820 may still be a feature of the Queen Charlotte culture.

68 D.R. SIMMONS

Figure 1. Wooden koauau flute, collected in 1770 by Captain James Cook, with "Wanganui" style decoration. Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology TC14.55.

Figure 2. Can\,as weave cloak collected in 1820 \\,it11 Taranaki style douhle funiko border. Mikluklo-Maklay Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography (MAE) 736.129.

PLUS CA CHANGE 69

Figure 3. Canvas weave cloak with double taniko border, the body decorated with quillets of feathers. A cloak for a person of high status. Collected in 1820. M A E 736.130.

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70

D. R. SIMMONS

Figure 5. Feather box showing base in "Wanganui" style, carved with stone tools. Lid in Hokianga style, carved with metal tools. Collected in 1820. M A E 736.124.

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Figure 6. Tekoteko. gable finial collected in 1820. MAE 736.1 19.

PLUS CA CHANGE 71

Figure 7. Funerary carving, in Gisborne style, collected in 1820 at Queen Charlotte Sound. M A E 736.120.

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Figure 8. Feather box in Ciishorne stylc coliccted in I820 in Queen Charlotte Sound. M A E 736.122.

72 D.R.SIMMONS

Figure 9. Detail 01' a paddle collected in 1820 at Queen Charlotte but made in Taranaki. M A E 736.1 13.

Figure 10. Jade mere of South Island type collected in 1820. M A E 736.262.

PLUS CA CHANGE

73

The Ethnographic Value of The Soviet "Queen Charlotte Sound Collections" G.R. Barratt The Bellingshausen-Lazarev Antarctic expedition (18 19-2 1) was the only European expedition in New Zealand in the early nineteenth century to work among the Maori, not of the North, but of the South Island (Queen Charlotte Sound). The absence of all other written records that immediately bear upon the Maoris at Motuara Island and Ship Cove in 1820, on the eve of their destruction, lends significance to Russian eye-witness accounts of the position in the area that year. It is fortunate that half-a-dozen narratives by Russians have survived, as well as useful illustrations by the expedition's artist, Pave1 Nikolayevich Mikhaylov and, more importantly perhaps, the two "Queen Charlotte Sound" collections formed by Bellingshausen's people. On returning to St. Petersburg, in August 1821, the latter were obliged to place all Maori artefacts in their possession in the keeping of the Naval Ministry. It is improbable that their instructions on the matter were punctiliously carried out. Most of the artefacts concerned, however, were by 1822 or slightly later in the keeping of that ministry. From that collection grew the present "1820" "Maori'' subcollection (No. 736) in the Peter-the-Great Museum of the N.N. Miklukho-Maklay Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography (MAE) in Leningrad. It consists of 31 pieces. A smaller assemblage from Queen Charlotte Sound, of 11 pieces, is now in the care of Kazan' State University. All 11 were, as seen, collected or acquired in 1820 by Ivan Mikhaylovich Simonov ( 1794- 1855), the versatile astronomer aboard the Vost6k. Possessed of an enormous curiosity, Simonov was Bellingshausen's principal assistant or associate in all matters relating to the natural and social sciences. "The Simonov collection of today is not large - it originally consisted of 37 objects; but it is precious from the

scientific standpoint, being one of the earliest ethnographic collections from Oceania" (Kabo and Bondaryov, 1974: 103). The provenance, collection, and the present holdings of these Soviet "Queen Charlotte Sound" assemblages will be considered here, with a view to underlining their considerable ethnographic value. In particular, brief comments will be offered on their relevance as evidence for (1) hand-weaving techniques and practice; (2) body ornament and decoration; (3) fishing; and (4) the make and use of paddles. As the Russian narratives throw light particularly on (immediate post-contact) Maori-pakeha relations, on the Maori house and settlement, and on potato husbandry, so d o the artefacts now held in Leningrad and in Kazan' throw light particularly on these other areas of a traditional material and/or aesthetic culture. For all its shortage of specifically non-naval scientific expertise, it should be noted first, the Bellingshausen expedition was in several respects better prepared than any venture led by Cook had been to form collections of Pacific artefacts in situ. In the first place, Bellingshausen and his officers were highly conscious of, and interested in, the peoples of the South Pacific, and had read about them as Cook's officers and gentlemen had not. Again, sufficient time had passed by 1820 for the Rousseauesque approach towards the South Sea and its children to have lost all favour in St. Petersburg, and more especially in sober naval circles. Captain Bellingshausen did not hesitate to represent the Russian Crown's own attitude towards those peoples as benevolent but thoroughly pragmatic: "His Majesty the Emperor had it in mind to increase our knowledge of the terrestrial globe and to acquaint savage peoples with Europeans and vice versa" (Bellingshausen, 1960: 65). His personal approach towards Pacific Islanders could not have been less sentimental, or more scientifically enquiring. But there, too, he and his people were considerably better placed than Cook's had been; for, coming late upon the South Seas scene, the Russians had examples to consider, for example, where the gathering of "curiosities" o r "native products" was concerned. Cook had taken "Toys, 76 GLYNN BARRATT

Beeds, and glass Buttons," among other things, specifically in order to exchange them for provisions and, if any were left over, "curiosities" (Beaglehole, 1955: 520-2 1). CaptainLieutenant I.F. Kruzenshtern of the Nadezhda, in the Washington-Marquesas group in 1804 with Bellingshausen as a junior lieutenant, had been more than willing to allow his men to barter "trinkets" for the islanders' own products, once the matters of provisioning and watering the ship had been attended to; and the Nadezhda had her own supply of trinkets (Barratt, 1981 : 109- 1 1). But that store was very modest in comparison with that carried by the Mirnyy (Captain-Lt. Mikhail P. Lazarev) and by the Vostdk in 1820, on their arrival in New Zealand. "In order," says Bellingshausen, "to induce the natives to treat us amicably, and to allow us t o obtain from them, by barter, fresh provisions and various handmade articles, we had been supplied at St. Petersburg with such things as were calculated to please peoples still in an almost primitive state of culture" (Bellingshausen, 1960: 66). Sixtytwo varieties of trade goods were brought to New Zealand. They included miscellaneous knives (400), steel flints (300), bells and whistles (185), gimlets (125), rasps, axes, scissors, chisels, saws, needles (5,000), wax candles (1,000) and mirrors (1,000), as well as numerous rolls of red flannelette and striped ticking material. From the start, the Russians* barter with the Maoris was orderly. Bellingshausen had already stipulated that, until the needs of both ships' companies were fully satisfied, all commerce would proceed through special officers. The Maori providing him with ample fish, however, and the sweetness of the drinking water being evident, barter for artefacts was not delayed - and it continued intermittently almost until the Russians left Queen Charlotte Sound. Officers and men alike traded for Maori artefacts, but in a seemly way. No Russian had the liberty accorded to the men with Dumont D'Urville six years afterwards, which was just as well. ("The sailors, prowling about, had discovered some abandoned huts from which they carried off various objects used by the natives . . ." THE ETHNOGRAPHIC VALUE 77

Artefact Cloths Clothing Woven materials Piece of cloth, with patterned border Jersey-like clothing, made from skins of fur-seals Half-coats with flax sleeves sewn on by cords Fastenings, ornaments of green basalt, worn round the neck Weaponry Spears Javelins Wooden war maces Staffs Insignia of chiefs Greenstone bludgeons Staff some 8' long, the top of which was carved in the likeness of a head Fish-hooks Domestic articles Well ground bone needle Nephrite chisel Adzes Carved boxes Pipe like a flageolet, only much thicker -

-

-

Informant Modern Listing 736- 125-136; K7- 10 ditto ditto

missing missing

736- 155-1 17, 736-262 736-1 15-1 17 missing 736-1 16-1 17? 736- 1 15? 736-1 15-1 17 736-262 736- 1 15

K4-5 736-263-267; K 1-2 missing K 1-2 736-263-267 736- 1 22- 1 24 missing - --

-

-

Key: B = Bellingshausen; S = Simonov; N = P.M. Novosil'sky; G = N.A. Galkin; 736 Collection number in the N.N. Miklukho-Maklay Institute of Antropology and Ethnography, Leningrad; K = Simonov Collection number, at Kazan' State University Museum.

78

GLYhrN BARRATT

Wright, 1950: 73). As is evident both from his narrative (see Barratt, 1979: 46-56) and from the Soviet "Queen Charlotte Sound" collections, Simonov played an essential role in the collecting of these Maori artefacts. But many individuals no doubt participated in this trade. Sadly, by no means all the objects known to have been taken from the Sound are now in the MAE in Leningrad or in the Simonov Collection in Kazan'. That being so, it will be pertinent to list those objects on the basis of the Russian texts themselves, before considering the 1820 MAE and Simonov collections of today. Discrepancies will quickly be apparent. Lost somewhere between 1820 and the present, and most probably in Russia, were specimens of Maori weaving, b'javelins" (perhaps the bird-spears shown to the visiting Russians in Little Waikawa Bay), a finely-ground bone needle, and a musical instrument. Conversely, other objects went to Russia from Queen Charlotte Sound of which no mention can be found in published narratives. For instance, Simonov is known to have brought two mummified heads back from New Zealand, and Dr. Galkin brought at least one more. (Of Simonov's pair, one went to the Imperial Academy of Sciences and so into MAE, the other to his alma mater in Kazan': Kabo & Bondaryov, 1974: 103, n7; Butinov, 1963: 108-09. Galkin's head was still in his possession in 1822: Syn otechestva, 1822: 103n). In sum, several artefacts from the Bellingshausen expedition can be matched with published references. A larger group, however, is untraceable - although present in the 1820 Soviet collections these articles are not spoken of specifically in any text. Among these artefacts are tekoteko figures, hoe, Simonov's shell-necklace, and the Gisborne-style carving of four figures (736-120) which the Soviet ethnologists N.A. Butinov and L.G. Rozina refer to, imprecisely and erroneously, as "a sculptured phallic group" (Barratt, 1979: 108). These, one need hardly labour, are significant discrepancies. So too are those that come to light when we review the clasps or "fastenings", of which not one is to be found in either Soviet collection but, it seems, which found their way onto the Vost6k. But there is something more that strikes the eye: plurality in phrasing, in the Russian narratives, with which the present T H E E T H N O G R A P H I C V A L U E 79

state of those collections does not tally. T o take but three examples: greenstone bludgeons, spears, and staffs. All three are mentioned in the plural. Yet only 736-262 in Leningrad is a mere made of nephrite, and 736-1 13 alone might, at a stretch, be seen as corresponding to the Russian kop'yo (spear). For certainly, the rewhatewha was too short and distinctively shaped for any Russian to mistake it for a spear, lance, or pike. As for the "staffs" mentioned in Bellingshausen's narrative, as in Novosil'sky's - again in the plural form - there is a sole taiaha, 736-1 15, to do duty, though conceivably the Russians looked on handsomely carved hoe (736-1 14 or 736-168) as on chiefly staffs or staves. Lastly, there are the "maces" and the "javelins", all unaccounted for. There can be little doubt that certain types of Maori artefacts did, as the published texts suggest they should have, reach St. Petersburg in duplicate or triplicate, but that by no means all the artefacts in question found their way into the government's possession, or remained within its keeping, as they should have by the terms of Captain Bellingshausen's final sailing orders (15th section) (Bellingshausen, 1960: 77-78). T o turn now to discussion of the two collections based on Bellingshausen's 1820 visit to New Zealand: The reader is referred to D.R. Simmons'brief description of the artefacts in question (pp. 5 1-57 above). Observations on the Russian Evidence a) Hand-Woven Artefacts Almost a third of all the artefacts known positively to have come t o Russia in the Vost6k or Mirnyy were woven objects: items 7-10 of the Kazan' collection, nos. 736-125 to 736-136 inclusive of the Leningrad collection. For this reason only, they would merit further comment; but, in fact, most are of interest both from a purely technical and from an ethnographic standpoint. Items serve as bases for reflections on the culture, art, technology, and likely origins of those met by the Russians in Queen Charlotte Sound in May-June 1820. Russian evidence illuminates a darkness that would otherwise have 80 G L Y N N BA R R A TT

