Henderson Valley/Opanuku, New Zealand.

Ancient Discoveries 2016 Henderson Valley/Opanuku, New Zealand.

History and fate of the foggy valley.

From our soonest known history this valley has had influence in forming the character of Waitakere City and Auckland. This zone has been occupied for over 1000 years as found by archeologists at different Pa locales in the Ranges.

The Pacific rodent, or kiore, a poor swimmer, could just have landed in New Zealand with people. In the mid-1990s a researcher radiocarbon-dated Pacific rodent bones uncovered from collapses the North Island, and concocted dates as right on time as 50-150 AD. People should likewise have touched base as of now, with rats on board. The revelation was a logical bombshell.1

Maori Tradition tells that the most punctual known tenants of the region were the Turehu, (hapu or sub-tribe of the general population called Patupaiarehe.) Generally portrayed as being reasonable cleaned, red-or light-haired, a tricky people who abided in the thickly forested slopes and just wandered out during the evening or under the front of the valley's ample mist and fog to fish and assemble sustenance. Turehu were once in a while heard somewhere down in the shrub by Maori, burrowing bracken plant root, however were frequently just unmistakable to capable tohunga/otherworldly astute men. A state of tapu related to these backwoods occupants, and ought to any individual barge in on their space they would quickly desert that part of the woods. Their pioneer was Tiriwa, and the zone referred to customarily as "Hikurangi" now called the Waitakere Ranges and past were named Te Wao Nui A Tiriwa - The immense Forest of Tiriwa. Tiriwa had homes all through the region.3

Numerous years after the fact (Circa 925AD), Maori Chief Maruiwi touched base in Taranaki and searched for area encourage north. 4 The Tino o Maruiwi effectively settled the open prolific level place that is known for the South Kaipara, nonetheless, when a huge convergence of kayaks known as "the colossal armada" touched base from Polynesia amid the thirteenth and fourteenth hundreds of years a large number of the Maruiwi were killed by the fresh introductions, criminals crashed into stowing away in the Ranges.5 Widespread vegetation changes were noted around this time from essentially timberland species to bracken greenery and scour, because of Polynesian pilgrims smoldering the woods for kumara/sweet potato development, and to make space to energize bracken plant development. The starch-rich underground stems of bracken plant shaped a critical part of the pioneers diet.6 It is additionally accepted by Maori that Moa and mammoth hawk lived in the valley yet seem to have been wiped out before the end of the seventeenth century.

The Opanuku Stream goes through Henderson Valley, "Opanuku" signifying "The spot of Panuku" and beforehand name of the entire of the valley territory from the leader of the stream high in the extents to the Wai pareira or Henderson Creek. The account of the naming of the zone is as per the following:- A Turehu, called Nihotupu, lived in a cavern named at the base of the Ruotewhenua slope in Waiatarua (situated in thick bramble off Opanuku Rd). On a nourishment gathering endeavor to Te Henga (Bethells), Nihotupu went over the greenery enclosures of a Maruiwi boss named Panuku. Nihotupu took gourds he discovered developing there and after finding Panuku's better half Parekura working in the greenery enclosures, seized her. Parekura was naturally unwilling, and settled on the cunning choice to leave a trail in the trusts that Panuku would have the capacity to discover her. It worked, Panuku detected the white plumes culled cautiously from her apparel and followed Nihotupu and Parekura back to his hole at Ruotewhenua, Panuku arrived and tested Nihotupu to a battle, he concurred. Nihotupu lost and paid for his mix-up with his life, the couple were brought together.

A slope by Ruotewhenua and stream was named after Parekura, the stream keeps running from Ruotewhenua to join the Opanuku stream in the valley, fairly sentimental the situation being what it is! 7 Nihotupu additionally has his name recalled in another stream which keeps running from Ruotewhenua to Parau, the Upper Nihotupu Dam, (Auckland's most elevated dam) a chasm downstream, and the Lower Nihotupu Dam.

At some point amid the mid fifteenth century the Mahuhu, (relatives of the immense armada who had assumed control over the Kaipara zone) were themselves attacked by the Ngati Awa tribe, survivors again chose to take asylum in the Ranges . These outcast gatherings joined together and after some time turned into the tribe we know as the Kawerau a Maki. From the 1450's forward the Kawerau built up tribal responsibility for Ranges which in spite of being a hesitant and serene individuals, they figured out how to hold tight to are still considered mana whenua (customary individuals of Opanuku) today.

The Wai pareira takes its name from Pareira a distinguished Kawerau ancestress who was niece of the famous Polynesian pilot Toi te huatahi. In the wake of investigating the Hauraki Gulf and the Waitemata Harbor, Pareira and some of her supporters chose to settle at Wai Pareira - the inlet of Pareira. In time this name additionally got to be connected to the waterway we likewise call the Henderson Creek.8

Henderson Valley has it's own particular dad and capacity pits sited behind the Mountain and Henderson Valley Road territory. The Puke-aruhe Pa (Hill of the bracken greenery), was a Kawerau dad, worked as a base for occasional nourishment assembling and utilized as a post to screen their walkways to and from the Kaipara and Waitemata Harbours.9 If intrusion lingered (which it did intermittently) the Kawerau would relinquish their dad and dissolve unobtrusively into the backwoods, imperceptible as the Turehu, to return when the peril had passed. The dad site was generally demolished in the 1970's by bulldozing, yet the dad stockpiling pits are clearly still in consideration.