Museum Notebook: Kāpiti Island - a meeting of two cultures

Print of a painting of the settlement on Kapiti Island during the 1820s-1830s Whanganui Regional Museum Collection Ref: 2019.44.1/MS335.5.17

If you travel down the North Island's west coast towards Wellington and look out over the ocean at Paraparaumu, you will see the peak of a mountain range created by earthquakes millions of years ago. The bulk of the mountains have subsequently submerged, but the crest of the range forms Kāpiti Island.

The island measures about 10km long and 2km wide, with wind-blasted hills on the west side of the island (that we can't see as we drive past) and the east side is covered with sheltered rain forests. Today it is a protected nature reserve, home to some of New Zealand's most endangered birds and an abundance of marine life.

Māori called the island Te Waewae Kāpiti o Tara raua ko Rangitāne which means the Meeting Place of the Boundaries of Tara and Rangitāne. In 1150, Whatonga divided the country, creating a boundary from the southern tip of Kāpiti stretching across the North Island. He gave the southern land to Tara and the northern land to Tautoki, whose heir was Rangitāne.

Museum Notebook

Before Europeans arrived in Aotearoa, Māori referred to the island as Motu Rongonui (famous island) and it was important due to its closeness to Te Moana-a-Raukawa Cook Strait. Whoever controlled the island controlled the strait, and control was fought over many times.

The island attracted European adventurers and entrepreneurs. Sealers and whalers entered Aotearoa waters from the early 1800s and Kāpiti became a handy stopping point from the 1820s.

The increasing ship traffic was noticed by Te Rauparaha, chief of Ngāti Toa, whose iwi had suffered during the Musket Wars. Realising that ships meant trade, he seized the island in 1823, successfully defended an attack the following year, and Kāpiti Island became a Ngāti Toa stronghold.

Te Rauparaha established a trading base on the island, encouraging traders and whalers by providing them with land, houses, pigs, dressed flax, and women in exchange for guns, tobacco, and alcohol. Trade reached its peak in the mid-1830s when the island housed five whaling stations: Waiōrua, Rangatira, Taepiro, Wharekohu, and Te Kahe Te Rau O Te Rangi.

The same bay on Kapiti Island Photographer: M J G Smart, taken during a Wanganui Tramping Club trip in January 1955 Whanganui Regional Museum Collection Ref: 2019.44.1 MS335.5.9

The island has been described by historian Chris McLean as "a wild frontier, a meeting point of two cultures without the restraints of laws or government" but aside from the odd incident, the residents were "united in greed" and lived in harmony.

Whaling faded from the 1840s and Te Rauparaha moved back to the mainland, but European leaseholders continued to farm Kāpiti Island introducing sheep, cattle, goats, pigs and deer, as well as dogs and cats.

Farming continued until the New Zealand Government acquired most of the land in 1897 with the intention of making it a bird sanctuary. Now, Kāpiti Island is predator-free and nature has reclaimed most of the settlement.

Whaling trypots on Kapiti Island Photographer: unknown, 1955 Whanganui Regional Museum Collection Ref: MM-213

Some traces remain: terraces, a trypot stand (used for rendering whale blubber), a whaler's grave and middens. E Whare still stands too, the oldest building associated with nature conservation in the country.

The three-room cottage is thought to be part of the McLean farming homestead from the 1860s before it became the caretaker's home, and is still used as a base for scientists, trappers and visitors.

DoC is working to restore the biodiversity of Kāpiti Island and keep it free from pests, so visitor numbers are limited. Access is by a licensed launch only and requires the operator to hold a landing permit.

•Sandi Black is the archivist at Whanganui Regional Museum.