Ki Uta Ki Tai - Queenstown, New Zealand
Posted by: 
BruceS
S 45° 01.891 E 168° 39.714
59G E 315823 N 5010888
Marker giving the history of the Maori in the Queenstown area.
Waymark Code: WMFYZM
Location: South Island, New Zealand
Date Posted: 12/20/2012
Views: 13
Text of marker:
Ki Uta Ki Tai
(Travelling Inland - Travelling To The Sea)
Pre-European Wakatipu
The Waitaha people, led by Chief Rakaihautu, explored, named and lived in Te Wai Pounamu (the place of the pounamu) from as early as 850AD. When exploring the interior of Te Wai Pounamu, or the South Island. Waitaha saw Lake Wakatipu from the top of the Crown Range and thought it was the sea.
Waitaha were later joined by Kati Mamoe in the late 1500s and they were then followed by Ngai Tahu in the early 1600s, Intermarriage and warfare throughout the 1700s saw the three iwi (tribes) united inot one - Ngai Tahu. Modern Ngai TAhu can trace their whakapapa (ancestry) back to Waitaha and Kati Mamoe.
The Wakatipu was important to all iwi who primarily used it as a base for seasonal hunting and gathering expeditions and extraction of pounamu (greenstone/nephrite/jade). Settlemetns existed at Tahuna (Queenstown), Oterotu (Franktown), and Tititea (at the junction of the Kawarau and Shotover Rivers). There is also evidence of camping sites in and around the Dart River, Glenorchy, Bob's Cove, Pigeon Island, Kingston, and Lake Hayes.
Iwi made annual hunting trips in the months of June and July for Weka, a hen-sized bird, because it was fat and healthy at this time. The large flightless Moa was another major source of food before its extinction in the late 1600s. Iwi also captured and ate native birds and eels. Ngai Tahu gathered the leaves and roots of ti (the cabbage tree) which they used for making sandals and from which they extracted sugar. They used the leaves of tikumu (mountain daisy) for cloaks and produced fragrant oil from taramea (wild spaniard)
Pounamu could be found in plentiful supply around the Routeburn and Dart Valleys at the head of Lake Wakatipu. Maori prized the milky green-coloured stone found in this area, called it inanga. They valued pounamu not only because of its strength and durability, but also because of its extreme beauty. They carved the stone into toki (adzes), chisels, mere (club-like hand weapons) and personal ornaments such as hei tiki and ear pendants.
With the arrival of Europeans, Ngai Tahu increasingly settled along the coastal regions of Te Wai pounamu. Although they still came inland on a seasonal basis. When the first European, Nathaniel Chalmers, arrived in the Wakatipu in 1853. Maori were no longer living in the area. However Chalmers was guided up from Southland by Reko, a Maori chief from Tuturau.