Mana and Kāpiti catch figures later published

A volume from the WhaleLIBRARY

Mana and Kāpiti catch figures later published

1841

A manuscript account reproduced in a newspaper discussion of shore whaling gives a combined Mana and Kāpiti season of 26 whales killed in 1841, including two humpbacks, with 120 tuns of oil and nine tons of baleen. The figures are reported from a manuscript rather than independently verified catch books. The author uses them to criticise the destructive pressure on breeding whales.

Why oil returns cannot stand alone

Published catch statistics from Kāpiti and Mana need careful treatment. A tun is a historical volume measure for oil; a ton of whalebone is a weight. They cannot be added together as though they were the same commodity, and 'black oil' figures that exclude tonguers' oil do not necessarily represent every oil product made.

Prickett cites the 1839 Kāpiti–Mana return of 466 tuns of black oil from 23 boats at six stations. Later station returns document a smaller industry. Such comparisons are meaningful when the same commodity, units and reporting area are specified.

Paremata provides a narrower example: the published return gives 24 tuns of oil in 1844 and 18 in 1845. Those figures should be attributed to the station and their years, not presented as the total for the wider Kāpiti coast.

Sources: Nigel Prickett, The Archaeology of New Zealand Shore Whaling (2002), Kāpiti chapter, pp. 83–97 (especially Paremata, Tahoramaurea and Te Kahuoterangi); where specified, Whale Song, Kāpiti – Blood, Oil and Bone (2025). Interpretations and source limitations are distinguished in the text.

The scale of the Kāpiti catch

The 1839 whaling return records six stations operating 23 boats and producing 466 tuns of black oil, excluding the oil earned by tonguers. In 1844 the reported industry had contracted to two stations and seven boats. In 1847 two stations remained, with three boats and a combined 29 tuns of oil.

These figures come from different dated returns cited by Nigel Prickett: Dieffenbach for 1839 and Wakefield for 1844 and 1847. They document the contraction of the operating industry, not the total number of historic station sites on the coast. The distinction matters because abandoned stations could leave stonework and artefacts long after their final season.

Source: Nigel Prickett, The Archaeology of New Zealand Shore Whaling (Department of Conservation, 2002), pp. 83–84. See the full report in the Reports bookshelf.

The scale of the industry in numbers

For the Kāpiti–Mana group, a published 1839 return gives six stations, 23 boats and 466 tuns of black oil, excluding tonguers. The 1844 snapshot gives two stations and seven boats; the 1847 report gives two stations, three boats and 29 tuns of oil.

What these numbers cannot tell us

A year’s operational count does not include every abandoned site, and a station’s oil return is not a census of whales. Prickett (2002), pp.83–97, brings documentary figures together with archaeology.

Published returns are not a complete census

A boat count, a quantity of oil and a number of stations may come from different reporters and periods. Prickett uses the 1839, 1844 and 1847 returns as comparative evidence, not as a single exhaustive inventory of every Cook Strait operation.

Source: Nigel Prickett, “The Archaeology of New Zealand Shore Whaling” (2002), pp. 83–97.

Explore connected books