Pāpāmoa

Pāpāmoa

Pāpāmoa (c. 1460-1700)

Outstanding cultural landscape

At least since the time of the Tākitimu waka, the western Bay of Plenty has been an abundant food basket. The evidence for this lies here at Pāpāmoa, where a nationally significant pā complex straddling ignimbrite (volcanic) hill country once watched over fertile coastal dune plains and rich coastal fisheries. If radiocarbon dating is correct, settlement began on the plain about 1400. For the next 300 years the people prospered, harvesting their crops and fisheries, occupying and abandoning sites in accordance with the kumara cycle and soil fertility. Today’s subdivisions and sprawl are oozing their gimcrack way over an ancient palimpsest of kāinga, garden soils and swamp pā.

But look to the hills. Here, as elsewhere in the North Island, Māori fortified their settlements as competition for resources intensified. The Bay of Plenty still has fine examples of ancient hill forts at Maunganui, Mangatawa and Pāpāmoa. The Papamoa Hills offered good views in all directions at an inevitable point of inter-tribal tension between Ngāi Te Rangi and Arawa. Archaeologists have located about 60 sites – pits, terraces and, of course, pā. Pā range from a massive 7 ha (Wharo pā) down to 0.15 ha. The oldest was begun some time after 1460 and they were all built by 1700. The scientists have given them number-names that make them sound like U-boats, but the two largest pā also have proper names. The largest, Wharo (U14/166,167), on the spine of a ridge with three ‘limbs’ on side spurs, has nine separate defended units. Karangaumu (U14/238), probably the earliest and full of large storage pits, has eight defended units. It sits atop the summit of Papamoa Hill and may have been rebuilt at least once. At the other end of the scale, little U14/1660 occupies a knoll on a ridge below Karangaumu.

This sprawling cultural landscape is more important than its individual components. Here on the coastal plain and along the rolling hillsides of Pāpāmoa is the record of the lengthy evolution from Polynesian colonists to the Māori who would encounter European society.

Late in 2000, in the face of the threat posed by soaring land values and development pressure, local authorities conditionally approved the creation of a regional park in the Papamoa Hills to continue to tell that story to future generations. The Papamoa Hills Regional Park (Te Rae-o-Papamoa) opened officially in 2004 and two years later a conservation plan was published to guide its future use.

Further information

This site is item number 7 on the History of New Zealand in 100 Places list.

On the ground

There is an information board by the car park.

Websites

Books

  • Kevin L. Jones, The Penguin field guide to New Zealand archaeology, Penguin, Auckland, 2007
  • Nigel Prickett (ed.), The first thousand years, Dunmore Press, Palmerston North, 1982

Community contributions

5 comments have been posted about Pāpāmoa

What do you know?

Anonymous

Posted: 12 Mar 2023

Te Rae o Pāpāmoa was named by the chief Hei as he arrived on the waka Te Arawa. Hei had a son named Waitaha-nui-a-Hei, thus the iwi Waitaha of this area. Waitaha had many children.

Te Manutohikura, the eldest son, settled on Maungamana (Mangatawa) and shared occupation with Tamatea Arikinui of Takitimu.

Another son, Tutauaroa was the first rangatira to occupy Mauao, along with his sons Taiwhanake and Kinonui. Tutauaroa then left Taiwhanake and Kinonui on Mauao and moved to Otamarakau with his other sons Pou and Tuahuriri. Tutauaroa and his sons settled the area from Pukehina to Otamarakau. They were known as Waitaha. Later on, they changed the name to Ngāti Makino, after Makino married Te Rarereao of Waitaha.

Another son Naaia occupied the Papamoa Pa, referred to as Te Rae o Papamoa.

Another of Waitaha's sons, Ruarangi occupied pā on Te Rae o Pāpāmoa known as Te Ihu of Ruarangi and Karangaumu. The daughters of Ruarangi, Ihuparapara and Iwipupu, married Tamateapokaiwhenua (grandson of Tamateaarikinui). From Ihuparapara came Ranginui (Ngāti Ranginui) from Iwipupu came Kahungunu (Ngāti Kahungunu) During this period Ngāti Ranginui were know as Ranginui-a-Hei. At the time of Ruarangi, Waitaha and Ngāti Ranginui were linked and it wasn’t until Ranginui ll, that the lands were divided at the Waimapu River.

5 generations after the Te Manutohikura came Takakōpiri, the supreme chief that reigned from the Waimapu river on the Tauranga side bordering Ngāti Ranginui, to the Waiari river on the Pāpāmoa/Te Puke side bordering. Up until this time that mountain range (the Pāpāmoa hills) was known as Te Uku a Hei. But when Takakōpiri went back to Hawaiki to get the jaw bone of his great ancestor Atua Matua to lay in those mountains, it was renamed Te Uku a Takakōpiri.

Tapuika. He bequeathed his lands on the Tauranga side to his grandson Kumaramaoa and his lands on the the Te Puke/Pāpāmoa side to his grandson Te Iwikoroke. They had a younger brother too, Te Pukuohakoma, and when he came of age Te Iwikoroke gave him some land in Pāpāmoa (but not all of Pāpāmoa). A few generations later there was war with Ngāi Te Rangi. The won some wars, and they also married into Waitaha. One Waitaha chief that was never defeated was Hikapa, he was the grandson of Kumaramaoa. His decedents still occupy his lands today - Ngāi Te Ahi and Ngāti Hē. Ngāti Pūkenga in the welcome bay area also descend from Kumaramaoa. Te Pukuohakoma's decedents married into Ngā Pōtiki, which is how they got their lands. The decedents of Te Iwikoroke still go by Waitaha, but we are really all Waitaha.

Those mountains should be returned to the care of Waitaha and the decedents of Takakōpiri, and they should be renamed Te Uku a Takakōpiri.

Anonymous

Posted: 22 Jul 2019

I agree.. once a beautiful place but now sprawling with 'gimcrack'. Now over populated and over priced.. people call that progress?? The beauty and essence of what this beautiful place was.. is long lost! Now those plentiful lands that for centuries provided for generations is just sprawling suburbia! Sad, but such is mankind's take on progress and success.. which at the end of the day equals money and greed. Some things are more valuable than naughts and zeros but I guess very few of us think that way these days..

Jamie M

Posted: 09 Apr 2019

Thanks for your feedback - we generally use Te Ara as a guide for macrons - eg this article, which was written by Paul Tapsell, macronises Papamoa: https://teara.govt.nz/en/te-arawa/page-1

Anonymous

Posted: 09 Apr 2019

Why are you macronising Papamoa? This completely changes the meaning of the name.

Karen

Posted: 09 Jun 2015

'Gimcrack'. Really?? Just walked the Hills today and loved it. Ah ah, time to look up a few facts on this interesting place. Only to find our beautiful home kinda insulted. :-(