ORAL HISTORY

Stories passed down in iwi and hapu also give us insight to Maori horticulture, pre- and just post-European settlement. Waikato-based Wiremu Puke (Ngati Wairere, Ngati Porou and Tuwharetoa), along with his late father Hare, drove the establishment of Hamilton Gardens’ Te Parapara, which showcases Maori practices, materials and ceremonies relating to food production and storage.

To do this, he studied missionary accounts and archeological records, but also stories from tribal elders. ”There‘s stories of an ancestor of mine called Hanui, who often led war parties along the Piako and Waihou Rivers. And that was to raid the villages, and I think it was to raid the villages of this new ’ku¯mara‘. Which – it turned out – wasn‘t the kumara,¯ but the potato.” The stories tell of this new crop being given by the patupaiarehe, or supernatural beings, “which could be interpreted as being Pakeha or even Cook himself.”

There were many early names for the potato, some of them old names for kumara¯ varieties that had become extinct, possibly due to a blight. ”But the potato was never given the same reverence in terms of a whakapapa which the kumara¯ has,” Wiremu explains.

Peach trees, Wiremu says, were loved not just for fruit but because they attracted kereru, “and became an alternative bird hunting resource.”

Wiremu has made traditional gardening tools, and uses them frequently at Te Parapara today. ”Very few people use them in this century,” he says. ”But the ko is actually easier on your back than a shovel or spade.”