1832: Kaiapoi vs Kaiapohia
April 20, 2019
By AHNZ
I’m going to pick a side in the ongoing debate between which is the proper place name, Kaiapoi or Kaiapohia?
Long before the Canterbury Association set up the modern town of Kaiapoi (c.1853) it had been inhabited by Maoris. For the prior 20 years it had been a ruin of its former self, utterly smashed (1832) by Te Rauparaha and his invaders from the North. But that’s not how it used to be.
Founding Ngai Tahu’s Camelot
By about the year 1700 the invaders from the North Island, Ngai Tahu, had largely exterminated and replaced the previous inhabitants of the South Island. Their great warrior chief, Turakautahi, had become wounded in the thigh during battle close to Kaikoura. Turakautahi backs off a little south of the future Kaiapoi to rest and recover.
I once heard an interview with Bob Jones, the Kiwi property multi-millionaire where he revealed the secret to his great wealth. He said that as a youth he had become dangerously ill and stuck in bed, kept from the usual tracks of activity and thought young men of his age would normally pursue. “I had time to think,” he said. This was Transcendent Thinking that brought great wealth to Jones and his people. Well, the same thing happened some 250 years earlier with Turakautahi while his leg was coming right.
The chief resolved to create an empire based on food, not war. He would assign to each hapu (family group) particular specialities. Some would gather, others would cultivate, others hunt. Fish, fibre, meat, greenstone, carbohydrates. All these commodities would swing around a central hub, a Ngai Tahu stock exchange, the South Island capital city: Kaiapohia/Kaiapoi.
The very name, whichever version you wish, has ‘kai’ (food) and ‘poi’ (an object you swing on a teather.) Turakautahi realised his vision, creating this Kaiapohia/Kaiapoi as a well-protected and fortified pa upon a peninsula surrounded by the moat of a lagoon wetland. Rather than murder him as some kind of witch or heretic for being such a stone cold, stone age, genius Turakautahi’s plan was accepted! All went very well for the new and improved South Island economy.
Operation Barracuda Tooth
In short, Armageddon came for Ngai Tahu in 1832 when Te Rauparaha’s Ngati Toa war-party invaded from the north. The warrior force called itself The Barracuda Tooth and destroyed the people of Kaiapoi/Kaiapohia in fire and primal violence beyond recovery.
According to one account the name Kaiapohia is a Ngati Toa victory slur, a nick-name to taunt the scattered remains of their southern foe. As Ngati Toa became Anglican, the State religion of New Zealand, the term spread into usage in official documents and within the new settler colonies. But what it really means, they say, is ‘piling up bodies to eat.’ In this case it is a vile insult to Ngai Tahu and their ancestors, a viral meme that Ngati Toa have been able to spread at the expense of their enemies! So you shouldn’t say Kaiapohia.¹
Case for Kaiapohia
I accept Kaiapohia as the legitimate name of Turakautahi’s Camelot and for the site of the remains of the pa at Kaiapoi today. For one thing, the monument at the pa from 1899 unveiled by Premier Seddon says so. For another, the missionary (1864-98) to the Ngai Tahu, James Stack used that name in the title of his book about them. You can be fairly sure the name Kaiapohia/Kaiapoi came up during this time and he would have been quickly corrected. Besides, he spoke Maori himself.
All my old history books use Kaiapohia, including Ngai Tahu writers themselves. I know of no evidence that Ngati Toa have found to be gloating of the trick they have played on the world for some 200 years now. The only source for the piling-up-bodies story seems to come from two books…
“In the nineteenth century the nineteenth century the expression ‘Kaiapohia’ was consistently deprecated by Ngai Tahu elders who knew of its origin, such as Natanahira Waruwarutu and Teone Taare Tikao. But in the twentieth century many writers, and even some from Ngai TAhu, have followed Stack in using the Ngati Toa cursing name ‘Kaiapohia’ for Kaiapoi pa site.”- Harry Everson
Strange thing for Everson to hang his argument upon. In fact, Waruwarutu and Tikao were the ones represented in twentieth century texts (1939 and 2011) whereas Stack, and Edward Shortland were living and writing in the nineteenth century. Stack had for a source¹ Ngai Tahu Chief Pita Te Hori who defended Kaiapoi’s pa against Te Rauparaha personally and “excelled all others in folk-lore and the knowledge of tribal history.”²
Waruwarutu says Kaiapohia is the wrong name but he was only a boy when it fell in 1832. As for Tikao, he was not born until 1850. Neither man can say first hand what the people of Kaiapohia called their home. (If memory serves, Waruwarutu survived the fall of Kaiapohia on account of being part of a small-time eeling detail situated on the outskirts from the main centre.)
