Name |
Bunny Gage |
Hapu Iwi |
Ngäti Maru |
Date of Interview |
28/11/1997 |
Researcher |
Bob Cooper |
Transcriber |
|
Background |
The Hauraki Maori Trust Board completed research on Customary Fisheries for Ministry of Fisheries by speaking with Hauraki kamatua |
Profile |
Bunny Gage was Ngati Maru and Ngati Tara-Tokanui, Tawhaki and Ngati Koi. |
Abstract |
Bunny Gage was an
horary fisheries officer for more than 20 years and he comments on Maori
customary fishing and his experiences as an honorary fisheries officer. |
Complete |
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Comments |
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GS.Media |
Audio |
GS.MediaRoot |
B_GAGE_CFI |
GS.MediaDirectory |
Bunny_Gage |
T1:00:00:00 |
Basically we're looking at the gulf "behind you, there from |
00:03:14 |
Was that in the last mining period or present one? |
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Charley said he could recall going out on a gig in the 1930 's and 1940 's and it was quite firm, you go out and get pipi and so on and Sam Rund said you could still do that although it was boggier than it used to be but it's not too bad. So that the general information we got yesterday. Then didn't seem to be areas that were very special, that may not be the case I may have just misinterpreted, that you wanted to protect. Seems to me that what they were saying was that the whole of Tikapa is an important Taonga, it's what's needed to be protected rather than just small sites in the gulf. Would that be your view of things? |
00:04:07 |
Well, yes and no, I do see some areas that we really have to look at because those are the areas where our pipi are, mussels are not so bad now, they've come back, but our pipi beds are getting a thrashing. We have a new pipi bed at Te Puru and that's only just started to come back. |
00:04:49 |
How big is the pipi size then? |
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There not very big, they only started coming back in the last 4-5 years and people are going around there, it's not far from where our other Kaumatua lives, Dick Rakena, and I've voiced my concern about it because they're not giving our pipi a chance to grow and if it's an inch long it's an inch long. We did have pipi there a few years but not the amount that's there now; it's really growing at Te Puru. All along from there you can get pipi in amongst the rocks and that but the bed we have to look after that one and from there on there is a bed at Tapu and that's been getting a thrashing too, straight out from the Tapu river and then from Tapu to Te Mata just over the Tapu bridge, that used to be a wonderful place for cockles, all along that flat at Te Mata, now there's nothing, it's all gone, there's not even any flat pipi. But if you hop over further before you get to the river, yes there's a great bed of various pipi there. Then again I voice my concern because commercial fisherman like driving over there with their vehicles and we sort of voice our objection to those today it's about 25 years ago because we go down there and we can see the oil on the stones and it's a beautiful pipi bed there. Now there is also a bed of mussels there, it's there now. From there on across the Te Mata river, where a rock, which we call the Mexican hat is, that's where we used to get a lot of cockle too but they are phasing out there as well too. |
00:07:52 |
Is the size dropping too? |
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Yes, and we get mussels there and mussels
have come back. About 35 years ago mussels were very hard, since we had the
mussel farms, mussels come all the way back to the coast and our beds out of
Tapu to |
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They were dredging too? |
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Yes and they were allowed to dredge the mussels providing |
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They were recreational fishers? |
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Yes. We didn't have any commercial fisherman for mussels then at that time but before that yes we had people with licenses during the 1950's. |
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That was the people out of |
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Yes and Tapu, some of our people had the licenses to drag mussels and sell them at the time, but then because the people were getting concerned that the mussels were getting hard to get I remember when I used to live there in the early 1930's I used to live at Waiomu with my grand auntie, one of our Kaumatua Hirama TeMoananui, we would walk down there and at half tide and there was beautiful mussel. |
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Just carpeted over the bottom? |
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Yes, you didn't have to go right down to the low water mark, everyone was going down there just to get a feed, there was plenty of mussels and red rock crabs. Not the crabs we've got now which you can't get down there now. |
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Did you have the blue ones as well? |
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No, just the red ones. |
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Did you eat those? |
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Yes, our Aunties
used to gather them in kerosene tin fulls and we'd sit down the beach and cook
them up down there, good kai ay. Plenty of fish, us kids used to throw out
the ordinary hand lines and drag in kahawai, the first fish I ever got was a
kahawai and a little shark, that was about 1935, no nylon lines in those
times just the ordinary cotton lines and there was plenty of snapper about.