swallowed up Ship Cove, Cannibal Cove, Little Waikawa Bay, and Motuara Island as they were when Rangitane and their Ngatikuia cousins still held sway there. Remarks made here are designed to complement those made above by D.R. Simmons. 736-125: This is a korowai cape (Best's "tag cloak": Best, 1926: 302), of a sort which, thanks to Parkinson's plate (Parkinson, 1773: xviii), we know to have been in use in the "Classical" Maori period, i.e., 1650-1800. As Sidney Mead observes (Mead, 1969: 58 & 135), it seems not to have been in fashion in the eighteenth century, but gained in popularity during the early 1800s thanks in part to the availability of wool. The presence of such a cape as this in the MAE collection lends some weight to the supposition, which essentially still rests on Parkinson's plate, that these capes with their natural colour tags and three-side fringes were worn in the (Late) Classical Period. For, as is evident from ornaments and weaponry as well as woven articles, the people whom the Russians met in 1820 were still living in that period, although familiar with the potato and the use of iron. In dimensions and in weave, this cape is very similar to that in the Buck Collection and described by Buck himself (1926: 302, pl. xx). The lesser density of falling thrums and missing or vestigial upper fringe, however, are suggestive of "Transitional Period" korowai development and reminiscent of Mead's type T6 (see Mead, 1969: Fig. 37b). A distinctive feature of this garment is the absence of any fringe of warp threads on the upper corners. -736-126: ere, by contrast, warp-thread fringes are obvious, but again the upper fringe (kurupatu) of the korowai is missing. Like the preceding item, this cape is made with double-pair twine, inserts at the shoulders and base providing shaping. Despite the presence of these simple wefts, however, the cape suggests the underlying continuity of regional (Queen Charlotte Sound) technique: it is an obvious descendant of the korowai gathered on Cook's voyages and is of South Island, not northern, antecedents. 736-128: The same may be said of this unfinished part of a double-pair twine aronui cloak, so strongly reminiscent of items collected on Cook's second voyage and by Dumont D'Urville in Tasman Bay. Shaping of double-pair twine T H E ETHNOGRAPHIC V A L U E 8 1

garments is in general unusual, perhaps; but again, a cloak in Leningrad points to stability in a traditional technique of manufacture. 736- 129: This well-preserved single-pair twine kaitaka cloak, with wide taniko borders on both sides and lower edge, introduces a major element in comparison of the Cook and Bellingshausen cloaks: the strength of Taranaki influence in the latter. Originally embellished with feather quillets, this cloak may lack the Taranaki chevron in its (double) taniko borders, and is technically like items in the (third and second) Cook collections. Even so, it is redolent of the Taranaki style. Russian evidence thus lends support to a hypothesis that might be based on Cook's third voyage data: that the Taranaki influence was on the rise in Totaranui by the late 1700s, notwithstanding any local predilection for the so-called "canvas weave", i.e., the single-pair twine. It was most probably a similar kaitaka cloak that caught the eye of Georg Forster in the same locality in April 1773 (see Roth, 1923: 9). The Russians make no mention, though, of red tones in the borders that they saw and much admired. This is noteworthy, since Forster's comments on the matter ("elegant borders, very symmetrically wrought in red, black, and white"), echo Parkinson's of four years earlier (Parkinson, 1784: 95). Nor d o the Maoris encountered by the Russians seem to have employed the yellow dye familiar, both then and earlier, to many tribes and to be had from Coprosma bark. 736- 130: With its close canvas weave, double taniko borders on three sides, and feather decoration, this kaitaka cloak is also reminiscent of cloaks from Cook's second voyage. It would seem to represent a cloak type that was popular in Queen Charlotte Sound or, at least, far more in evidence there than in other regions of New Zealand at the time. Such cloaks were often worn by women of rank, and in that connection one recalls the part played by a "chiefs wife" in the presenting of a fine piece of material for barter (Barratt, 1979: 36). 736-131: This was most probably the kaitaka cloak with base taniko presented to Bellingshausen just north of Te Ahitaore on the morning of 3 1 May 1820. It was presented by a 82 GLYNN BARRATT

chief. The Russians acquired other cloaks of this type; but the punctilious leader of the expedition would have mentioned a double border, we may think, if he had acquired a cloak so decorated. From this, we deduce very tentatively that the "Old Chief" (at Little Waikawa Bay) was the owner of 736- 129 - a splendid garment similar to one in the Viennese Cook assemblage (see Kaeppler, 1978: Fig. 324) - and that the "cloths" and "woven stuffs" brought to the Vost6k and Mirnyy for barter on 3 June, by men of lesser rank in their community, were mostly korowai or pihepihe such as any man might wear in rainy season. (The Russians found their hosts well dressed for winter - hence the several rough cloaks andpihepihe in the Soviet collections.) 736-132, 133: Double-pair twine pihepihe cloaks, with fringes on three sides and rolled flax strips on the body. The undressed tags of black dyed flax (Bellingshausen's "laces") have a shaggy look, well caught in Buck, 1926: pl. xix. Both these items are of South Island provenance. 736-1 35: This heavy double cloak, which was woven as one piece with extremely close two-strand wefts, is of the type classified by Best as a war-cloak (Best, 1898, v. 31: 642). It is certainly of canvas-like strength and texture and, if soaked in water so that the fibres swelled, might well have offered some protection to the wearer against spear thrusts. We may think, however, that it was used as a heavy rain cloak in 1820. 736-136: A capacious rain cloak, with thick plaited neckcord, made of mixed cordyline fibres and Freycinettia Banksii - "coarse grass", as the Russians termed it. The strips of "grass", scraped at one end only, are attached in successive, kilt-like layers. The presence of this article in Russia underlines the need of Maoris in Totaranui for thick winter cloaks and capes. The kiekie strands lent extra body to the strong cabbage tree fibres. The presence of two korowai commencements (Nos. 9 & 10) in the Kazan' collection is itself suggestive of Simonov's awareness as an ethnologist. Of all Bellingshausen's companions, Simonov evinced the greatest interest in THE ETHNOGRAPHIC VALUE 83

manufacturing techniques, and clearly realized that an unfinished specimen of weaving often gives more information than a finished one. Taken together, the four hand-woven objects in Kazan', with their predominance of brown and/or dark-brown stripes in the warp, point to a South Island technique. None, though, shows a single-pair twine weft. There are other representative South Island cloak commencements and completed cloaks in Leningrad, with which these items and, particularly No. 8, may be compared. One hundred and fourteen cm is admittedly a great depth for a commencement, but in MAE'S V.V. Svyatlovsky Collection (No. 1198) there is a strikingly similar piece of weaving, only with six instead of seven dark-brown parallel bands formed by the cross-thread. The people with whom the Russians bartered were living in a natural "high-volume" trading area: Totaranui was, in 1820 as for centuries before, an open gateway to the South, through which passed foodstuffs and obsidian, greenstone and argillite, oil and ornamental goods. In view of the relationship between Totaranui and Otago (as reflected by the presence of Kai Tahu cloaks in D'Urville's 1826 collection, formed at Admiralty Bay, and of a pair of Cook medallions near Dunedin: see Skinner, 1959: 221), it would hardly be surprising if at least some of the Russian trade goods left behind in 1820 were discovered in Otago - or have come to light but not been properly identified. The people whom the Russians met had seven years of comparative tranquility remaining, after all, before the onslaught of Te Rauparaha's and Puoho's gunslinging warriors, and trade must have continued. What is certain from the Russian data, on the other hand, is that the Maoris with whom they personally traded had - as yet -not had sustained contact with Europeans and were consequently wearing their complete range of traditional flax garments. There was, first, a "camisole'' or piece of cloth wrapped round the body and extending to the lower thigh or knee. Sometimes of relatively fine, well-washed and beaten flax material, this article was held in place, not by a pin, but by a narrow belt or "girdle". Over this, some persons wore a kilt, which also reached the knee or 84 GLYNN BA RRATT

thigh. The kilt, which doubled as a cape when tied differently, was likewise belted. Other individuals did not wear kilts but rather a piece of cloth round the shoulders that fell to the knee or slightly lower and which was fastened at the chest by a basalt or bone pin. Bellingshausen describes this garment as "a deftly woven piece of white or red cloth, edged with a dark border." It would seem to have been worn by men of rank and influence. For the majority, in winter, there remained a type of rough, heavy cloak or rain-cape. The long and bulky ones appear to have been fastened at the side. Most cloaks, however, were fastened at the collar-bone so that the wearer's stomach was exposed, if not the breasts. Some of the younger men would leave their heavy cloaks unfastened and, perhaps as evidence of hardiness, eschew even the camisole. The chief and elders and their immediate families wore more clothing than did the common people, and affected more varieties of ornament too, as will be seen. Although traditionally dressed, however, the Maoris whom the Russians met knew something of the Europeans' clothing and had started to be influenced by it. They offered, as trade items, garments of Maori manufacture but with bizarre features, e.g., "a jersey-like garment . . .," or "half-coats with sleeves of flax sewn on." The Russian terms used to describe these garments, polushtibok and fufhyka, are important in this context; for the former, with its overtone of "sheepskin coat", and more especially the latter, with its altogether pakeha suggestion of a "seaman's sweater", both indicate the possibility that the Maoris had picked up clothing from a sealer or a whaler. And these items were much valued, as is indicated by the half-coats' treatment, which itself betrays the imitative urge. The Maori bartered them, it is worth noting, for a Russian-made kerchief and a completely worn canvas jacket. Yet, significantly, there was no immediate demand for clothing when the Russians came. On 28 May, a chief was presented with a length or two of printed cloth and was most pleased with it; but he was equally "delighted" with his mirror, beads, and knife. Nor did the Russians barter European THE ETHNOGRAPHIC VALUE 85

clothing on the 29th, the second day of the visit, during an extended trading session. In this regard, the situation was completely different from that of 1826-27, when the French were asked for woollen blankets on arrival in a bay, by men already wearing blankets (Wright, 1950: 129). Bellingshausen and his people were creating a demand for Western garments among individuals but lightly touched, till then, by passing sealers; and the market grew abruptly. The Russians had been asked for, or had actually traded, greatcoats, jackets, handkerchiefs, and shirts within four days of their arrival in the Sound. In doing so, they were devaluing the rolls and bales of cloth stored in the Vostbk's hold - cloth that was still esteemed sufficiently on May 3 1 to gain a fine ceremonial hoe (736-1 13 in the MAE collection). Thus at the same time did the Maoris contribute to a drain of woven garments from the area in which they lived. By being who they were, dressed as they were, and bartering their clothing as they did for local artefacts, the Russians left the Maori of the Sound far more disposed than they had been to take on European clothing. The effects were felt by 1826, when L'Astrolabe anchored in Tasman Bay. b) Ornamentation The Maori of Totaranui had recourse to dress in its aesthetic, that is, decorative aspect. And the Russians fully recognized that certain aspects of the local native dress had other functions than the simple covering of flesh or the denoting of authority or rank or age or sex. Patterns in woven objects, borders, and indeed the very make of certain cloaks, all seemed to Bellingshausen and his people to be decorative in their purpose - though they might well have another, more utilitarian advantage. This is clear from the wording and the tenor of their subsequent descriptions of the garments. For example, it is obvious that Bellingshausen understood the decorative function of the 5" bone or polished basalt pins, "hung by fine cords lest they be lost," by which some handsome cloaks were fastened at the breast. Both Bellingshausen and his hosts, however, thought of 86 GLYNN BARRATT

feathers, earrings, tiki and clasps first, and of clothing second, where the local range of personal embellishment and (nonskin) decoration was concerned. And Russian evidence for personal ornamentation is of ethnographic interest and value, inasmuch as it directly bears upon the questions of stability and continuity in local culture and, indeed, in group identity. Collation and comparison of "Cook voyage" and "1820" ornaments provide an insight into local culture history and the relationship between the people of the Sound and other groups, to north and south. It is an insight sharpened certainly, but not much altered, by comparison of "Cook voyage" and "1 820" weaponry and carvings. To begin, then, with specifics: the following varieties of personal ornamentation were observed by the Russians in May-June 1820: For the Head "The hair tied into a bunch at the crown" (B,N) "A few white feathers stuck through" the topknot (B) "Decorated with the feathers of various birds" (K) "Embellished with feathers of various hues" (G) "Hair powdered red or smeared with red colouring" (S) "One man . . . used fish-oil in place of our pomade" (G) Four feathers, light with dark tips, worn in topknot (M) Numerous leaves attached, almost flat, to a chiefs wife's hair (M) For the Cheeks "One man . . . used fish-oil, mixing it with red chalk and rouging his cheeks with that compound" (G)

