A Blog About HistoryMaori canoe unearthed on New Zealand beach

ablogabout history ^ | February 9, 2010 | u/a

[Fred Nerks]

A canoe used for fishing and river travel, the waka tikai was discovered at the southern end of the beach.

It took a couple of days to plan its excavation so that the seven-metre waka would not be damaged.

Finding the whole length of a waka is fairly rare, as usually only sections are found, such as the prow or stern.

Auckland Regional Council parks staff and locals carefully moved the waka on to a truck, which took it to a temporary home at the regional council depot.

“It’s difficult to date the waka because it may have been created from a tree many hundreds of years old, and there is no surrounding material that we can date,” says ARC historic heritage specialist Robert Brassey

[Fred Nerks]

[SunkenCiv]

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[Fred Nerks]

This is Ngatokimatawhaorua. Whether it's the longest name for a waka (canoe) is debatable. But this is the largest war canoe in the world and it's to be found in historic Waitangi in the Bay of Islands. Also close by is the Maori Whare Runanga (Meeting Place) which was completed in 1940 and is a finely detailed construction with carvings representing the major Maori tribes. Ngatokimatawhaorua is named after the great canoe of Kupe, traditional Polynesian ancestor of the Maori people.