Going back to our shellfish I am concerned I have always been concerned with
the pipi beds and I talked with my other Kaumatua just before I retired at
H.F.O. I've seen them come in with bags and bags and the first time our
people were restricted to 2 gallons per person, I would be carrying a
galvanized 2 gallon container and I would pour the mussels into that and say
that's all your allowed to take, you'll have to take the others
back, get into trouble sometimes but that was my job and there was one other
honorary with me, a pakeha guy from Te Puru. The oysters were definitely a
no-no. But after the 2 gallon they
changed it, you were allowed to take 50 mussels per person providing there's
no more than 5 people in the car where you were only allowed 250 mussels. If
because you had more than 5 people per car and more than 250 mussels it
didn't allowed 250 for the bus load and there used to be 30-40-50 of them,
and I would be there matter, you were prosecuted, and we did prosecute people
too. Then they phased that one out, and they said anyone can go down and get
50 mussels per person, you can fill a car up with people and everyone of you
were entitled to 50 mussels, that how it is now. It was a bit hard, the
islanders used to come around in the 1960's in bus loads and they were only trying
to explain to them why they can only take that 250. It's a difficult job
being an H.F.O and I was a bit green around the gills although I had had my
officers at Coromandel, who sometimes I had to run to a telephone to ring
them to come down. But the mussels is not a concern because you could go down
now, there's mussels on all the rocks from Tararu to |
00:16:42 |
What about the Hui/Tangi provisions? |
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The Hui/Tangi was different again, we didn't have any permits but if they can give us enough evidence that they can show the HF.O. usually bereavement notices in the paper, that's all that's required because a lot of them used to have us on, like I'm taking them because we've got a Tangi at so and so Marae, and I'd say oh yeah what Marae and who's your Kaumatua there. They didn't know, so we had those problems. Since the introduction of the permits by the board, we've had very few problems, although there are still a few that ignore the permits. I voiced my concern at a meeting that really, the permits are not legal. |
00:17:58 |
The customary regulations will make them legal.- |
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That's right, yes. |
00:18:02 |
And that changes things slightly doesn't it, in that you can say that anyone can take seafood if it's for the purpose of a Marae, so that broadens the scope doesn't it? |
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That's right, yes I
agree. There are other problems, our Rangtahi, especially from now on, firms
are breaking up like |
20/20/54 |
As far as the beds of Pipi go, I like to put a Rahui on one bed at a time. |
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In Te Puru is it just one bed or an there separate little beds'? |
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Just the one bed there |
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How big is the area? |
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About Half a mile on the coastline |
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How far out? |
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It goes out way down to low water anyway. |
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100 yards? |
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More than that, from the high water you mean? |
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In terms of the area that has Pipi? |
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No it would be about 300 yards wide and half a mile in length, that's the bed that I'm concerned about |
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And are they the same all the way along |
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Yes, but then jump from there to Tapu, this is only a rotational thing that I'm thinking about, that's my thoughts at the time like okay we'll close Te Puru for 2-3 years, put a Rahui on that one and then open that up, see how things are going of course, then close Tapu and then Te Mata and that. |
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Would that have been done in the old days? |
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No, but every Hapu that lived on the coast respected it, they only went to get Kai just for themselves, that's all and the certain time of the year they leave in alone especially the fish, I'm only going on my experience in the 1930's with my grand people and that. Certain times of the year we're allowed to go and get Kaimoana |
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Was that any or particular Kaimoana? |
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Particular Kaimoana, well for all Kaimoana, but a particular Kaimoana in a certain time of the year, like Kina for instance, Kina it's around about now, November-December. They say when the Flax is in flower, the Pohutukawa, that is the time for the Kina. Paua is any time at all. |
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And Pipi and Cockle would be any time? |
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Yes, any time |
00:24:55 |
What about scallops, did they for scallops at all? |
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Not too much because the only time they get scallops, sometimes I have known us to walk around at this side of Amodea Bay in the shallows because no-one had boats to drag and no scuba divers in those times, that's' only come in the last 25-30 years. It's a good thing that a limited time has been given for Scallops, we've only got to the 15th of February and she's closed, I think it's just as well. There are plenty of scallops but if you left it open all year we'll have nothing. |
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Did you get scallops being blown up on the beach? |
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Yes, I was rung by