For the Ears "Large openings are made, and through them are passed bunches of bird's down" (S) "Round bones" (G) "They pass through them pieces of bird's skin with white down on" (B) "Bone pins" (K) "Polished green stones" (G) THE ETHNOGRAPHIC VALUE 87

For the Nose "Small sticks" ( S ) "Bone pins" (K) For the Neck "Various clasps and ornaments of green basalt" (B) "Ugly human images" (B) "A kind of little knife made of green stone" (B) "Little bones" (B) "Fish-bones" (G) "Various sorts of polished basalt" (G) "Pearl shells and other things" (G) Key: B = Bellingshausen G = Galkin S = Simonov K Kiselev M = Mikhaylov

Suffice to make these remarks about the lower body and about tattooing: some men smeared parts of their torso and limbs with "fish-oil and ochre," so producing a reddish colour. Almost all individuals had some "regular designs pricked out on the face" (G), the "curved but regular lines" (B) being dark blue. Even so, tattooing seemed "proper to the leaders and to older men, rather than to all" (B); and women not infrequently had tattooing only on the lips (G). Facial tattoos were made over a long period, one chief having bare skin in the "10-12 o'clock sector" only. Like their British predecessors in the Sound, the Russians were especially attracted by the Maori nephrite ornament, less so by bone or feather pieces. We must therefore be cautious, not presuming that a European liking corresponded with proportionately few feather (or bone or wooden) ornaments and/or with numerous stone objects in a given area. In fact, Totaranui must have been markedly depleted of at least its less (politically and socially) important greenstone objects, in the wake of Cook's and Bellingshausen's visits. It is noteworthy, that being so, that all but one of the ornaments collected by the Russians in the Sound in 1820 were of nephrite. In itself, the fact would indicate that, though the local group were short of

88 G L Y N N BARRATT

other marketable objects and resources, they had their greenstone - like the men who had been living in the same locality and who had bartered goods with Cook. It was no doubt from the same source (see Best, 19 12: 214) and used, in part, for trading purposes as it had always been. The six Totaranui ornaments in Russia are an ear pendant, kuru type of "bodkin" shape (736-268); two little adze pendants, one asymmetrical in outline (736-265), the other with a curved cutting edge (-269); a fragmentary nephrite ear-piercer or earring (K1 1); Otago-style triangular nephrite ornament, with jagged sides (K3); and a necklace of 13 univalve shells, some now missing, threaded on vegetable fibre. As a group, these " 1820" ornaments from the precise locality where Cook had been show a distinct dissimilarity from ornaments in Cook-voyage collections. Missing from the Soviet collections, for example, are the women's black feather caps, the wooden combs with rnanaia carving on the side, the dentalium shell necklaces, the kinky greenstone pendants for the ear or neck, the shark tooth knives, the hei tiki, and the bunches of (discoloured) human teeth, which are convincingly associated with the first and second Cook voyages. (It is by no means certain, incidentally, that Bellingshausen's people did obtain a single hei tikr). What is present in the Soviet collections, on the other hand, gains in significance when one considers ornaments collected on Cook's second voyage in the context of their local grouping/ provenance: bone toggles from Otago, Terawhiti cloak pins, and Taranaki-style chisel pendants for the ear that are similar to 736-265 & -269. In short, the "1820" ornament collection points to links between the Maoris encountered by the Russians and both Taranaki and Otago groups. These links were, very likely, not of recent origin: for 736-265, a pendant with deliberately asymmetrical outline has a counterpart in one of the irregular ear ornaments from Cook's second voyage which, while not as indisputably of Kai Tahu origin as No. 3 in the Kazan' collection (Simonov's triangular notched ornament), is almost certainly of South Island, not northern, antecedents. Taking the second Cook THE ETHNOGRAPHIC V A L U E 89

Voyage and the "1820" ornament collections as a whole, however, one is conscious of the latter's greater "Taranaki" element. Totaranui contacts with Otago may have dated back for many generations, and resultant southern influence was certainly apparent; but by 1820, Taranaki influence would seem t o have been strong and on the rise, at least where ornaments and carving were concerned. The " 1820" tewhatewha, ceremonial carved hoe (736-1 13), and, above all, double-pair twine cloaks with double taniko, support the point. One must be cautious in suggesting that a given style of embellishment and ornament, like that reported by the Russians, for instance, is a sign of changing fashion or of local predilection. For example, though the chief drawn by Mikhaylov wears four feathers on his crown, numerous chiefs were wearing more by 1820, having slightly changed the fashion of their fathers'day of three feathers, occasionally two. (In Tasman's day, it seems, a single feather was sufficient: McNab, 1914: 22; Parkinson, 1773: pl. xv & xvi). Nonetheless, the personal ornamentation (other than tattooing) that the Russians saw did show some deviations from contemporary styles in the North Island indicating regional style. Wooden combs, tooth necklaces and bracelets, and the reiputa pendant were apparently not used - or rarely seen. It must be borne in mind that Bellingshausen saw his hosts dressed at their finest, for example when he was received in spots to which he had been formally invited. Nor, given the speed with which a fragment of a broken Russian candlestick became an earring does it seem probable that, if they had them, local people would have hesitated to wear any ornament that they could recognize as such. Regional characteristics of personal decoration have been mentioned: the use of four (or more) feathers, the use of "fishoil" and "red chalk" compound on the cheeks as on the torso, and the absence of the wooden comb. Other such features may be mentioned, on the basis of the Russian evidence: first, use of nose-sticks which, says Simonov, were not inserted through the 90

GLYNN BARRATT

nasal cartilage in childhood (whereas in general facial tattooing was begun in early years); second, the extensive use of greenstone articles; and third, the absence of the rei puta pendant. Whereas sharks were often caught about the Sound, beached whales were not. Nor, of the artefacts collected by the Russians, was a single one fashioned from whalebone. The fact is interesting in relation to the whalebone patu that figure handsomely both in the first and in the second Cook Voyage collections. In summary, the "1820" ornaments are, as a group, appreciably different from Cook voyage assemblages of ornaments that had been gathered in the same vicinity. There is, indeed, some continuity; but like the "1820" cloaks collection, "1 820" ornaments suggest a growing southwestern North Island influence in Totaranui which, however, could be felt less in technique than in an altered local style. Not technology, but manner, had been modified by influences active in the Sound between the third Cook and the Bellingshausen visits. Many factors might contribute to a proper explanation of the continuity referred to earlier: the strength and meaning of the Kai Tahu and, perhaps, less distant South Island connections; pride in local weaving and/ or ornament production; the resilience or stubbornness of craftswomen and artists whose immediate descendants met the Russians. Speculation on the subject is inviting but, for want of data, ultimately futile. On the matter of non-continuity, i.e., of altered local manner, on the other hand, we d o have solid data - in collections, texts, and drawings. What emerges from assessment of those data is that local culture had survived new northern influences (and perhaps the presence of the bearers of those influences in its midst), but had been modified nevertheless. Imported attitudes and tastes had been absorbed, to some extent and in the case of certain culture items only. In itself, that fact would indicate the working of political realities and military necessities about the Sounds. THE ETHNOGRAPHIC VALUE 91

c) The Paddle and Canoe Bellingshausen and his people saw the ordinary working paddle of Queen Charlotte Sound in use repeatedly during their stay, and left an adequate description of it. All agreed that it was "short" and "shovel-like". Midshipman Novosil'sky noted that, in general, it was stained red. The local people used it sitting and, as frequently as not, in pairs. They did not always paddle as one man, sometimes crossing the water "each man for himself, without order," as Simonov puts it. There were 16 men in one of the two craft that approached the Vostbk on her arrival in Totaranui, 23 in the other; but not all were paddling. It being winter, they wore heavy cloaks which, however, impeded their arm movements not at all. Their common paddle was, in general, some five-and-a-half feet long, but they could use it four hours at a stretch. By 9:00 a.m. on 29 May, the Vostbk and Mirnyy had both weighed anchor and were beating up "between Long and Matuara [Motuara] Islands, with a strong headwind from the south" (Bellingshausen). They were closely followed by Maoris till noon. It was then, perhaps, that the Russians saw them paddling standing upright, in order to gain or maintain greater speed and headway. In general, the working paddle that the Russians saw in use in 1820 was as described by Cook and Parkinson two generations earlier. It was still broadest at the centre, stained red, and "shovel-like", with the blade set at a slight angle to the handle. Item 736- 173 in Leningrad is such a paddle. Its broad blade is markedly concave on the forward face and has a very obvious median ridge on the back. In this respect, as in its blunt and hook-like blade end and its stone tool dressing marks, the paddle belongs to an ancient family - a family associated with the South Island, not with the North. In Totaranui, however, almost nothing is straightforward either culturally or politically by the early 1800s. Ancient though the paddle is in form, North Island influence has been at work upon it, where its style is concerned. 736-173 is unornamented. Possibly it was unfinished when the Russians acquired it. But 736-168, which it resembles strikingly in balance and proportion, has carving on 92 G L Y N N BARRATT

the upper front of its blade. That carving shows WanganuiTaranaki features. Working paddles of the Sound thus serve as cameos of local culture history. As is apparent from a glance at the four hoe in the Soviet collections, though, the Maori did not, as a rule, trade in their common paddles. Still, the Russians wrought far better than they knew, for, as is clear from their narratives, they mistook at least two paddles (736-1 13 & 114), and probably 736-1 68 as well, as Maori weapons. The mistake is understandable. Some paddles were in fact so made, with broad, sharp blades and sturdy hafts, that they could serve as arms or paddles, as the circumstances might dictate. Item 736-1 13, a flat war canoe paddle with intricate handle carving, again in the Taranaki style, was in 1820 in the possession of the chief of the Maori group encountered by the Russians at Little Waikawa Bay. The Russians, who refer to it as "an eight-foot-long staff" or "stave", rightly recognized it as a chiefly or ceremonial object. The blade was narrower in relation to its length than the blade of an ordinary working paddle would have been; and its total length was eloquent, as was its owner's attitude towards it. The open-carved top, with its tooth pattern, is certainly of fine craftsmanship (a comparable piece is illustrated in Best, 1925: bulletin 7, Fig. 120). Such paddles were "rarely seen" in Polack's day (ibid.: 158), and we may think that they were far from common in the Sounds in 1820. The chiefly proprietor of 736-1 13 delayed some time before offering it to Bellingshausen, whom he treated as a friendly visiting chief of high rank. It was produced at the last moment as his guests, who had traded many objects of great value and utility to him (and very possibly, for all he knew, had more to offer), were about to leave his village. Like other Maoris, the chief was willing to give of his best for Russian iron goods (concealing his own best articles until the psychologically most telling trading moment). There is reason to suppose that 736-1 13 & -1 14 were very highly prized by the Maoris themselves at the time they were acquired by the Russians. The Taranaki carvings, incidentally, are quite THE ETHNOGRAPHIC VALUE 93