I may be wrong to favour Kaiapohia but I’m not wrong to question. Every preference to choose ‘Kaiapoi’ seems to cite Harry Everson’s argument above uncritically. I highly doubt Wikipedia or Waimakariri Libraries troubled themselves to have an informed opinion, just cut and paste from Everson’s conclusion. Such a perspective of historically maligned Ngai Tahu does lend itself to the Treaty Grievance and Compensation agenda which is the main object anyone has in discussing Ngai Tahu history these days, alas.
—
1 Lore and History of the South Island Maori, Duff (1950)
2 Te Hori’s obit; Press (1872)
ref. Kaiapoi; wiki and p63, Everson (2006)
image ref. Kaiapoi Pa; AHNZ files (2015)
8 thoughts on "1832: Kaiapoi vs Kaiapohia"
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I read your article with great interest, thank you.
You may like to find a copy of my book, The Eel of Te Raki, published 2022 by MoshPit; it covers your concerns, is a history, well researched, non-fiction (Paora Taki) and fiction, intertwined and going back 500 years; (available Kaiapoi PaperPlus; Scorpio Books Chch; and online; was bought by Waimakariri Library (recently advised it is ‘lost’; and perhaps some Chch Libraries.
Ngai Tahu ‘s genealogist at the time of my research was definitely pro-Kaiapohia. I grew up in close proximity to the siege sight, my elders always referred to it as Kaiapohia.
Oh, you’re exploring the same thought that occurred to me too. What was life like there back in the day. Hope you’ve seen Kiwi Codger’s Youtube videos about this too where he re-creates the pa.
Unfortunately Waimak doesn’t even have a copy on the catalog or else I’d pick up a copy tomorrow. Will keep a look out though
It is so great that you folks are interested in Kaiapoiha! Iam another “Codger with a lifelong fascination with history & the rugged life of Maori in NZ. It is NOT a load of of joy & squeaks! Actually any history is pretty much HORRIBLE especially for girls. Few realise just how difficult it was! Slavery was the usual order of most societies, supply of ANY food daily was the constant concern for all. While the budding Industrial Revolution (started in England YAY 76 CHEERS) was starting to actually lift living conditions but MOST of the world was still in UTMOST MISERY!. Aweful housing clothes food .illiteracy & superstition(religion ) drove most lives. Maori conditions were unbelievably hard by todays standards survival was by sheer determination. stone flake chips were the essential tools for everyday use . The courage to survive (& desperate needs) were the everyday activity of most. Most “education” fed to our kids is UTTER M BULL___T. For example todays “Press” has an article calling COOK a “COLINIST” He was nonsuch thing (as if that was bad anyway) he came to the Pacific to explore & trial a CHRONOMETER, observe the “transit of Venus ” map new lands (he was a very skilled cartographer cooks surveys are still in use) also he brought pigs & potatoes (which touched off a population explosion !) The whole subject is completely Fascinating. The Memorial column is Mt Somers limestone Better than Oamaru as its much stronger ..Is it in one piece? if so there must be a great story about its erection @ 1890s there were NO big machines in NZ
Hope you find more good content here and can help with more information. History is being re-written as per usual and my aim is to resist.
Are we still experiencing institutionalised racism in that you are willing to accept the writings of two famous European settlers who gleaned their information from Yes an important person in Ngai Tahu Chief Pita Te Hori and that he was their only source? The fact remains that this was still only second hand information and of course so too is the gleaned information from two sources supplied by Harry Everson. One who was a boy in the Pa that fateful day whom one would think would have known the name of his own Pa (home town) even as a kid and the other who was born just a few years later. I wonder why you would think that these two are wrong or should be ignored. Are you saying that their parents and all other Ngai Tahu of those times, from that day through the mid to late 1800s and there after, never ever spoke of that terrible day that took and ruined so many lives? That they never spoke the name of the capitol of the South Island as you put it yourself, ever again? I think there is also weight to the Everson report in that the point is made so strongly that Kaiapohia was a nasty derogatory name. Where did that come from? Out of thin air? Why were Waruwarutu and Tikao so adamant that Kaiapohia was a terribly wrong name for the Pa? But perhaps the biggest proof is that the near by town was named Kaiapoi very likely named after the Pa just 20 years after the falling of the Pa. Why wasn’t the new town named Kaiapohia? This is all common sense to me. If you take all the conflicting evidence and then consider other evidence using common sense like I have, you may come to a more logical conclusion. Feel free to resist the retelling of the original white man’s history of New Zealand with it’s white man’s given name still reining over the Maori name of Aotearoa which has been racist since the day Abel Tasman came across these lands.
