The Otago region of New Zealand is one of the more isolated places of the inhabited earth. Its high latitude, elevation and distance from larger foreign and domestic population centres have defined Otago at each stage of its history.
The human occupation of Otago begins around the year 1300 with the arrival of Māori soon after they settled in New Zealand. The Māori were originally from tropical Polynesia; they continually adapted to the new and changing environment over the next 500 years. At that time the first European sealers and whalers arrived, followed by the founding of the colony of Otago's first city Dunedin in 1848.
New Zealand's ecology had evolved in near isolation from the rest of the world for 85 million years. At first settlement it was almost devoid of land mammals, meaning the fauna was very susceptible to introduced land predators. Humans burnt the forests, ate the animals and introduced numerous predators and exotic plants to Otago. This came in two great waves around the years 1300 and 1800, although the effects of both introductions would continue for centuries. This was followed by intensive farming and alteration to the rivers and lakes of Otago for water and electricity production.
Until the late 19th century the vast majority of permanent settlements in Otago were on the eastern coast, which was rich in resources and has a more temperate climate. During this time inland Otago was largely used seasonally and for its mineral deposits, first by the Māori digging for pounamu stone, then European settlers searching for gold. With the advent of the railway, and refrigerated trade with Britain, inland Otago became more consistently productive. Rapid urbanisation has led to the creation of main population centres on the flatter eastern coast and in the high inland plains between the mountain ranges. This has been accompanied with immense social change in Otago's population, similar but distinct to the rest of New Zealand.
The boundaries of Otago have changed over time. However, the Waitaki River, currently Otago's northern extent, has often been used as a natural border. Ngāi Tahu, the dominant Māori tribe in the region, currently has three rūnanga (sub-tribes) within Otago and their traditional extent is not limited to the region. Today Otago is divided into the Central Otago, Clutha, Queenstown-Lakes and Waitaki (partly in Canterbury) Districts, and the city of Dunedin, which has half the region's population. It excludes the Southland plains, Stewart Island and Fiordland, although the historical province of Otago and much older Murihiku region often included them.
The first settlements until the Treaty of Waitangi (1300–1840)
Initial Māori settlement (1300–1500)
The precise date at which the first inhabitants of New Zealand reached Otago and the extreme south (known to later Māori as Murihiku) remains uncertain. Māori descend from a race of Polynesian seafarers who moved from East and South-East Asia to the islands of the Pacific. Tradition tells of their further voyages to New Zealand from Hawaiki, and some commentators have identified this homeland as Havai'i,Vikings of the Sunrise, Peter H. Buck, p.65 an island in the Society Group. Overpopulation, scarcity of food and civil war forced many of them to migrate once more to New Zealand.
Māori settled New Zealand between 1280 and 1320. They quickly learnt to hunt the numerous species of moa and seals, and settled across the North and South Islands in less than a few decades. A change in the pollen record from in an inland Otago forest to bracken flora might indicate fires being lit during Māori exploration.
The first parts of New Zealand settled by Polynesians were the northern areas of the North Island and the east coast of the South Island.Anderson 1998; Hamel 2001 The later contraction of food sources led to depopulation in the South Island, while the introduction of kūmara into the North Island led to population growth and the eventual evolution of a different material and social culture. The larger population in the North Island eventually led to migration to the South Island from the late 16th century onwards.Anderson, 1983, McLintock, 1949, Hamel 2001.
Traditional Māori folklore name the Kahui Tipua ("Band of Ogres") as the first inhabitants of the South Island, identified by folklore as a tribe of supernatural beings. After the Kahui Tipua, another tribe named Te Rapuwai inhabited the island. The tribe has left few traces, with no Māori claiming descent from them.South Island Maoris, J.W. Stack p.15. These names may also be the names of earlier assimilated groups whose descendants have now been re-categorised under the names "Waitaha" and "Kāti Mamoe", as Kāi Tahu have since claimed those groups as part of a new iwi known as Ngāi Tahu.Anderson, 1998.
Te Rapuwai did leave many place names to mark their presence and left an archeological record, including shells found along South Island beaches. They were known to inhabit the Kaitangata Lake district in South Otago, and had further settlements at the mouth of the Clutha River.