different on the two hoe, 736-168 showing a male figure with reversed head on top, 736-1 13 showing a gymnast figure. The remaining paddle in the Leningrad collection, 736-1 14, introduces another factor into the discussion, for a stylized head has been carved, at the loom of its flat blade, in Gisborne style. Suffice to comment here that at least four other objects in the Leningrad collection, the mysterious and beautiful carved group (736- 120), and three wakahuia (736- 121, - 122, - 123), present that carving style. It appears that the forebears of the "1820 group" met by the Russians had had dealings or relationships with the East Coast-Gisborne area as well as with the southwestern North Island. Item 736-1 14 had probably been used as a paddle, in the Sound or further north. The Russians'hosts had constant use for many paddles, as the 1820 evidence makes clear. Bellingshausen and his men saw two small waka taua in the area. One they estimated to be 47' in length; another, drawn by Mikhaylov, was some 34' long, judging by human figures illustrated by it. Both Simonov and Bellingshausen, though, imply that there were more such craft in the locality. These craft were hollowed out of single trees but they had double topstrakes, each some 7" broad, and stern-pieces that "curved up like a crest to a height of 5 feet'' (Bellingshausen). Figureheads with "snail-pattern open carvings", shell eyes and protruding tongue, were of the sort described by Best (1925: Fig. 59 upper) and seen by D'Urville in 1826. The caulking was of reed bast, introduced between the strakes and solid hull as Forster had described that process (see Haddon & Hornell, 1975: 202). Waka tete, by comparison, were short and crude. Mikhaylov shows one less than 15' in length. Double canoes could still be seen by Motuara Island, it would seem, in 1820. Dr. Galkin is the confident informant: "Sometimes two craft are bound together by stakes, in which case they cannot be capsized in rough seas even though they lack protective strakes . . ." Galkin's phrasing suggests that the hulls were lashed together, or very nearly so, in which case his double craft, with its coarse carving and modest size (more than ten men could have 94

GLYNNBARRATT

squeezed in) strongly resembled that observed by Forster in Dusky Bay (Forster, 1777: I, 132). There was no deck. The Russian evidence supports Haddon & Hornell's claim (1975: 195) that, though the double craft was growing rare even in Cook's time in the North Island, it "continued to be numerous" in waters further south. Totaranui Maoris had need of paddles all year round, for, in the Sound, there was no fishing time or "season". Even as the Russian officers were visiting a coastal settlement (Little Waikawa Bay), the Maoris of lesser rank were fishing - for themselves and for the pakeha alike. On one occasion, they were able to supply the latter with approximately 250 pounds of fish caught with the seine or hook-and-line, at little notice. "Many kinds of wooden hooks and fishing-lines" were seen in huts along the shore; baskets and funnel-nets, however, were apparently not used. The watchful Simonov collected two or more composite fishhooks (Nos. 4 & 5 in the Kazan' collection). Both are made of wood and bird-bone, but the make and size of No. 4 would indicate that it was meant for shark. It much resembles item 6368 in the Auckland Museum (hook from Waimate, Taranaki) and item E 5513 in the Peabody Museum, Salem (Dodge, 1941: pl. XIII). Like hook No. 22669 at the Auckland Museum, the Kazan'hook appears to have been fashioned from a specially trained branch, and belongs to a type described by E. W. Gudger ( 1927: 235). Shark teeth were prized as ornaments and tiny knives, of course, and used in trade. It is of interest, in this connection, that the decorated shark-tooth knife is, like so many other objects in the first and second Cook voyage assemblages, conspicuously absent from the 1820 Soviet collections. To conclude with a remark on the dimensions of the hoe in the Soviet collections: Russian narratives insist on their comparatively modest length. With what, one wonders, could Bellingshausen have compared them? He had yet to call on other Polynesians as they went about their business or, more commonly, abandoned it until he left. Presumably, he was comparing them with what he had expected, on the basis of the THE ETHNOGRAPHIC VALUE 95

Parkinson and other British evidence of fifty years before. One may observe that, in reality, the "1 820" paddles are, if anything, only a trifle shorter than the classic mean. The Dominion Museum, one may add, contains a hoe that is practically identical with 736- 173. The fact remains, nevertheless, that Russian evidence is valid and suggests a further point: if the paddle of the Sound was rather shorter than its Northern counterpart (and more immediately linked to ancient Polynesian form), so too - quite logically - was the canoe. The largest waka taua that the Russians saw was 47' from end to end, by no means large by Maori standards. Few in number (approximately 80, the Russians thought), with few and somewhat modest warcraft and a modest local arsenal, the Maoris whom Bellingshausen met had little choice but to accommodate newcomers and new influence from the North. They lacked the numbers to sustain warfare for long. Besides, potato cultivation had - since Cook's time brought a measure of stability and even ease to local life (see Barratt, 1979: 82-84). The Russians had been trained, as naval officers and scientists, to be observant; but they saw no single sign of recent troubles or hostilities, no warlike preparations, no defence works. Cultivation of the headland and a stoneedged stream; a village with a single, modest, ditchless palisade; and ample trade goods, greenstone wares and feather-boxes in particular - all pointed to a relatively settled way of life based upon trade and agriculture, not on war. Study of the woven artefacts, hoe, and ornaments now in the Soviet "Queen Charlotte Sound collections", in themselves, in apposition to the relevant components of the first and second Cook voyage collections and, more broadly, in the context of material and local culture studies for the northeastern South Island and the southwestern North Island, is of major ethnological significance. S o too, the present writer ventures, would be study of the other major areas of strength in the Kazan' and Leningrad collection, as opposed to Russian textual or illustrative evidence: for feather-boxes, tekoteko, 96 GLYNN BARRATT

adzes and, above all, weaponry. Such study casts fresh light on the traditional techniques, the culture history, the style and (political and cultural) adaptability of one small group of people in that region. More importantly, perhaps, given the underlying trend of Maori studies in New Zealand and the question of a separate but unified identity, it throws light on that one group's probable tribal antecedents and connections. On the basis of the 1820 data, lastly, it becomes both possible and necessary to attribute certain questionable items, in the Cook voyage collections, inter alia, to Queen Charlotte Sound. It may be mentioned, in conclusion, that the Bellingshausen visit formed the basis of the present Maori fond of artefacts in Leningrad and fixed the nature of official Russian interest in maoritanga. The collection of articles of material culture from the Maori now in MAE is heterogeneous: it consists of more than 170 objects, registered in 16 separate subcollections. First among these, both by date of accession and in value, is No. 736, received from the museum of the Admiralty Department in 1828. (Butinov & Rozina, 1963: 85)

The Imperial Russian Navy continued to provide the Russian government and educated public with such knowledge of New Zealand as the former needed or the latter could digest. It was inevitable. What was not inevitable, and what reflected Cook's (and Kruzenshtern's and Bellingshausen's) legacy in Russian bureaucratic circles, was the ethnographic element in Russian naval ventures of the age. As for the nature of the interest that has been taken in New Zealand and the Maori by Russians since the middle of the nineteenth century, it has remained unchanged: a curiosity about the natural resources of the country and the fortunes of a warlike people who, potentially, could rise against their British and/ or capitalist masters. And, doctrinally, how could the Party of today regard thepakeha if not as the (expedient) usurper of the Maoris'rights, the robbers of their land and independence? Necessarily, the Maori cause must be defended. So it is that, in the context of New Zealand T H E ETHNOGRAPHIC V A L U E 97

studies, Marxist-Leninist political imperatives are now the allies of the Soviet ethnographer who, while expected to examine ancient Maori life objectively, is also to present it in his work in a correct, anti-colonial perspective. Still, the fact remains that Bellingshausen's ethnographic work in Oceania is widely recognized in Leningrad, where Maori studies flourish. And for that alone, perhaps, we should be grateful.

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~

I

Figure 1. Detail of carving, concave face of ;I paddle ( M A E , 736.168), showing a stylized human figure. Southwest North Island style.

Figure 2. Detail of carvirig on tlic polished blade-fact of a chiefly o r ceremonial paddlc ( M A E 736.113). showing Taranaki style workmanship. T H E E T H N O G R A P H I C V A L U E 99

-

--

Figure 3. Detail of Ciisborne-stylc c;~rvingon the head of one of a group of thrce figurcs in a carved group of funerary function (MAE 736-120). Fine stone-tool craftsmanship.

L

- ~-

~~~

i

Figure 4. Detail of a tioiiuku cloak ( M / \ E 736.131) rtt~iiko border design from southwest North Island. 100 G L Y N N BARRA TT

Figure 5. Part of an unfinished cloak (MAE 736-128) showing South Island technique and striping but southwest North Island designs - a demonstration of conflicting cultural influences at work in Totaranui in the early 1800s.

Figure 6 . Detail oS the raniko border, Tai-aoaki style. of a double Kairaka cloak (MAE736-129). ManuSacture technique and former feather attachments suggest South Island influence. THE ETHNOGRAPHIC VALUE

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Figure 7. Feather box carved in the Gisborne style (MAE 736123).

I

~.

~~~

.

-

Figure 8. Dctail ol'tlle lid o i this icather box ( V A E 736-123).

102

GLYhrN B A R R A T7

Figure 9. Detail oFpil?epihedouble-pair cloak ( M A E 736-133) showing fine tag Cringes.

T H E E T H N O G R A P H I C VALUE

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Settlements, Sites and Structures Around Ship Cove Michael M. Trotter Introduction When James Cook discovered the Ship Cove area of Queen Charlotte Sound in 1770, there were, according to a contemporary estimate, over two hundred people living there. Today there are none. Dilapidated structures, scattered artefacts, and garden plants remain on the islands, headlands and beaches, providing graphic reminders of the aspirations and achievements of the Polynesians and Europeans who once made their home there. Part of the history of these people is recorded in the journals of occasional visitors to the area. Amongst these, the 1820 Russian expedition, under the command of Bellingshausen, came at a particularly useful time. Although it was over fifty years since the Maoris* had first been exposed to European culture, subsequent contacts had been infrequent and intermittent. In the opinion of the Russian visitors, the lifestyle of the Queen Charlotte Sound Maoris had not changed markedly during this time. Within the next few decades, however, very substantial changes were wrought to their society by the incursions of Te Rauparaha, the missionaries, the whalers, and finally, the European settlers. The present discussion is confined to an examination of the records of settlements and habitations of the Maori inhabitants of the area up to 1850, and a comparison of these with the surface archaeological evidence now present there. During their stay in Queen Charlotte Sound, members of the Russian expedition saw several settlements or areas of occupation. These were described in subsequent reports, which *Although the term "MaoriWinits present-day sense did not come into general usage until the late 1830s, I use it throughout this paper for convenience.

have recently been made conveniently available in English through the work of Glynn Barratt (1979a). There are, however, a number of difficulties in comparing these reports with the observations of other early visitors or with what can be seen in the area today. The first of these difficulties concerns the use of particular place-names in the Sound. The area visited by members of Bellingshausen's expedition is shown in Figure 1, which gives present-day place-names. The main confusion concerns Cannibal Cove, which is today recognized as the first bay north of Ship Cove. However, Cook in his original 1770 charts (Skelton, 1955: XVII, XVIII) showed "Canibals Cove" (sic), which he was responsible for naming, as the second bay north of Ship Cove, now known as Little Waikawa Bay. The confusion is compounded by contemporary reference to the whole of Queen Charlotte Sound as "Cannibal Bay" by the artist Sydney Parkinson (1773: 117), and to Ship Cove as "Cannibal Harbour" by the ship's mate Richard Pickersgill (Maling, 1969: 53); while Thomas Edgar, who was with Cook on his third voyage, referred to the present-day Cannibal Cove and Little Waikawa Bay as "Cannibal Cove" and "Skin Bone Cove" respectively (McNab, 1914: 223). The most recent published version of naturalist Joseph Bank's journal does little to help, as the cove where the British obtained the first evidence of Maori cannibalism is given as "about a mile from the ship" (Beaglehole, 1962(1): 454), i.e., the present-day Cannibal Cove. This appears to be an editorial error as two earlier versions give the distance as about two miles (Hooker, 1896: 21 1; Morrell, 1958: 98) as does Hawkesworth's compilation (Hawkesworth, 1773: 388); and Cook's own reference to the time taken to get there from Ship Cove confirms the original Cannibal Cove as being the second bay north of Ship Cove (Beaglehole, 1955: 237) - the present-day Little Waikawa Bay. The main problem stems from an engraving in the 1773 publication of Hawkesworth's version of Cook's first expedition. Here, Cannibal Cove is shown on a chart of Cook 106 MICHAEL M. TROTTER