Thanks for asking however I can’t engage seriously when you set the terms like that.
Wrapped up in accusations (ie “institutionalised racism,” “white man’s history,” “white man’s name,” “racist”) your main expression here is not on a point of history at all. It’s an ideological challenge and an accusation of identitarian pathology on the part of the person you’re pretending to have a meeting of minds with in good faith.
Will say one thing though. Have you considered that the Dutch and the West have as much right to observe and discover facts about planet Earth as anyone else does? And name what they find according to their own narrative framework? If it’s racist when they do so why should other groups be free to do the same? Do you think it’s OK for Maoris to have a different word for ‘car’ or ‘library’?
What ever the new thing is THATS ITS NAME to modify or change its is a pointless waste of precious life! unless it is easily ‘Nicknamed” for convenience stick with the original “gas” :petrol” do NOT need an invented version in Maori …its pointless & dangerous! waka with wheels & wings is pointless confusion. so too the ill advised crazy rainbow painting of public property zebra crossing, steps . Where does it lead? peace love & friendship…..not likely & the EXPENSE,,police “hate crime” concept , unless a threat is made …move on! How many lunches, blankets & shoes could the cash (tax+ ratepayer) have supplied?
Hi Craig! Nice to hear?read from you I am in my 8 decade & have learned the most important thang in life! **NEVER NEVER BE “OFFENDED”! All the stuff history ,climate debate “Colonialism etc all happened without us seeing it or being there> So I no longer “pick nSides” it looks different from every angle so I study the big picture as much as possible! labels are cheap so I tend to disregard (ignore) them.Name of Kaiapoi as Kaiapoiha is of minor interest! But the reasons are interesting! & YES I do “trust” the written word more than the spoken! It is VERY obvious we all tend to slope the conversation to suit our viewpoint! even subconciously! the name with connotations of” stack of bodies to eat ” vis ” number of folks ” isa a great example! The victors commemorating a seriously significant vicious triumph would want to commemorate it in every way! the remaining survivors certainly would NOT!!( also remember they had their own elephants too,… ever try to study up the “eat relation feud”….try you will discover some grim stuff!…. A great lot of history is convoluted always the winners try to give the best picture! ..”taking sides is stupid as to stay “on side” you may have to take a fixed view! figures can be informative a case for “colonialism” can be made that IT WAS THE BEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO “MAORI” !!! pretty much the published opinion of several great maori leaders! while the very idea that the most powerful nation on the planet at that time (“great BRITIAN”) would consider a “partnership” of any kind with 500+ tribes of illiterate, superstition ruled ,horribly warlike ,cannibal ,slave taking (& consuming)illiterate , folks locked into the “new stone age” state of development ******* REALY REALLY needs some considerable explaining! love to debate this! So now I guess this is n “racist!” BUT it is also FACT! Maori genocide on Maori @ 1800…1840 was @ %)) times worse than the german (note lack of capital) genocide in STATE OF GERMANY alone (not poland russia france italy) can supply the sad figures for you. This is what history shows! My Dad fought side by side with Maoris (& part maoris) on Gallipoli, as did my brother in law in WW2 ,also my brother in RNZAF (i personally knew a Maori Spitfire piolet ,battle of brit vet.)I served also with maori mates in the toy (Territorial ) army. BUT back to today & language …YES it is important but the most important thing is to actually GET ALONG Te REO is great for song & poetry ! it i has SO MANY double meanings ( so few words they have to do double duty) ENGLISH is equipped to be MUCH more accurate(or obfuscating ,look it up!) sadly the silly custom of inventing “maori” names for existing stuff (petrol, diesel etc) is being attempted by some quarter wits. much better we ALL learn @6 songs in Maori like when i was a kid……ER. Am I” canceled” yet?