Matangi Āwhio - Auckland Point Market
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Auckland Point, or Matangi Āwhio was a pā, kāinga or seasonal camping site from at least the fifteenth century. Henry Thompson, representative of the Government-appointed Trustees of Native Reserves, recognised the importance of the site to Māori when he selected five one-acre sections at Matangi Āwhio (Sections 62-66) as his first five choices of 100 Tenths Reserves in Nelson Town in April 1842.

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Bishop Selwyn, one of the Trustees, visited Nelson in August-September 1842, and ordered a hostelry to be built on one of the Matangi Āwhio sections for Māori visiting for trade; there would be a house for each group of regular visitors to Nelson, with a chapel on the hill above.
"In front of the buildings there will be a low wall with a flat top, for the exposure of goods for sale, viz. potatoes, Indian corn, leeks, kumera (sweet potatoes), fire-wood, and pork; for all which articles the English are almost entirely dependent upon the native supplies."1
An early settler describes Matangi Āwhio after completion of the wall:
"Auckland Point with its convenient smooth dry “flat” was the camping ground of curiously interested Maori visitors, men, women and children with their poakas (pigs) tethered awaiting Pakeha’s purchases, their piles of kits or flax leaved baskets of potatoes maize or mussels a new and attractive source of income in bright “Hereni” and “Ihipene”, their bright red and well appointed canoes frequently by dozens moored by the tideway, near to the newly made wall embankment of big boulder stones, was a scene of interest to both races meeting for the first time with conversation essayed under blank difficulties in gesture and pantomime with much amusement and interest."2

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A wide range of crops is documented as cultivated for sale by Māori throughout Te Tau Ihu: barley, cabbages, Indian corn or maize, leeks, kumera or sweet potatoes, melons, oats, onions, peaches, pumpkins, taro, turnips and Swedish turnips, water melons, wheat and yams, all of which were probably for sale at Matangi Āwhio. The quantities must have been prodigious at times. In September 1843 at Moturoa (Rabbit Island) ‘Two canoes one large and deeply laden passed down the channel today on their way to Nelson’,3 and in April 1844 Samuel Stephens fell in with a ‘… fleet of canoes sixteen in number from Massacre Bay, on a trading excursion to Nelson with pigs, potatoes, fish, etc’.4
The houses planned for groups from Rangitoto (D'Urville), Motueka, Wakapuaka, Te Tai Tapu (Golden Bay) and Hoiere (Pelorus) were built progressively, but there do not appear to have ever been more than three; the chapel never eventuated through lack of income from the Reserves.

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Māori continued to use Matangi Āwhio as their base in Nelson for many years – for trade, for attendance at official hearings (the Spain Commission 1844, Magistrate’s Court, Native Land Court), to meet with Government officials, to seek assistance for health problems, and later to obtain employment. Because of poor Māori access to hospital services ‘the Maori houses’ eventually became de facto hospitals, with appalling conditions caused by overcrowding, lack of care, and no control of infectious diseases.
The Māori houses were closed by the Health Department in 1949.
2008
Updated April 2020
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Sources used in this story
- Selwyn, G.A. (1842, September 10) Letter to Mother. Selwyn Letters, Vol.2. MS 340. [held Alexander Turnbull Library]
- Stanton,W. Aborigines. Stanton Papers ATL Micro MS 792:209 [NPM]
- Barnicoat, J.W. (1841-1902) Journal, 28.2.1842; 26.9.1843. Papers – Bett Collection, qms. [held Nelson Provincial Museum]
- Stephens, Samuel (1844, April 23) Journal Bett Collection. qMS Stephens [NPM]
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Further sources - Matangi Āwhio - Auckland Point Market
Books
- Bassett, H & Kay, R. “Nga Ture Kaupapa o Ngati Koata ki Te Tonga”. Waitangi Tribunal WAI 785 Doc #A76, pp218-245.
- Mitchell, H & J (2004) Te Tau Ihu o Te Waka: A History of Maori of Nelson and Marlborough, vol.1 The people and the land , Wellington, N.Z. : Huia Publishers in association with the Wakatū Incorporation. pp70, 71, 302-303, 424-426.
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/63170610 - Mitchell, H & J (2007) Te Tau Ihu o Te Waka: A History of Maori of Nelson and Marlborough, Vol 2. The new society, Wellington, N.Z. : Huia Publishers in association with the Wakatū Incorporation, pp245, 247, 251, 373-375
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/63170610 - Moore, B. (1990) Shaping up and shipping out. Nelson, N.Z.: Nelson Harbour Board, pp. 10-14
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/84750140 - Parr, W.H. (1979) Port Nelson: gateway to the sea. Nelson, N.Z. : Port Nelson Harbour Board, p.32
http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/154321043
Articles
-
Dickinson. B.E. (1988) Early Haven Road. Journal of the Nelson and Marlborough Historical Societies,2(2),p.8-13
http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-NHSJ05_02-t1-body1-d2.html
Other
Unpublished Sources
- Barnicoat, J.W. (1841-1902) Journal, 28.2.1842; 26.9.1843. Papers – Bett Collection, qms. [held Nelson Provincial Museum]
http://thecommunityarchive.org.nz/node/71405 - Selwyn, G.A. (1842, September 10) Letter to mother . Selwyn Letters. Vol.2 ATL :MS 340 [held Alexander Turnbull Library]
https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.156043 - Stanton,W. Aborigines. Stanton Papers. Micro MS 792:209
https://natlib.govt.nz/ - Stephens, Samuel (1844, April 23) Journal Bett Collection. qMS Stephens [held Nelson Provincial Museum]
Web Resources
- Auckland Point School: School history (n.d.) Retrieved 10 November 2008 from Auckland Point School Te Kura o Matangi
http://www.aps.school.nz/about-us - Midden/work floor (Auckland Point School). Retrieved from Heritage New Zealand, March 2020:
https://www.heritage.org.nz/the-list/details/5959 -
Matangi Awhio & Aorere (Auckland Point & Tasman Bay) (2019) Nelson City Council (one of a series of videos of sites of significance to Maori in Whakatu)
http://www.nelson.govt.nz/services/community/tohu-whenua-sites-of-significance/matangi-awhio-and-aorere-auckland-point-and-tasman-bay/
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Ok, thank's a lot, that's exactly what i was looking for !
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