Strait in its present-day position, that is, one bay south of where Cook placed it. This is presumably a draughting error by the engraver, and it was not noticed until the printing of Cook's originals by the astute Skelton in 1955. Although both Cook and the naturalist George Forster refer to Hawkesworth in subsequent publications (the latter somewhat disparagingly 1777: ix), no mention is made of this error. Bellingshausen had on board the Vost6k "the special chart of Queen Charlotte Sound made on Captain Cook's first voyage," but the only published versions of the chart available at that time, apart from Hawkesworth, appear to have been copied from Hawkesworth and show the same draughting error (compare Hawkesworth, 1773 opp. 385 with Anderson, 1784 opp. 52, for instance). It is unlikely that Bellingshausen would have had a true copy of Cook's chart on board* and we must presume, then, that he was referring to the present-day Cannibal Cove, rather than Cook's bay of that name, when he referred to "the very place where, on his first visit, Captain Cook saw human flesh" (Barratt, 1979a: 35). There can also be some confusion over Hippah Island and Hippah Rock, both Maori pa sites noted by Cook (e.g., Salmond MS: 36). (In standard Maori, the word Hippah would be written "He pa", meaning a fortified Maori village). Nowadays, the former name refers to the small islet off the south end of Motuara Island, the latter to a rock in East Bay. Only the islet off Motuara was visited by Bellingshausen. On Cook's original charts, however, both Motuara and Hippah are together called Hippah Island, the smaller not being named individually (see Skelton, 1955: XVIII). (On some other early charts, the only Hippah shown is that in East Bay). In his text, Cook gives the Maori name of the main island variously as Motu-ouru, Motu-oura, and Moutara (Beaglehole, 1955: 242, 245,246; 1961: 172, etc.), while in a copy by Joseph Banks it is given as Motuharo (Beaglehole, 1955: 246n). The present-day place-names as shown in Figure 1 are used throughout this discussion unless otherwise stated. *The early availability of Cook voyage texts is discussed by Barratt 1979b, especially at pp. 219, 2 2 7 28.

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The second problem to arise concerns the rendering of the Russian text into English without altering meanings. Bellingshausen's original journals of the voyage were lost, but not before a Russian version was published, in 1831. Soviet editions appeared in 1949 and 1960. Robert McNab published the first English translation of the New Zealand section of the 1831 text in 1909, Frank Debenham published a translation of the whole journal in 1945, and Glynn Barratt published a new translation of the New Zealand section, along with numerous observations by other members of the Russian expedition, in 1979. One example of a discrepancy, the resolution of which is vital for fixing the location of a Maori village, occurs in the texts that describe the first anchorage in Queen Charlotte Sound by Bellingshausen's ship, the Vost6k. Debenham translates Bellingshausen's account thus: "I anchored off the north-western side of Motuara Island in a depth of 9 sazhen [fathoms], mud bottom. . . . We observed a fenced-in place on the western side of the island which appeared to be inhabited. (Debenham, 1945: 199-200). Barratt's version of this reads: "I dropped anchor off the north-west side of the Sound, in a depth of 9 sazhen mud bottom. . . . On the western side [of Motuara], we noted a fenced-in place that appeared to be inhabited." (Barratt, 1979a: 29). The reference to a fenced-in place on Motuara Island is inconsistent with later passages in the text, and is difficult t o reconcile with the geography of the area. However, a more literal translation, without interpolation, clarifies the matter, viz. : "I anchored off the north-west side of Matuara (sic) Island in a depth of nine sazhens, mud bottom. . . . On the western side we noticed a fenced-in place, it appeared inhabited" (from Bellingshausen's 1831 : 305). McNab (1909: 239-40) translates along the same lines. From this and appropriate charts of the area (Admiralty 2685; N.Z. 615), it is apparent that Bellingshausen initially anchored roughly north of Motuara Island, opposite Little 108 MICHAEL M. TROTTER

Waikawa Bay, and that the fenced-in place was not on the island at all. In review, Professor Barratt (pers. com., 1982) has agreed with this interpretation. It was, in fact, in Little Waikawa Bay, as becomes apparent from a later description of a visit to the village. T o attempt to obviate problems of this nature, all Bellingshausen's references to settlements may be checked in the Russian text of 1831. However, even that text, and those of other members of the expedition, may not give accurate descriptions of what was seen in New Zealand. Published accounts are not necessarily identical with those that were, or could have been, made on the spot in Queen Charlotte Sound in 1820. Barratt has pointed out that Bellingshausen had three years in Russia to prepare the report that he presented to the Naval Ministry in 1824. Given the best will in the world to adhere to accuracy and truthfulness, it would have been very easy to incorporate poorly remembered or even entirely new data when writing many months or years after the event. Even this report, however, was edited before publication in 1831, and as the original notebooks are no longer available, it is not possible to ascertain how many alterations were made. Comparison of the wording of the various extant accounts suggests that the authors either compared notes while writing, or, in some cases, may have drawn upon their colleagues' already published accounts. In Bellingshausen's journal, certain details are wholly second-hand, as for example, his reference to the Maoris' consumption of beef aboard the second ship of the Russian expedition, the Mirnyy: "They consumed beef with more appetite than anything else and even wolfed down some that had started to go bad9'(Barratt, 1979a: 34). Novosil'sky, who was on board the Mirnyy, reports in turn: "they consumed beef with more appetite than anything else, even spoiled beef' (Barratt, 1979a: 59). Bellingshausen's account must have been hearsay, or copied, as it did not take place on his own ship; Novosil'sky on the other hand, had the opportunity to copy from Bellingshausen's 1831 publication SETTLEMENTS, SITES A N D STRUCTURES

109

before his own was finally published in 1853 (see Barratt, 1979a: 22). Galkin's observation that "salt beef did not appeal to them at all" (Barratt, 1979a: 66) does little to elucidate the matter. While this particular instance does not, indeed, affect the Russians' evidence on settlements or structures, it is this sort of consideration that brings into question the originality of apparently independent observations, which might otherwise be used in confirmation of accuracy. A further comment must be made, in this respect, on the similarity between the Russians' observations and those published in various journals of the Cook voyages - notably those of George Forster. The Russians certainly had a copy of Cook's Voyage(s) on board and also refer to the two Forster journals (Barratt, 1979a: 35,47-48,53-54); what is not clear is the extent to which they were guided by them. We may take the case of the Maoris' dogs: In 1777, Forster opined that the New Zealand native dog "resembled the common shepherd's cur, or Count Buffon's chien de berger" (Forster, 1777: 219). (Buffon was the eminent naturalist whose illustrated Histoire Naturelle had appeared, in forty-four plump volumes, between 1749 and 1804). Both Simonov and Galkin describe the dogs they saw in New Zealand: Simonov as "very like the species which Buffon terms sheepdogs" (Barratt, 1979a: 54), and Galkin as "resembling those called shepherd dogs by Buffon" (Barratt, 1979a: 69). This can hardly be coincidence, for it was not a particularly good comparison when made by Forster in the first place. (Nor is it likely that they had the complete works of Buffon on board). Russian and British descriptions of the Maori people, too, show similarities. In Anderson's large volume of Cook's Voyages* for instance we may read, "They had large knees, and slender bandy legs, owing to want of exercise and sitting in *Reference to this important publication (Anderson 1784) is rarely given in modern times -even Beaglehole omits it from his list of Cook voyage texts. It was published in London under the direction of George William Anderson (not t o be confused with the surgeon of the Resofurion, William Anderson, who had died in 1778).

1 10 MICHAEL M . TROTTER

their canoes cross-legged" (Anderson, 1784: 133). Galkin writes: "In build, they are fairly slender down to the legs, which are commonly distorted by thick, as it were swollen, knees probably a result of little exercise and of sitting cross-legged". (Barratt, 1979a: 64); and Bellingshausen adds, unoriginally: "Their knees are unusually thick, probably because they always sit cross-legged" (Barratt, 1979a: 30). Another classic case of similarity between Cook S Voyages and Bellingshausen's narrative is centred on the latter's paragraph comparing the climate of southern and northern latitudes, and referring to the greenness of the foliage and absence of any signs of autumn (Barratt, 1979a: 13). The gist of this can be found on page 133 of the Voyages (Anderson, 1784: 133). In these examples, and in other instances, there can be little doubt that the Russians drew on the published accounts of the Cook voyages (as well as upon each other). Many of the descriptions may have been as applicable in 1820 as they were in the 1770s; but the circumstances throw some doubt on their reliability. Besides doubts as to the total originality of the texts, strong reservations about the accuracy of Mikhaylov's drawings, particularly in respect to the placement of figures and objects, may well be justified. (Copies of the artist's sketches were obtained from the USSR by Glynn Barratt; these differ in some details from the published engravings). The setting of Mikhaylov's well-known depiction of a group of Maoris performing a "war-dance" near a party of Russians and being watched by two women in an open shelter (Fig. 4), can only be Ship Cove; the foreground, background, and position of the ships are all correct. Yet according to the reports, no Maoris were encountered in Ship Cove, and the shelter with the two women in it fits the description of one seen in Cannibal Cove. While one sympathizes with the need for artistic licence, it greatly reduces the value of such drawings in historical research. SETTLEMENTS, SITES A N D STRUCTURES

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Although uncertainties regarding the Russians' publication must affect the value of their descriptions of people and places, they d o at the same time provide an explanation for internal inconsistencies in the texts and perhaps for some of the discrepancies between accounts. The Russian Visit Aided by Cook's chart of the area - probably one based on Hawkesworth's version as previously discussed - Captain Bellingshausen sailed the Vostdk into Queen Charlotte Sound on the afternoon of 8 June 1820 (28 May by the Russian calendar) and anchored roughly north of Motuara Island (the Russians occasionally spelled it, in transliteration, Matuara). Later that evening, the Mirnyy made the same anchorage, and the following day both ships tacked, rather laboriously, into the more sheltered area between Motuara, Long Island, and the mainland (Fig. 1, 4). Bellinghausen refers to their close proximity to "Hanka Island", but the journal of Ivan M. Simonov, who was the expedition's astronomer, makes clear that this should be "Hippah Island", the rocky islet on the south end of Motuara Island where an observatory had been set up by Cook (see Barratt, 1979a: 53). On 11 June 1820 Bellingshausen and some of his officers went into Ship Cove to find a place from whence they could obtain fresh water, while Simonov selected a spot on the isthmus between Motuara Island and Hippah where he could make thrice-daily chronometer checks and fix the latitude and longtitude. The following day Bellingshausen, with Simonov, the artist Pave1 N. Mikhaylov, Sublieutenant P.M. Novosil'sky and others, paid a visit to Cannibal Cove (as it is known today), then went on to the main native settlement at Little Waikawa Bay. It had been seen from on board ship when the Vostdk first entered the Sound. No place-names were recorded for either place. On their return journey to the ships, the Russians stopped at a headland on which there was a potato garden probably between Little Waikawa Bay and Cannibal Cove then landed on Motuara Island. 1 12 MICHAEL M. TROTTER

