10/08/2021
The Waka Taua, ‘Tahere Tikitiki’, 1904:
The Story of a Photograph
This is the first time that this picture has been shown in high resolution online. It shows the celebrated war canoe, Tahere Tikitiki, that was held by both Ngati Whatua and Tainui sitting on the back channel of Tuoro Island, on the Waikato River in 1904. Both the waka and the channel no longer exist – and nor does Tuoro Island – so this is truly a sepia view into a lost world.
The photograph was taken by Mercer schoolteacher and accomplished photographer, C.T. Edwards, and was subsequently submitted to, and published by, the Weekly News, in Auckland, in 1904. It can be seen online in pixelated Weekly News newsprint, but fortunately for us, descendants of the Roose Family, of Mercer, who owned 70-acre Tuoro Island, got an original copy from Edwards, and some years ago donated it to the Mercer Art & History Museum, who kindly allowed me to photograph it recently (thank you, Christine).
It shows Tahere Tikitiki sitting in the inside channel of the island on the western side of the Waikato opposite Mercer. This channel once took steamers, but the Waikato floods of 1891 and 1893 narrowed it down and turned it into a gentle backwater safe for the mooring of waka of residents of Te Paina kainga which sat on the other side of the unpredictable Waikato. The great flood of 1907, which devastated townships in the lower valley and flooded Te Paina to a depth of 2m, blocked off the channel completely and transformed Tuoro Island into part of the ‘mainland.’ The Roose family even know where this photograph was taken - approximately 200m north of the Mercer - Tuakau road, in the old channel depression, nowadays occupied by Stevenson’s sand quarry.
Although the Tahere Tikitiki looks in superb condition in this photo, with its antennae-like puhi dressed in albatross feathers, it was, in fact, suffering from significant decay at this time. Six years before, the base of its hull had had to be replanked due to decay at midships. It was not an old waka, but merciless time and lack of covered shelter on dry land, had taken its toll.
The canoe was built on the Kaipara River, north west of Auckland around 1883 by Ngati Whatua carvers under the supervision of Paora Kawharu of Reweti pa, Waimauku, who had felled a local Kauri to make the craft. It was 54ft in length with a widest beam of 5ft. The waka had spent some years at Okahu Bay, in Auckland, and in 1892 was gifted to the Maori King Tawhiao by Paora Tuhaere and taken to the Waikato where it was kept for some years at Mercer (Tawhiao lived on the western bank near Tuoro Island). In 1898 it was involved in perhaps the most sensational boat race seen on the Waitemata in the 19th century. It was brought to Auckland in pieces and reassembled to take part in a much-advertised race against two British navy cutters, each manned by 12 bluejackets from the HMS Tauranga for a cash prize of €13, a large sum, perhaps the equivalent of $15,000 today.
The course was over 3,000 yards, and all five hapu from the Waikato were equally represented in the elite 53-man crew. The Tahere Tikitiki got off to a good start and was leading early on but the helmsman misread the second marker and took the waka hundreds of metres off the true course to another buoy, by which time it had been passed by one of the cutters. In the final leg, all hell broke loose with the captain and stroke caller Hori Te P**i, of Ngati Whawhakia, standing waving his patuoaraoa, whalebone mere, and urging his men on to a superhuman effort. They caught the Tauranga’s no. 1 crew on the home straight and won by a canoe length to a thunderous ovation. Multiple haka followed.
In 1906 the Tahere Tikitiki was still in good enough shape to be taken to Christchurch to perform on an artificial lake for the international exhibition. Before it was returned north in 1907 the Canterbury Museum asked Maori politician James Carroll if he would intercede with King Mahuta to allow the waka to be placed on permanent display in the museum. At that time, Mahuta Tawhiao was a Minister without portfolio, alongside Carroll in the ruling Cabinet. The museum’s appeal was unsuccessful. Upon its return to the Waikato River at Huntly the Tahere Tikitiki fell into rapid decline and is reported to have ceased to exist by 1910. One of its carved prows (tauihu), appears to have survived and, seemingly, sits in a museum somewhere in New Zealand. A colour photo of it is discoverable online, sitting in an exhibition hall somewhere, but there is no accompanying documentation or detail about location.
In 1971, the Maori Queen, Dame Te Atairangikaahu, asked Waikato carvers to make a new Tahere Tikitiki as a symbol of the close relationship between Ngati Whatua and the Waikato. It was completed in 1972 under the tutelage of master carver Piripi Poutapu at Ngaruawahia. Nowadays, Tahere Tikitiki II is one of the pre-eminent taonga of the Tainui people.
