Upokongaro, Moa to it Than Meets the Eye
When we passed through Upokongaro, close to Whanganui City near its north-eastern boundary she was still rubbing the sleep from her eyes just after 9.15am. It’s a sleepy village. You might be forgiven for thinking there’s not much there. It’s what we do though isn’t it? Make a judgment based on nothing more than a cursory glance.
Perhaps it’s also the reason we get it wrong as well. The thing in life is to scratch below the surface more than we do the first time around. “Early Maori settlement archaeological evidence points to the existence of a semi-nomadic moa hunter culture in the region between 1400 and 1650 AD, predating larger tribal settlements. Significant moa hunter sites have been unearthed throughout the Region, particularly in the Horowhenua and Whanganui districts.”
First Contact
Polynesians made their first contact with the moa, a large struthious (ostrich-like) bird that supplied them with abundant food. It is also the location of Gordon Park Scenic Reserve, a small reserve at 14.5 hectares but a good example of a lowland forest type that was once common in the area.
Renown ethnographer Elsdon Best spoke of a “deposit of Moa bones found in a curious mud spring close to Matataranui, in the Upokongaro Valley. The springs (there are several of them) were situated on a small alluvial flat, some three miles up the Upokongaro stream, and about ten miles from the town of Whanganui. The diameter of those springs was on average about about six or eight feet.
Best had previously seen such springs in the Sierra Nevada of California, where some of the mounds are as much as twenty-five feet in height. In the firmer mud up the Upokongaro Valley many Moa (Dinornis maximus) bones had been found in the side of the springs. Dinornis maximus was a 3.5 metre tall flightless bird, that had long, heavily-built legs, a long neck, and a bulky body.
Upokongaro Valley
The whole Upokongaro valley had evidently at one time been covered with heavy forest. Best had found the remains of pukatea (Laurelia novae-zelandiae) trees three feet below the surface, in the ground adjoining one of these singular mud springs. Laurelia has only two species, one in New Zealand and one in Chile.
Other specimens of Moa bones that Best obtained, were given to him by a Mr Humphries, and which he had obtained from within a deep gorge at the head of the Matataranui creek, in the heart of the dividing range between the Upokongaro and Whangaehu valleys. The remains of at least two birds were found in this gorge, which was a narrow cañon with steep cliffs, some forty feet in height on either side.
No digging had been done there before, and the remains found were exposed to view through the action of the waters of the creek. This was a remarkably interesting discovery, inasmuch as the gully was situated in an extremely rugged and broken piece of country, the whole of which had been covered with dense forest.
Ngati-Hau tribes people, when questioned on the subject of the moa, replied:— “Our ancestors in past ages saw the moa, and hunted it for food. When the ancestors of Te Ati-Hau first came to the Awa-nui-a-Rua (or Te Wai-nui-a-Tarawera, both ancient names for the Whanganui river), they found the moa here.”
Looking in the rear vision mirror, I see that Upokongaro is still digging the pikaru (sleep) from her eyes. It’s true what they say. Life. There’s moa to it than meets the eye. In Upokongaro that’s especially true.