On 13 June, the commander of the Mirnyy, Mikhail P. Lazarev, together with Ivan Zavadovsky and Pave1 Novosil'sky, went to Ship Cove, and the first two explored the forest at the back of the bay. Next day, as Lieutenant Arkady Leskov was returning from Ship Cove with fresh water for the ships, he had to throw fifteen barrels overboard to save his boat being swamped in broken water that was being whipped by sharp gusts of wind. The increasing force of the wind drove the Vost6k closer to Long Island and necessitated the dropping of a second anchor. The Vost6k returned to her previous anchorage on 15 June; Midshipman Adams found nine of the water barrels, and Bellingshausen and Lazarev explored further up the Sound, for a distance of about twenty-one kilometres. The Russians weighed anchor on 16June 1820 and sailed out between Motuara and Long Island, the way they had come into the Sound, then headed out through Cook Strait. A strong wind next day forced them from off Cape Terawhiti (the southwesternmost point of the North Island) back into Queen Charlotte Sound, which they were able to leave finally on 21 June. During the time the Russians spent in New Zealand, they made observations of native habitations at Hippah Island, Ship Cove, Cannibal Cove, Little Waikawa Bay, and at unspecified spots in the upper reaches of Queen Charlotte Sound. As James Cook and his contemporaries had also visited these places at various times between 1770 and 1777, it is useful briefly to review what was seen of native settlements at the time of this first major contact between Maoris and Europeans, before discussing the Russian observations. Settlements Observed During the Cook Voyages Fifty years before Bellingshausen came into Queen Charlotte Sound, the principal native settlement in the area visited by the Russians was "the Hippah", that rocky islet on the southern end of Motuara Island. In 1770, Sydney Parkinson, who was Joseph Bank's artist on the first voyage, SETTLEMENTS, SITES AND STRUCTURES

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noted that there were about thirty-two houses, containing upwards of two hundred inhabitants, in the village (Parkinson, 1773: 1 16). Banks himself, who referred to it as a town, said that the sides of the islet were so steep as to render fortifications "almost unnecessary"; accordingly there was "nothing but a slight Palisade and one small fighting stage at one end where the rock was most accessible" (Beaglehole, 1962(1): 458; cf. Hawkesworth, 1773: 395). On the second voyage, Cook observed that the stronghold had been deserted for some time (Beaglehole, 196 1: 172; see also Furneaux in Cook, 1777: 120). William Bayly described it as a: Town consisting of 33 houses, the most elevated part was tolerably level for about 100 yards long & 8 or ten yards wide; this was fortified with strong posts or sticks drove into the ground, & those interwoven with long sticks in a horizontal direction, & then filled with small brush wood with one place two feet square where was a wooden dore, so that only one man could get in at a time & that on his hands & knees & of course easy destroy'd if at war. (Beaglehole, 1961 : 157n; McNab, 1914: 207).

In 1777 William Anderson, aboard Cook's Resolution on the third voyage, gave a similar description, estimating the numbers of huts as about thirty, but adding: "It is remarkable that though the indians are not very cleanly, they have here places for doing their necessary occasions at each end of the place without the houses" (Beaglehole, 1967: 800). On that same voyage, the artist John Webber made a watercolour drawing of part of the Hippah (reproduced in Begg & Begg, 1970: 142). (An eighteenth-century engraving of this drawing published by Hawkesworth (1 773) is a reasonably faithful copy, but one in George Anderson's Voyages of 1784 is reversed.) The presence of Maori figures in this drawing suggests that the village was occupied at the time, but Cook wrote that he found no people living there even though houses and palisades had been rebuilt and were in good order, and it had been inhabited not long before his visit (Cook and King, 114 M I C H A E L M. T R O T T E R

1784: 135; Beaglehole, 1967: 62). Both Cook and Banks were sure that the Maoris normally lived scattered along the shores in search of food and only retired to the Hippah in time of threatened danger (e.g. Beaglehole, 1955: 147; Morrell, 1968: 96, 103). Others too referred to finding habitations scattered around the small bays in the Sound. The best description comes from Furneaux, who wrote: I believe they don't stay long in any particular place or have any settled habitation but wander up and down in different parties, particularly in the summer season, sometimes laying in the Canoes and sometimes on shore, as there is a number of Hutts in every Cove you meet with. Their Huts which at best are but indifferent, but far superior to those of Van Dieman's Land; they are dry overhead and covered in a most curious manner; but so low you cannot stand upright; The Doors (which generally faces the Northward) are so small that you must crawl in on your hands and knees. The Fire is near the door, and another in the inside; their bed places are raised about Six inches above the Ground with dry rushes and grass, and freathed* round of the same height. They are covered with Bark and then thatched with long grass or a kind of Flag . . . (Beaglehole, 1961: 738-39).

Cook observed that the Maoris were very adept at erecting temporary habitations. "I have seen above twenty of them erected on a spot of ground that not an hour before was covered with shrubs & plants," he wrote. The Maoris brought some of the materials (probably the framing) with them, and found the rest on the spot, yet they were "abundantly sufficient to shelter them from the wind and rain" (Beaglehole, 1967: 60; Cook and King, 1784: 122). Such shelters, erected in Ship Cove during Cook's third voyage (Beaglehole, 1967: 60-6 l), were drawn by Webber (see Begg and Begg, 1970: 139). The foreground in this illustration cannot be accurately matched *A Cornish term which could here be rendered as "wattled" or "woven" (Beaglehole, 1961 : 739n).

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with the present-day shoreline, and it has been suggested by Hocken (1895: 630) that the discrepancy is due to earthquake movement last century. While this is a possibility, it is not supported by geological or other evidence presently available (G.A. Eiby, pers. comm., 1983), and it may be that Webber, like Mikhaylov, used a certain amount of "artistic licence." Several other settlements seen in Queen Charlotte Sound during the Cook visits can be identified, but the descriptions made at this time are generally meagre. In the general Ship Cove area that was later visited by Bellingshausen, there appears to have been a small semi-permanent undefended settlement in Little Waikawa Bay (Cook's "Cannibal Cove"); the defended village on Hippah, to which the Maoris retired at times of threat or anxiety; and a number of temporary shelters in various other bays. Despite a comment by the brothers Begg (1970: 122) that Maoris set up camp in the bay south of Ship Cove in 1773, I can find no clear indication of this. It seems to be based on George Forster's reference to Cook visiting Maoris living in "the cove, which was only separated by a single hill from our watering-place, and t o which he had given the name of Indian Cove" (Forster, 1777: 496). Nor is there any definite reference to any Maoris living in today's Cannibal Cove. A map drawn by Pickersgill in 1770 shows settlements on Long and Hippah Islands, one or two huts in Cannibal Cove, two huts in Little Waikawa Bay, and three on the headland t o the north of Little Waikawa (Maling, 1969: 53), but there is no indication as t o whether or not they were occupied at that time. Settlements Observed by the Russians It is ironical that the Maori settlement for which we have the best description from Cook's voyages is dismissed in a few words by the Russian expedition. There is only one published reference to the village on Hippah Island, and that is by Simonov, who took observations to fix the latitude and longitude, and checked the ships' chronometers, on the rocks between Hippah and the main part of Motuara Island. No inhabitants were seen on any part of the island in 1820 and 1 16 MICHAEL M. TROTTER

Simonov merely records that there were several abandoned huts on the summit of the cliff of Hippah. Ship Cove was also uninhabited, but Bellingshausen mentions a small cabin, made of leaves and branches, which contained a few fish and many shellfish (Barratt, 1979a: 35). This was probably, as Bellingshausen surmised, the temporary dwelling of a small family. While it could possibly be the open shelter that appears in Mikhaylov's drawing of Ship Cove (Fig. 4), this corresponds more closely to the description of one seen in Cannibal Cove in that it is an "open hut", with two women sitting inside; Mikhaylov's drawing appears to be a composite of two or three different scenes. As mentioned before, the setting is certainly Ship Cove looking south-west towards Long Island with part of Arapawa Island behind it forming the skyline, and with Vostbk and Mirnyy at their anchorage. In the foreground, the Russians are grouped not far from where the monument to Captain Cook (erected in 19 13) now stands, close to the mouth of a small stream in the centre of the bay. The dancers, however, are probably those drawn on board the Mirnyy, or seen elsewhere on shore (Barratt, 1979a: 34, 55). In Cannibal Cove were three more temporary habitations, but here they were occupied. Dr Galkin describes them as "three small low huts, covered by branches and decidedly slovenly inside"; Bellingshausen calls them small and mean or squalid, and describes one as an open hut in which an old man, and later two women, sat on matting (cf. Mikhaylov's drawing). There appear to have been three or four men, at least two women, and some children at this settlement (Barratt, 1979a: 35,59, 67). In Little Waikawa Bay was the only large or permanent settlement seen by the Russians; indeed, Simonov ignored others in the area, writing of this as being the closest to Ship Cove. The village was first seen by Bellingshausen and by Novosil'sky when they were anchored off Motuara Island. Subsequently it was visited by a number of Russians, and Bellingshausen, Simonov, Novosil'sky and Galkin left descriptions of it (Barratt, 1979a: 29, 36, 38, 55, 58, 60-61, SETTLEMENTS, SITES AND STRUCTURES

1 17

67-68, 138), while Mikhaylov left the drawing reproduced in Figure 2. The village was situated on both sides of a small stream, which was paved or "cobbled" on at least one bank. Across the beach frontage, it was protected by a palisade a little higher than a man, and which had a wicket-gate toward the eastern end. Behind the palisade, and roughly bounded by the edges of the forest, were scattered a number of dwellings, at least one of which Galkin thought was plastered with clay. One of these dwellings, the chief's house, was larger and better finished than the rest, and was reached by the Russians by way of a plank bridge over the stream. At one place, probably near the beach at the eastern end of the village, was a half-open hut in which Galkin saw fish-nets, lines and ropes, and Bellingshausen noted many different kinds of wooden fish-hooks and fishing lines, concluding that it was a communal store as there was too much fishing gear in it for one family to use. The former also reported a fenced-off place where fish was dried outside the immediate vicinity of the dwellings. Bellingshausen, wandering towards the forest, saw a small hut erected about six metres above the ground on thick trees, the branches of which had been cut away; the skin of an albatross stretched on a hoop, and some tufts of black and white feathers, were hanging below it. Further away was a straight tree-trunk about fifty centimetres in diameter, which had been cut off'at a height of about two-and-a-half times that of a man, say, 4.25 metres. The top had been carved into the likeness of a human. This was also seen by Novosil'sky. Bellingshausen did not enter the chief's house in the village, but he looked inside and described it thus: The structure consisted of posts, placed in three rows. The central posts were twice as high as a man, and on each of them an ugly human figure had been carved and decorated with a red colouring. On these posts and on the outer rows, which were a fraction lower than the shoulder of a man, transoms had been placed to support the roof, which consisted of beams covered with leaves. A screen six feet inside the entrance produced an

1 18

MICHAEL M. TROTTER

ante-chamber, The whole interior was neatly covered with fine matting; several mats were also placed on the floor, where the inhabitants of that building usually sit and sleep. Pikes about 24' long were hung along the walls of the dwelling, also a staff, various insignia of a chieftain, and human figures carved out of wood and stained red (Barratt, 1979a: 36).

