1501: Waitaha’s Lost Luggage?

May 17, 2019

By AHNZ

Statist history informs us this pre-historic flax backpack is “another taonga” called a “poi kawe.” Canterbury Museum curators are thus priming your brain to regard the object as Maori. The truth is they have no idea.

Another…taonga: the remains of this poi kawe (backpack) were discovered in a cave at Castle Hill.

Poi kawe were made from woven flax reinforced with a wooden frame and hoops and featured shoulder straps and a drawstring.- Canterbury Museum; Facebook

The construction is intricate and it’s a one-of-a-kind; The skills required to make this have not survived¹. The object itself was found in a little rock shelter at Cave Stream Scenic Reserve near Castle Hill. We know nothing about the people who invented it.

This poi kawe was found by a man exploring around Castle Hill. At first glance, he thought it was just any old kete. He then noticed that there were some pieces of wood inside the kete supporting and stabilising sections of the kete. In the end, he concluded that it wasn’t an ordinary kete. Eventually, the remaining parts of the poi kawe were transported to Canterbury Museum for further examination by both expert weavers and archaeologists.- Canterbury Musuem; Facebook

The possibility remains open that this flax-craft is of Waitaha origin, the people who are known to have taken refuge inland when the Ngai Tahu invaders displaced and colonised them. To situate the artefact in Maori narrative witin an exhibit called ‘Iwi Tawhito – Whenua Hou’ is misleading if not deceptive.

“On the ridge above the reserve an old Māori backpack was found in a small rock shelter.. Finding this pack confirmed traditional knowledge that Māori used packs, similar to the modern day pack, for carrying loads. The pack is estimated to be 500 years old and can be seen in the Canterbury Museum.”- doc.govt.nz

If that seems as unlikely to you as it does to me then too bad! That’s not even history, that’s the law! The new name and the rationale for it are codified in New Zealand law as a ‘statutory acknowledgement’. Not content to propagandise about our history, National 4.0 passed a law saying this was so as part of the Ngāi Tahu Claims Settlement Act (1998)

Castle Hill must have been on one of the old Maori tracks to the Coast. Lewis Mathias found a lot of pieces of greenstone, with traces of Maori working, at the foot of some rocks at the back of the present homestead.- Acland (1946).

What Mathias found during his time (1897-1901) indicate a stone toolmaking site but whose was it? Before that, adzes and moa bones were found on the site by his predecessor, Enys². By what name would the Waitaha have known this place? Did the Ngati Mamoe know the place and have a name? By reverting to, or, wose, inventing, a Ngai Tahu Maori name to replace Castle Hill we see again that The State is replacing history with politics.

This bag may be the world’s oldest example of stolen luggage.

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1 A very clever woman, Te Aue Davis, was able to reverse-engineer a replica which the museum also displays

2 Press, 17/2/1938

image ref. Thomas Selby Cousins; Alexander Turnbull Library

image ref. Canterbury Museum; Facebook

image ref. JOHAN LOLOS; Stuff

image ref. Canterbury argillite adzes; Te Ara

note: Unless I’ve got the language all wrong..’poi kawe’ is a Maori name. The word ‘poi’ basically means ‘on a teather’. The word ‘kawe’ was invented so a people whose tongues couldn’t say the English word ‘carry’ would have a pronounceable substitute.

It’s really that basic. But people like to feel clever and sophisticated by using this old “Maori” language that was really created as a sort of prosthetic device to aid the last generation of New Zealanders who didn’t grow up being able to make all the vocal sounds we use today.

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