Researchers know almost as little of the immediate successors of Te Rapuwai, the Waitaha. Hector suggested that another tribe, the Katikura, an offshoot of the Ngāpuhi tribe of Tāmaki Makarau, lived in Otago at some remote period before the arrival of the Waitaha. But beyond a vague tradition that they burnt off the forest and made the open grassland (E Waka-Papihi), no information survives concerning them.Waite, op. cit., p.29 According to the lore of North Island Māori, the Waitaha people arrived in the Takitimu canoe captained by Tamatea. The Takitimu, legendarily associated with the discredited theory of a great fleet dated to 1350 AD, made its landfall in the Bay of Plenty and then sailed down the coast of both islands, even as far as the Waiau River in Southland, leaving settlers at suitable districts. This voyage of Tamatea became so important a landmark in post-pākehā conceptions of Māori history that the antiquity of any event, such as the great fires which destroyed the forests of Otago and Southland, have been indicated by saying, "That happened in the time of Tamatea." Stack, one of those who developed this now contested conception, portrayed the Waitaha occupation of Te Waipounamu as covering a century, from 1477 to 1577,South Island Maoris, J.W. Stack, Volume Ten, p.60 a calculation based on the assumption of twenty years to a generation. His conception of what was happening is probably wrong, but his dating, taken broadly is probably about right for this later settlement phase, which may indeed be that of the historical Waitaha. The estuaries, mudflats, sandy beaches of Murihiku provided fish, seals, seabirds, mussels, pāuas, pipis and cockles. The dense podocarp forest, including mataī, totara, kahikatea, and rimu, teemed with wekas, tūīs, pigeons, and other birds. In the coastal lakes such as Waihola, eels abounded. At some point during the first centuries of occupation they discovered pounamu. Thus the South Island also became known as Te Wahipounamu. The southern Māori moved with the seasons to exploit the rich resources of Murihiku.
Tradition attributed to the Waitaha a profound knowledge of incantations (karakia) and of the science of navigation. They painted designs in caves and named many of the distinctive features of the Otago landscape, well illustrated in the tale of Rākaihautū, known the great digger of lakes.Rakaihautu, The Great Digger of Lakes, H. Beattie, Vol.27, p.142 The Waitaha settlement of the South Island seems to have been the latter part of a period of peace and plenty. Stack said that "they increased and multiplied so rapidly that they are described as having covered the face of the land like ants".South Island Maoris, J.W. Stack p.23 A more credible explanation might be that, on the arrival of the first Waitaha wave in the south, they found it an abundant land and, under such favourable conditions, their numbers greatly increased. However this time of prosperity was not to last. Already, by the end of the fourteenth century New Zealand's environment was beginning to change. The climate became cooler, the podocarp forest retreated, and the moa population began to decline. The changing environment affected those who relied upon moas and seals for food and forced them to develop more effective techniques for catching birds and fish. The largest settlements of the early centuries lost their importance and declined. The population declined because of emigration north to regions where one could cultivate kūmara (sweet potatoes).
Commentaries have led some to identify the Waitaha of Otago with the moa-hunters of whom so many traces remain. This is not entirely unreasonable, although on Stack's dating of Waitaha, and on modern dating of moa hunter sites, the Waitaha would be latter arrivals. In reality their name has probably been used in tradition, confusingly, to also comprehend earlier arrivals whose own names for themselves are now obscured in the etymological ghost names of Kahui Tipua and Te Rapuwai. The Waitaha of historical oral tradition may have enjoyed a good food-supply for many years and they were probably some of the later moa hunters of the archaeological record. These latter probably preserved moa-flesh in fat, wrapped up in bands of kelp, fastened with tōtara-bark strips and bartered it for such northern products as flax mats, huia feathers and kūmara. The Waitaha must have hunted the moa with such steady persistence that its complete extermination became merely a question of time, though at what date this occurred is not known. Certain it is, however, that the moa found its last stronghold in the inland districts of Otago where the most valuable discoveries of moa remains have been made. Either the birds survived there much longer or else the remarkable preservative quality of the dry air caused the remains to resist decay. Probably both these alternatives apply though it seems more likely that, as its numbers diminished and the attacks of its foes proceeded with unabated vigour, the moa became restricted to the fastnesses of Central Otago, especially to the area between Lake Wakatipu and the Lammerlaw Range.
Māori adaptation and migrations (1500–1788)
The 19th century European view of this was that Waitaha did not remain in undisputed possession of their hunting-preserves. They fell victim to a misguided generosity. Seized by a friendly impulse, they sent across the straits to their friends, the Kāti Māmoe (or Ngāi Māmoe), some of the surplus stores they had accumulated, and "as their friends smacked their lips over these dainties ... they resolved to wrest the coveted preserves from the Waitaha". Although the Waitaha, unused to war, soon succumbed, a considerable amount of inter-marriage took place. The words are Canon Stack's and according to him the "invasion" began about 1477 AD. In fact few records of strife in Otago during this period survive and, as Stack acknowledged, Māori did not accept this construction of their traditions. More likely, as Anderson and others have maintained, this was simply a migration like later ones, accompanied by occasional bloodshed, not an "invasion".Anderson, 1998, Entwisle, 1998. Early in the seventeenth century, a hapu of the Ngāti Kahungunu began to infiltrate the Kāti Māmoe domain. However they failed to advance beyond Kaikōura, where a chief of Kāti Māmoe killed the Ngāti Kahungunu chief, Manawa, in a skirmish.