Waimate’s History
This place has a long history.
From prehistoric birds and sea creatures, to early Māori, including Waitaha, who lived and moved through this landscape, to European settlers and the sawmilling boom that followed, each chapter has left its mark.
Today, that history is still visible - in the streets, the buildings, and the shape of the land.
Shaped by an ancient sea
The Hunters Hills of Waimate District are believed to be about 270 million years old.
The base rock is greywacke, and it’s faulted along the steep eastern flank of the hills, generally tilting west. Like all of Aotearoa New Zealand, this land is still on the move.
Towards the coast, the area is full of limestone deposits that are rich in fossils. Braided rivers intersect the landscape, gathered from the watershed of the Hunters Hills and the Southern Alps. The district has a number of nationally and internationally significant fossil sites at Benmore, Hakataramea, and Waihao Downs.
Waihao Downs rocks were laid down 16 to 22 million years ago; and the Hakataramea is older, at 23 to 25 million years.
A good site in the Hakataramea Valley is near the limeworks, where many coral and shell fossils are lying around.
At Waihao Downs, creamy coloured clay in the landscape is an indication that the spot is a good fossil site. Odd-shaped hills in the rolling farmlands contain harder rocks that erode more slowly than the basins and depressions around them.
Fossils are found in limestone, greensand and Miocene deposits across the district.
Where the moa roamed
Lying hidden beneath the farmland of Kapua are remnants of moa bones dated from 1014 - 714BC.
Kapua is 8km South West of Waimate, through the gorge on State Highway 87. Turn left on Kapua Road and you’ll find an information panel you can read while overlooking the area.
The Kapua birds all died naturally, over several generations. It was a feeding area dotted with spring holes connected to a ground water supply.
Unlucky Moa grazing across the swamp, where vegetation covered the holes, would fall leg and bottom first into a hole, and be unable to lever themselves out, being wingless.
They would die, and after the birds decomposed, the bones would fall down the spring hole.
The site was excavated in the 1890s and again in 1984.
The Waitaha - the first people here
The people of the Waihao trace their tipuna (ancestors) back to the arrival of two waka at the mouth of the Waihao River. A semi-permanent settlement was established there.
Two of the women of the tribe - Waiariki-o-aio and Tapuiti - particularly loved the sweet flavour of the Hao eel of the Waihao River and it is said that this is the reason that the Waitaha people stayed here. Tapuiti is credited with starting and being responsible for the construction of permanent eel weirs throughout the island.
The name Waihao refers to an important food resource obtained from the river that has its beginnings in the upland country behind the hills, known as Te Tari Te Kaumira.
Māori here trace their lineage to Waitaha, Kāti Mamoe and Ngāi Tahu. To these people Waihao is their turangawaewae, their home. Kāti Mamoe migrated from the North Island in the sixteenth century and Ngāi Tahu arrived in the seventeenth century.
It’s estimated by local Māori that their Waitaha ancestors arrived about 2000 years ago. This is based on the number of generations of the Waitaha people.
Story of Paewhenua and the Wind Taniwhā
By Wendy Heath
In the past the people of Waihao were semi-nomadic and spent the colder months near the coast and the warmer months harvesting the resources of the inland areas of the takiwā.
Waihao people would gather their equipment and whānau together and would trek up the Waitaki Valley to the area around Omarama and Ōhau to hunt for weka. After the weka were gathered and processed, the people would gather the raupo needed to build enough mokihi (rafts) to carry all their goods and people down the river to the coast.
One of the most precious taonga of the Waihao people, a toki (adze) called Paewhenua, always had to be taken on this trek as it was needed on the return journey.
Paewhenua was placed on the lead mokihi on the journey down the river because this toki had a relationship with the wind Taniwhā that live around the mountain Kohurau, which shelters the town of Kurow. This taniwhā would leap onto the lead mokihi with Paewhenua, and the people would travel safely to the coast under the dual protection of Paewhenua and the Taniwhā.
If Paewhenua was not on the lead mokihi, the Taniwhā would blow fiercely and could cause the mokihi to overturn, losing the valuable weka.
In the early years of European settlement Paewhenua disappeared.
Waihao Kaumatua have over the years searched museums and collections for word of Paewhenua.
One day Paewhenua will return and the Hapū will be here to welcome the toki home.
Māori rock art
The limestone caves and rocks around Waimate district were painted for hundreds of years by Māori travellers on their seasonal hunting and fishing expeditions.
Most have been lost over time, due to erosion and damage from stock; but three sites within 40 minutes of Waimate are dramatic examples of the artists' skills.
Te Huruhuru and Studholme
Te Huruhuru, of Waitaha, Kati Mamoe and Kai Tahu descent, was chief of Te Waimatemate Pa.
The district’s first European settler, Michael Studholme, arrived in 1854 after making a peaceful accord with Te Huruhuru. Their first meeting is immortalised on the painted silos in Waimate.
Descendants of Te Huruhuru and other Māori from those days still have strong connections to Waimate - their hapu, Te Rūnanga o Waihao is based at the Waihao Marae, at Morven.
The Studholme family still farm at Te Waimate Station - once a little house in the forest, and now a farm on the outskirts of town on the SH82 inland route. Michael Studholme’s first home, the Cuddy, is still on the property.
Te Waimatemate hapu
Originally a seasonal birding camp for local Māori, the area within the vicinity of the Māori cemetery, became the permanent home of the Te Waimatemate hapu.
Te Huruhuru, of Waitaha, Kati Mamoe and Kai Tahu descent, was chief of Te Waimatemate Pa.
Te Huruhuru died in 1861 and was buried within the cemetery enclosure. The sites of individual graves, including that of Te Huruhuru, cannot be pinpointed precisely.
In 1934 the cemetery was taken over by the Waimate Borough Council and a monument was erected to mark the burial place of the Chief and other members of the Māori community.
The monument is surrounded by native bush and is also near the site of the first Māori church that was built in Waimate in 1860.
Te Huruhuru Road, Waimate
The sawmilling years
Waimate was built on the tōtara forests that once covered this area.
Pit mills were operating in the early 1850s, and by the late 1860s the town had grown into a busy sawmilling centre on the edge of a vast native forest. Tōtara was widely used for railway sleepers, building and fencing, and was also prized by Māori for carving.
In 1878, a devastating bush fire swept through, destroying much of the forest, several mills and more than 50 homes. The sawmilling era ended almost overnight, and many families were forced to leave.
Waimate shifted toward farming soon after, becoming the rural service town it is today.