Taken by itself, this description conforms reasonably well with the typical nineteenth century "meeting-houseWdesignof a rectangular building with a porch at the front end, and an inverted V roof supported on a central row of posts beneath the apex and on lower rows at the sides. If Bellingshausen could see into the interior of the house without going inside, as he claimed, it suggests that the "ante-room" was an open porch, and he may have looked into the interior from an opening in the wall between it and the main chamber. Assuming that the twenty-four-foot pikes did not project into the ante-room, the overall length of the building must have been about 9.5 metres, 1.8 metres of which comprised the porch. The side walls would have been about 1.5 metres high, and the roof at the apex would have been about 3.4 metres above the floor. Galkin's description of the chiefs house adds little to that of Bellingshausen, and Simonov describes the village houses in general rather than the chiefs specifically. He does, however, refer to a fireplace in the middle, which served both to provide warmth and for cooking food,* and to two entrances, one in the front and one at the rear. Otherwise his details are largely in accord with Bellingshausen's. Novosil'sky reports the same general features, including the height and the length of the pikes hanging on the walls, and adds that the large room had wide benches along its walls, upon which lay baskets, gourds, and other artefacts. But he confuses the issue by giving the size of the house as three sazhen long by two wide. The sazhen referred to could be either the maritime sazhen, which is *Although there is currently a widespread belief that cooking and eating food inside dwellings was foreign to the Maori way of life, both have been reported by early European observers, and there is ample archaeological evidence of food remains inside houses.

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equivalent to 1.83 metres (Barratt, pers. comm., 1982) or it could be the standard sazhen at 2.13 metres. With either conversion, however, a twenty-four-foot-long pike (7.3 metres) could not hang even diagonally on a three-sazhen-long wall (5.5 or 6.4 metres). Novosil'sky also refers to a two-foot (sixty centimetre) square window that could be covered with matting, and a doorway of two arshin (1.3 metres) that was closed by a board, both in the same wall. Although it is not clear from the text whether Novosil'sky (195 1: 233) was referring to the door's width or to its height, it seems more likely that is was two arshin high. If this door and window were in the wall dividing the "porch" from the main chamber of the house, it is still in keeping with the typical nineteenth-century meeting-house design. Novosil'sky states that the house was divided into two rooms, one large and the other much smaller (Novosil'sky, 1951: 233), which hardly supports my suggestion that Bellingshausen's (and Simonov's) "ante-chamber" was an outer porch. Quite apart from this, there are a number of discrepancies in the four descriptions of the chiefs house - for instance, Bellingshausen says that each of the central columns had a human figure carved on it, Novosil'sky thought they had human heads carved on their tops, while Galkin reports a human figure only on the centre-most column - and so it is not possible objectively to determine from the published texts exactly what the house looked like. Galkin observes that the Little Waikawa village appeared to have existed for a long time, and this is borne out by the others' descriptions of the buildings and other structures. With the possible exception of the abandoned huts on Hippah Island, all other signs of habitation in Queen Charlotte Sound - the cabin in Ship Cove, the low huts in Cannibal Cove, and some others scattered along the inner parts of the Sound - were of a temporary nature; probably all could have been used by the group of natives whom they saw, and who numbered not more than eighty people (Barratt, 1979a: 39,43).

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Observations of Settlements, 1839-1850 Almost twenty years after the visit of the Russians, the journals of two passengers aboard a British ship, the Tory, give descriptions of Maori settlements in the Ship Cove area. Like the Russians, the Tory's captain used Cook's chart for guidance into Queen Charlotte Sound, and he also sailed in between Long Island and Motuara Island before anchoring closer t o the shore in Ship Cove, where he stayed from 17 to 3 1 August 1839. Narratives of Ernest Dieffenbach (1843) and Edward Jerningham Wakefield (1845) are in accord, the latter giving more details of Maori settlements. Wakefield noted that Long Island was crowned with native fortifications and that there was a unoccupiedpa or fort on the south point of Motuara Island. (In the second edition (1904) of Wakefield's journal, this is given as "Motuhara," but this spelling is a misguided alteration by the publishers who, subsequent to the publication of the first edition in 1845, "obtained the services o f . . . an experienced Maori scholar" to "put the spelling in correct form".) There was no-one living on Motuara in 1839 although the Maoris did go there to catch wild pigs. Ship Cove, too, was deserted, but Maoris came by canoe to trade aboard the Tory from a village in a bay referred to as Cannibal Cove, potatoes and pigs being mentioned in exchange for pipes and blankets. Some others were camped in a bay north of this village, awaiting fair weather to cross Cook Strait to Kapiti. A party from the Tory including both Wakefield and Dieffenbach visited the Maori village called Anaho. Wakefield writes: We found the village of Anaho in a level piece of ground at the head of Cannibal Cove, and were much amused by seeing the ware puni or sleeping houses, of the natives. These are exceedingly low; and covered with earth, on which weeds very often grow. They resemble, in shape and size, a hot-bed with the glass off. A small square hole at one end is the only passage for light or air. I intended to creep into one of them to examine it; but had just got my head in, and was debating within myself by SETTLEMENTS, SITES A N D STRUCTURES

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what snake-like evolution I should best succeed in getting my body to follow, when I was deterred by the intense heat and intolerable odour from proceeding. One large house in the village, with wattled walls plastered with clay, we were told belonged to an Englishman then in Cloudy Bay. The natives use it for acommon habitation during the day, and assemble in it to prayers every morning and evening. (Wakefield, 1845: 26-27).

The Englishman referred to by Wakefield was Arthur Elmslie (McNab, 1913: 348; Crawford, 1880: 31) or Emslie (Burdon, 1979: 78-80, 156-58), a whaler who spent part of the year at the Te Awaiti, a whaling station in Tory Channel. Dieffenbach's account of the voyage adds that there were generally some native huts in the bays of the Sound, and that these were inhabited chiefly at the fishing seasons; there were sixty Maoris of the Nga-te-awa (sic) tribe living at Anaho, according to his census (Dieffenbach, 1843: 25, 195). While the Tory was in Ship Cove, a party of Maoris established themselves in temporary huts opposite the ship, and there were some people camped "in a bay north of Cannibal Cove" presumably Little Waikawa Bay (Wakefield, 1845: 26, 28; Dieffenbach, 1843: 25, 3 1). It seems likely that the Tory party were using a copy of the Hawkesworth version of Cook's chart or one derived from it. If so, then the "village of Anaho . . . at the head of Cannibal Cove" was situated in the bay called Cannibal Cove on today's maps. This is confirmed by James Crawford, who visited the village soon afterwards; he gave the name as Te Anahou in his published account, and placed it as "the next bay to the north of "Ship's Cove" ". There were about a hundred people living there at the time of Crawford's visit, including the European whaler Arthur Elmslie (Crawford, 1881 :30-32). Although they give little detail of sites or structures, Crawford's manuscript notes do provide a picture of life in Anaho around 1840 (Crawford MS). By this time, the Maoris were growing both potatoes and corn, and they had pigs and hens, although fish was still a most important food item. One of their favourite pastimes, according to Crawford, was writing and reading, and 122 MICHAEL M. TROTTER

they had a passion for acquisition and trade. With regard to the use of fortifications, Crawford wrote: The natives of Anaho and the contiguous part of Queen Charlotte's Sound had been in considerable dread of an attack from the Ngatiraukawa for some time past. They had watch stations on the summit of the hills commanding a view of Cooks Straits and an anxious look out was kept day & night for the appearance of the hostile canoes. Several strong pahs had also been repaired on the various islands in the Sound which might form rallying points for all the different settlements to concentrate their forces. But in case of retreating to those fortresses they must have left their settlements to be ravaged by the enemy and their potato grounds exposed to plunder & destruction which it may be supposed they have much hesitation in doing.

The Maoris' state of anxiety was due to events in the North Island, where the Ngatiraukawa were at that time engaged in hostilities with the Ngati-awa, the parent tribe of the Anaho people (Dieffenbach, 1843: 195; see also Wakefield, 1845: 36-37). Within a relatively short time, however, the situation had become quite peaceful - at least as far as tribal squabbles were concerned. Surveyor John Barnicoat reported that warfare had ceased as missionary influence had extended, when he visited Queen Charlotte Sound in 1843 (Barnicoat MS: 56). As he rowed into the Sound after rounding Cape Jackson on 17 March, he passed by "Little Bay" where two or three Europeans and a similar number of Maoris resided, and two unfinished boats were seen on the shore. (He opined that there was little apparent prospect of them ever being completed.) He then continued on to the "considerable native village called Onahau", where he and his party stayed overnight. Barnicoat's diary entries make it clear that these places were Little Waikawa and Cannibal Cove (Anaho) respectively. In the village were about fifty "obliging and hospitable" Maoris, some of whom had been engaged in whaling. They were called to a religious service at sunrise in the SETTLEMENTS, SITES A N D STRUCTURES

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morning and afterwards half of the congregation received practical instruction in writing (on slates) from a native instructor. Barnicoat wrote in his diary that there was a little Maori or European settlement in each bay of the Sound. Around each was some cultivated ground, most of which produced abundantly. On leaving Cannibal Cove, Barnicoat passed "Capt. Cook's Bay" (Ship Cove), and observed "a native fortification consisting of railed enclosure" on the opposite shore (probably Hippah Island) (Barnicoat MS: 55-56). Although there were many other visitors to the area during the 1840s, there is little useful information in the records they left. In 1840, Ensign Best referred to visiting a "pah" in or near Ship Cove (Taylor, 1966: 255), although it was apparently not Hippah Island. In 1848 Bishop Selwyn visited "the little native village of Anahou (sic), in the cove to the northward of Ship Cove" (Selwyn, 1849: 66), and the next year people from the Acheron traded with Maoris in Ship Cove (Natusch, 1978: 126). In 1850 William Swainson sketched the view from Motuara Island looking into Ship Cove; in the foreground is a Maori house either on the top or on a terraced area on the island, with what is probably another house nearby (reproduced by Natusch 1978: 131). Archaeological Features 1 spent a day making a general archaeological survey of the coast-line around the Ship Cove area in 1977, and another halfday in 1982 checking the sites mentioned by Bellingshausen. Although it has now had a navigational light built upon it, and although the ground is extensively burrowed by birds, levelled terraces are clearly recognizable on Hippah Island beneath the thick low bush that covers most of it (Archaeological site number S 161127). Nearly all the terracing clearly relates to the Maori occupation of the site and, together with the levelled top of the islet, would certainly have provided sufficient level space for the thirty-two or thirty-three huts reported in the 1770s. The site was disturbed or modified by

124 MICHAEL M. TROTTER

Europeans as early as 1774 when Captain Furneaux's men deepened the floor of some of the abandoned dwellings to make them more suitable for habitation by people from the Adventure (Beaglehole, 1961: 740; Cook, 1779: 120). While much of the archaeological evidence of the "town" will have been destroyed by both natural and human disturbance to the ground, it is virtually certain that useful information on the nature of the buildings and their inhabitants could be obtained by investigational excavation. In 1977 I found a block of argillite, a rock that does not occur naturally in the immediate area and which was commonly used by prehistoric Maoris for making tools, on top of Hippah. In 1980 a brokenpatu, made of greywacke, was found in the sea off the western side of the islet (Fig. 6a). It had obviously lain on the bottom for quite some time, presumably since it was discarded by its Maori owner. Because of the heavy bush cover and a shortage of time, the main part of Motuara Island was not included in my survey, but during a brief visit there two exposures of mussel-shell midden and a five-by-three-metre pit were noted not far from the track that leads from the present landing place to a lookout on top (site number S 161 126). The purpose, and indeed the origin, of the numerous pits found throughout the Marlborough Sounds has long been the subject of much speculation, but it seems certain that many, if not most, are the remains of dwellings. Archaeological investigations have provided evidence of sunken-floored houses, and they were also observed in use by Maoris in the nineteenth century. In Ship Cove, where a monument has been erected to commemorate the visits of Captain Cook, evidence of prehistoric occupation was visible at the southern end of the beach (site number S16/ 123). Scattered flakes of argillite showed where this material had been used to make artefacts such as adze-heads, and burnt charcoal and dark-stained soil indicated a fire area that had probably been used for cooking food. Although the Russians did mention seeing artefacts made of "basalt", it seems likely that they were referring to SETTLEMENTS, SITES A N D STRUCTURES

