The whaling settlement on Motungarara

A volume from the WhaleLIBRARY

The whaling settlement on Motungarara

1839–1843

Prickett documented surviving dry-stone walls on Motungarara in 1982. Historical accounts refer to the islet as Hiko’s or Lewis Island and associate it with Captain Horse Lewis and Ngāti Toa chief Te Hiko-o-te-rangi. Dieffenbach described European whalers’ homes alongside Māori huts in December 1839. The coexistence of these communities merits a carefully attributed narrative drawing on iwi histories, not a simplified story of European ownership.

The story

Motungarara is the innermost of three small islets off the south-eastern end of Kāpiti Island. The whaling station occupied much of a narrow shore platform on the island’s eastern side. In 1982 archaeologist Nigel Prickett recorded at least four dry-stone walls beneath coastal vegetation, likely remains of whalers’ buildings.

In December 1839, Ernst Dieffenbach described European whalers’ homes and Māori huts on the island. Contemporary accounts associated the station with Captain “Horse” Lewis and with the Ngāti Toa rangatira Te Hiko-o-te-rangi, who was whaling there with a boat around 1840.

The island was also called “Hiko’s” or “Lewis’ Island” in some nineteenth-century accounts. Contemporary drawings by William Swainson and J. A. Gilfillan depict the whaling settlement.

Historical source: Nigel Prickett, The Archaeology of New Zealand Shore Whaling (2002), Kāpiti chapter, pp. 83–97; drawing on Dieffenbach, Wakefield, contemporary station records and archaeological surveys.

The physical settlement on Motungarara

The whaling settlement at Motungarara was built onto a narrow eastern strip of land, with steep ground behind and the sea immediately in front. Archaeological recording in 1975 first noted stone walls; a 1982 inspection found at least four dry-stone walls under regenerating vegetation. They were made from local phyllonite and probably belonged to huts or working buildings.

The surviving masonry is not a complete plan of the settlement. Later holiday buildings, paths and outdoor areas had already damaged some northern features when Prickett visited. Contemporary descriptions, however, place European whalers’ houses and Māori huts together on the island in 1839. Source: Prickett (2002), pp. 87–88.

Motungarara in the eyewitness record

Ernst Dieffenbach visited the area in December 1839 and described the whaling settlement at Motungarara. Captain “Horse” Lewis and Te Hiko-o-te-rangi appear in accounts associated with the island. The surviving dry-stone hut remains are a second, physical witness to occupation. Later drawings by William Swainson and John Gilfillan help reconstruct how the island was represented to nineteenth-century observers, but drawings must be dated and credited as artworks, not photographs.

People, drawings and the island landscape

Motungarara is significant both for its surviving dry-stone hut remains and for the nineteenth-century accounts of the people who lived and worked there. Ernst Dieffenbach visited in December 1839; later historical discussion also connects Captain “Horse” Lewis and Te Hiko-o-te-rangi with the island’s whaling activity. Drawings associated with William Swainson and John Gilfillan are visual evidence of the wider period, but each image must be identified by its own date and subject rather than treated as a photograph of the station.

Further reading: Nigel Prickett, The Archaeology of New Zealand Shore Whaling (2002), Kāpiti–Mana section, pp. 83–97.

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