Whales, kauri and an exchange of skins
Te Ara records a traditional story in which a whale invited a kauri tree to live in the sea. The kauri chose to remain on land, and the two exchanged skins. The story explains the thin, resinous bark of kauri and the oil-rich body of a whale through a memorable relationship between forest and ocean. It is a traditional explanation, not a biological claim.
Exchange networks beyond the station
A newspaper or travel account that records whales, timber, skins or provisions changing hands can reveal the breadth of coastal exchange, but the terms used by observers often compress very different transactions into a few lines. Kāpiti’s whaling economy was connected to provisioning, shipping and relationships across Cook Strait. The wider trade should be reconstructed through named voyages and dated accounts, distinguishing goods actually documented at a particular place from products known to circulate elsewhere in New Zealand.
Explore connected books
Explore connected history
- A public warning about the destruction of breeding whales
- Māori and whales: an enduring relationship
- Right whales
- Te Wai-o-Rongomai and Te Puna-o-Rongomai
- Waikanae naming traditions
- Whale Song, Kāpiti — Blood, Oil and Bone (2025)
- Puketapu ki Paraparaumu — History and Living Connections
- Modern whaling and whale watching
- Captain Charles Bayley Whaling Master 1813 1875
- Eleven ships off Kāpiti in 1837
- Alexander Fraser 1840 station accounts
- Wallaby crew absconded at Kāpiti