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argillite. However, few if any artefacts of either material were collected by them (see Simmons, 1981). The flakes I saw here and elsewhere in the Marlborough Sounds suggest a welldeveloped flaking technology, which the eighteenth and nineteenth century Maoris did not appear to have, and I suspect they were left here by a much earlier occupation than was seen by any of the early European visitors. The stream in the centre of the beach at Ship Cove has produced a recent fan which may well cover occupational material here, and any lowlying deposits may have been affected by the earthquake action referred to earlier. On the hillside above the southern end of the beach was a single rectangular pit with a rim of heaped-up soil around it (site number S16/ 1979), and on the small headland at the northern end of the beach two anvil stones lay on the surface (site number S 161 128). These stones were presumably roughly in the same position where they were left after being used, and it is likely that scientific excavation around them would provide clues to why and when they were used. Cannibal Cove contained much evidence of European occupation, ranging from free-growing garden plants and an old rubbish dump to a concrete sheep-dip and a water tank. Most interesting were the extensive drystone works - fences, a pathway, retaining walls, the remains of a farm shed, and a clay-plastered cylindrical structure that looked like a waterstorage tank. Closer to the beach was an area of charcoalstained soil containing burnt stones and artefacts of Maori manufacture (site number S16/ 124). Where this deposit had been eroded by the stream (which flows through it), and in the beach frontage, were a number of waste flakes of at least two varieties of argillite, an unfinished adze-head and some pieces of early bottle-glass, one of which had been used as a cutting instrument (Fig. 6e). The glass is of special interest, as on Cook's first two voyages, the Maoris had eagerly sought empty bottles (Anderson, 1784: 54, 131; Beaglehole, 1955: 245; 1961: 738), on the third voyage Thomas Edgar reported that the value of trade goods in general was greatly reduced (McNab, 126 M I C H A E L M . TROTTER

1914: 228), and by 1820 Galkin noted that bottles had little trade value (Barratt, 1979a: 65). It seems likely that the bottle glass came from an occupation between 1770 and 1820, but the evidence of argillite tool manufacturing suggests that there was a still earlier (though not necessarily permanent) occupation in the bay. Other artefacts that have been found here include argillite adze-heads and a seventeen-centimetre-long chisel of greenstone, having a chisel edge at one end and a gouge edge at the other (Fig. 6b). In Little Waikawa Bay was a substantial deposit of Maori occupational material (site number S 161 125). Although severely eroded - in one place it had been cut through by a flood channel - it was evident that there had been a considerable settlement here during the early-to-midnineteenth century. Apart from the flood channel, black stained soil containing burnt stones, charcoal, shells, bones and artefacts covered an area sixty metres long and twenty-five wide. As the south and west sides of this were eroded and the northern edge was covered with flood-deposited boulders, the original site must have been somewhat larger than this. Test holes and eroded sections indicated that this deposit was up to fifty centimetres thick, which suggests a considerable period of occupation. Besides artefacts of Maori origin - cutting and pounding tools of argillite, flint, and local stone - there were broken clay pipes and fragments of a camp oven of European manufacture. As such things are not mentioned by Bellingshausen, it seems likely that the latter date from some time after his expedition, perhaps the 1830s or '40s at earliest. The size, general shape, and position of this site in relation to an old creek bed and the hillside are consistent with the descriptions and drawing made by the 1820 Russian expedition (Fig. 2, 7). It seems likely that it does largely represent the village that the Russians saw, and that it was occupied for some time after their visit. Towards the back of the occupational deposit were the remains of another clay-plastered cylindrical drystone structure like the one in Cannibal Cove. At the time of my visit, SETTLEMENTS, SITES A N D STRUCTURES

127

I considered both of these to be of European manufacture, but in retrospect I a m not so sure; for the meantime, their origin and function remain unknown. Apart from those that I recovered, very few artefacts seem t o have been found in Little Waikawa Bay, probably because of the comparative lack of European activity here - with fewer people visiting the bay, there is less chance of artefacts being found. Evidence of Maori occupation in the general Ship Cove area can be summarized as follows: Motuara Island (excluding Hippah). One if not two dwellings were seen on the main island in 1850, and a pit, which probably represents a dwelling, plus shell middens, which indicate food consumption, were apparent in 1977. Much more archaeological evidence of Maori occupation is likely to be found if a survey is made of the island. Hippah. A fortified village, sometimes occupied, was seen in the 1770s, and, as at least parts of it were standing in 1820,1839 and 1843, it seems most likely that it was rebuilt or maintained after Cook's visits. Useful written descriptions and a pictorial impression of the site were made in the 1770s. Present-day ground features are consistent with the eighteenth-century descriptions of the village. Ship Cove. For the most part, observed occupation in Ship Cove was a result of the attraction of European ships at anchor off the shore; one such encampment was drawn in 1777 and a description of the construction of temporary shelters was made at that time. Archaeological evidence indicates earlier manufacturing industry (and hence occupation) on the flat part of the bay, and some sort of activity, probably manufacturing, on the small point at the northern end. There is also a pit, which may be the remains of a Maori dwelling or look-out shelter, overlooking the bay on the southern hillside. Cannibal Cove. Some huts or shelters were noted in what is now known as Cannibal Cove in the 1770s, and there was a small temporary settlement there in 1820. By 1839, however, 128 MICHAEL M. TROTTER

there was a large village in the bay with the occupation apparently focused around a substantial European house. Archaeological evidence indicates that there has been much more recent European occupation here, dating well into the twentieth century, and this is supported by local oral history. The extent and intensity of the European ground modifications for such things as housing, gardening, material supplies and stream control may have destroyed much of the evidence of Maori occupation. Nevertheless, the artefacts known to have come from here d o suggest that Maoris were living here both between the visits of Cook and Bellingshausen and earlier. Little Waikawa Bay. There was some occupation in this bay at the time of Cook's visits, and a very substantial village here in 1820. A sketch and several written descriptions of the latter are available and there are descriptions (of unknown reliability) of the principal house of the settlement. By 1839 there was only a temporary camp in the bay. Archaeological evidence indicates that there was a settlement here subsequent to the Russians' visit, and although it is not possible to ascertain whether it was before or after the visit by the Tory in 1839, it may well have been the mixed occupation noted by Barnicoat in 1843. Other Sites. An "Indian town" was noted on Long Island in 1770 and fortifications in 1839; there were some Maori huts t o the north-east of Little Waikawa Bay in 1770 and a garden somewhere south of it in 1820. None of these has been tested by archaeology, principally because of the lack of survey work. Elsewhere in Queen Charlotte Sound, a few villages were reported by the Cook expeditions, and Maori huts, generally not occupied, were seen in various bays in the 1770s, in 1820, in 1839 and in 1843. Discussion The outstanding impression gained from the early observations and the archaeology of settlements in the general Ship Cove area is one of lack of permanence. The best-defined feature - the Hippah village - appears to have been a retreat SETTLEMENTS, SITESANDSTRUCTURES

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rather than a permanent settlement where people carried out their normal day-to-day activities. Although it may have been used many times over the eighty-year period under discussion here, it is most unlikely that it was inhabited for long periods on any one occasion. It seems to have been used less in the early nineteenth century than it was at the time of Cook's visits. Incidentally, the lack of a water supply on Hippah and the extreme ease with which the village could have been besieged or burnt down point strongly to an absence of these tactics in local Maori warfare at the time of its use. The 1820 village in Little Waikawa Bay was a fairly permanent settlement, according to contemporaneous accounts, and indeed one of the Russian observers remarked that it appeared to have existed for a long time. Yet there was no village there in 1770 (only two huts), nor in 1839, by which time the principal settlement of the area was in Cannibal Cove. Such changes could be due to a number of causes. There were, for instance, changes in the dominant tribe residing in the area and early European settlement by people such as Arthur Elmslie, and the possibilities of trade and even of whaling and cohabiting with Europeans at the nearby whaling station of Teawaiti (Wakefield, 1845: 47-51) must have affected Maori society in no small way. Even earlier, the desire to trade with Europeans, it has been suggested, had unexpected and sanguinary results (Orchiston, 1975: 47; Brailsford, 1981: 27-28). And the introduction, from tobacco to ironware - not to mention disease - must surely have caused considerable disruption to the traditional Maori lifestyle. Christianity had a very strong hold as early as 1839, and even though some doubts may have later been expressed as to the depth of the Maoris' understanding (Barnicoat MS: 57), there is no doubting the intensity with which they adopted the newly introduced religion. However, the individual and cumulative effects of these various influences on the location and size of settlements, and upon houses and other structures within these settlements, is largely conjectural. Indeed, there may be no need to look for 130 MICHAEL M. TROTTER

causes of change, let alone speculate on their likely effects. The observations of even the earliest visitors lead one to see a picture of impermanence and itinerancy in the settlements around Ship Cove. If we project this picture back into prehistory, the archaeology of the area - albeit none too deeply explored - does little t o suggest that it was any different before Europeans arrived. The changing pattern that is apparent when we compare the Russians'reports with those of the 1770s visitors, and with those of around 1840, may well be just a continuation of what had occurred for centuries. With respect to structures, there is little real evidence of change - the ordinary house almost entered by Wakefield in 1839 was probably not much different from those described and drawn by Cook's people in the 1770s. Bellingshausen's chief's house may have been somewhat grander, but it would be rash to say so in the absence of better descriptions for the earlier and later periods and in view of problems in determining exactly what the Russians saw. The fence in front of the Little Waikawa Bay settlement in 1820 is a feature not specifically noted at any of the bay settlements in the 1770s, but neither the written description nor Pave1 Mikhaylov's sketch gives any clue to its purpose. It may have been a token defence, but if so, it would have been relatively ineffective compared with the natural and palisade defences of Hippah Island. Besides, it was the Maoris'custom, according to both earlier and later observers, to retire from their settlements to island pa if attacked. Perhaps a more likely function of the fence was for shelter, in which case it need not necessarily represent any radical change to their lifestyle. There were undeniable changes, of course, and the greatest of these was in the number of people - and hence the size and disposition of the settlements - in the area. There was a considerable population reduction between Cook's first and last voyages, and another marked reduction between them and Bellingshausen's visit. The latter occurred at a time when there was comparatively little contact or trade with Europeans, and the Maoris remained living in much the same manner as they SETTLEMENTS, SITES AND STRUCTURES

13 1

had in the 1770s. Between 1820 and 1850 the population was reduced yet further, but not as much as might be expected considering the magnitude of the changes that were going on around them and to them. Not only were Europeans exploring, exploiting and settling the country, but considerable havoc was caused by the bloody raids of the Ngati Toa chief, Te Rauparaha, from the opposite side of Cook Strait. By the end of the eighty-year period under discussion here, the Maori people living in the Ship Cove area had adopted many aspects of European culture. They had metalware, European clothing and blankets, tobacco, elementary education in reading and writing, a new religion. And in the absence of warfare, they had trade and employment opportunities. The accounts of Bellingshausen and of other members of the Russian expedition are the last composed before the bulk of these changes took place.

132 MICHAEL M. TROTTER

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Figure I. Aerial mosaic of the main part of Queen Charlotte S o u n d a r o u n d Ship Cove visited by the Russian expedition in 1820. Modern place names, as used in the text, are given.

SETTLEMENTS. SITES A N D STRUCTLIRES

133

Figure 2. The "fenced-inMvillagein Little W:lihi~waBay, 1820. From a lithograph made from Mikhaylov's drawing.

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Figure 3. I.ittle Waikawa Bay, 1982. P h o t o by M. Trotter.

134

MICHA El. M. TROTTER

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F i ~ u r e4, An apparently composite scene set in Ship Cove, 1820. F r o m a lithofraph made from Mikhaylov's drawing.

Fizure 5. Ship Co\,c, 1982. P h o t o by M. Trotter.

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