Maitapapa - Taieri (Otago) Multi-cache
Takua: Since the owner of the cache hasn't contacted me, I'm reluctantly archiving this cache. If the owner wants to reinstate this cache, they should contact the reviewer that first published the cache.
Maitapapa - Taieri (Otago)
-
Difficulty:
-
-
Terrain:
-
Size: 
(small)
Please note Use of geocaching.com services is subject to the terms and conditions
in our disclaimer.
This cache involves a drive-by waypoint and a final cache with minimal walking through rank grass and uneven surface.
Maitapapa is the name of the general area that the ‘town’ of Henley is located. It was the area of Maori settlement on the Taieri when European Settlement began.
Early Maori settlement on the Taieri had most likely been ephemeral, following food such as eels, lampreys and waterfowl in the swamps and lakes of the Taieri. Early Maori visitors were Waitaha, Kati Mamoe, then Kai Tahu. In the 1830’s however, with feuds and raids occurring along other parts of coastal South Island, many Kai Tahu moved south to Otakou and Murihiku, and some of those refugees built a pa on Omoua, the hill behind Henley. Once the fighting ended, they moved down to settle beside the river.
The “Kaik” (properly kaika, the southern rendering of the word kainga meaning hamlet) was visited by the Rev. Thomas Burns in 1849. However, the whalers from Moturata (the island out from Taieri Mouth) had visited more extensively previously, and had not been backward in coming forward with marriage proposals to the local Maori women. By the time the Rev. Burns arrived, the Kaik was already split into three communities: the pakeha, the Maori and the half-caste. By 1891 only 7% of the Kaik’s population was of Maori ethnicity, the rest being mixed blood, mostly quarter blood Maori/pakeha.
The New Zealand Company had completed the Otago Purchase in 1844. The Taieri Native Reserve was not sold by the Taieri chief, Te Raki, but it was/is just a strip of land on the north side of the Taieri running from Henley to the sea. Te Raki obviously didn’t anticipate the Maori Land Court practices of succession equally to all children, or the size of the families these mixed marriages produced (av. 9 kids each) or the scale of land ownership required for pakeha-style farming, and by 1920 the Maitapapa kaika had disintegrated due to lack of land and opportunities on home-ground in a changing world. But most of all, I reckon the disintegration of the Kaik was due to the disintegration of the Maori culture and identity through assimilation into the settler culture, socially, economically and biologically.
This cache is to remember the Kaik as the place of Maori settlement on the Taieri at the time of European contact.
The coordinates take you to a road intersection where there is a road sign for a road with a name comprised of two words. Count the number of letters in the first word (=A) and the second word (=B).
Then practice the original language of the area (remembering the southern dialect replaces ng with k):
Wha tekau ma rima° Rima tekau ma iwa. Rima, (A), Ono’ ki te Toka
Kotahi rau, whitu tekau° Waru. Whitu, (B), Wha’ ki te Whiti
Cache: kei raro i te patiti, i mua i te harakeke
You are looking for a 1l black-painted snap-lock container hidden at ground level. There were no items placed in the cache container, but there is plenty space should anyone wish to deposit anything small.
The cache site is not actually at the Kaik, but from the cache site you look north across the river to where the Kaik used to be, and east to the hills of the Taieri Native Reserve. (It’s interesting to contemplate how important the river was as a ‘highway’ through the gorge and swamps of the Taieri in those days.)
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Gurer ner bayvar Znbev qvpgvbanevrf ninvynoyr