my leading M.O.F. man from Coromandel, he said come out here, there's
scallops all over at Papa Aroha right to |
00:27:11 |
Under the new regulations you could actually have a by-law which said that in this week or whatever people could come and take all those mussels or whatever that was on beach until they were gone, you would have that sort of power under the new regulations? |
00:27:29 |
There is a problem there as well because people were coming in with their trailer loads and they were loading their trailer up and taking them and selling them. Luckily with me I know everybody in Hauraki but when I see strangers coming in with trucks loading sacks and sacks I wanted to know what they were going to do with it My people in Turangi and Mangakino ring back saying 'hey they're selling mussels here', what can you do. |
00:28:16 |
You have some control under the new regulations, you can actually direct what happens to them, as long as you can do that it may not be so possible but at least you'd have that control so you could look at a situation and say how do we use these shellfish while they are here instead of wasting them |
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Yes. |
00:28:42 |
The other thing about Te Puru is you've got to be able to monitor them effectively so there has got to be some way in which you can have people who an doing it to be paid to do it or something. |
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Yes I think you'll find that we had a programme about 2 years ago that all along the coastline which Kaumatua lives in that area and you covered it, from Tararu to Te Puru and Te Puru to Waiomu and then Tapu. |
00:29:27 |
Honorary Fisheries Officer and Permits? |
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Yes. Some of our Kaumatua will come down here thing that I'm still an H.F.O, and say "there's someone down there flogging our pipi beds" and so I go down there as a Kaumatua because I can't act anymore as a H.F.O, and they say "hey we know you've resigned, your not an H.F.O, anymore", I said yes but I'm a Kaumatua, take it back or I'll ring the Police up", so they comply with that alright I'm not going to waste any time, I work well with the Police in Thames. That was part of the game with being an Honorary, if you ring the Police up they have to come out and they don't like it. Many a time I've rung them up and they've come to Tapu and I know that this guys got bags and bags of mussels in his boot I remember one guy, I had to ring the Police to come up, the guy wouldn't open his boot, I can't open it but the Police can, so they came and the Police asked where's the key and the guy said he lost it and you can see the water dripping out of the boot It so happened I worked on the Ministry of Works on that road and I saw them, and my work mates asked if I saw their boat come in and dump some bags of mussels down by the rocks and I said yes. I told them go down there and help yourselves, so they did go down and they got a feed out of it But I saw that car out at Tapu and it had an aluminium boat on it. I went into the pub and asked them I wanted to talk with them outside and I used my warrant or they would have told me where to go, then they wouldn't buckle up, they said no your not going through our boot and I couldn't either, so I said okay. The good thing was all people along the coast knew me and I would just point to someone's' house there and they'd ring the police. Within 20 minutes the Policeman came down, he said, "right, open up the boot" and they said oh we lost the key, and he said "well that's okay because I've got a screwdriver here and I'll open it. Then they pulled the key out and the guy opened it and his boot was filled up with 600 mussels and they weren't big ones and they were prosecuted. They weren't Maori but if they were they would have still been prosecuted that time because there were a lot of Maori prosecuted but never any from here, I have never prosecuted any Maori from Hauraki or have anything to do with it Mostly it was the outsiders. Our policy was 1st offence let them off, we have the records, 2nd offence well then it's up to the Ministry whether to prosecute or not but usually they come back to the Honorary who gave all the details in the prosecution. I said this guys come up before and he told me he'd never do it again and he's come up again, it's over to you now, it's in your court I think this system of the permits is a good one. I told the board that what we require is the records, a copy of those permits. I give out a permit but 111 also have a copy of that and if the board rings me here saying so and so has got a permit, they also keep a copy. At the end of the year, maybe two years you can go through these permits, especially when people come back and say "that area where we've been getting pipi, well there's hardly any left and then we know that there has been too much Kaimoana been taken out of there. |
00:34:32 |
Under the new system you'd issue the permit and then when they take their catch they'd have to come back and tell you "we got five bags or two bags" or whatever because you don't know, you issued the permit for five bags but whether they took them or not |
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That's right but they don't. That's the new rules Then again what is to stop them from hiding a few bags along the roads and come back with just what's on the permit? |
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So part of the problem is educating the people about that |
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Yes. It's either that or that person that gives the permit has to be there when they land their boat, but then the problem is resources, I couldn't do that using my own car and gas or any other Kaumatua. I've said to people that have got permits especially with big permits that I'll be waiting for them at the boat ramp but I don't. I have said to them call back here with your Kaimoana and I want to have a look at it and a couple of times yes they have come back and I've gone through it but some of them may have gone on the cars in their boots. You get suspicious when they come back and say, "we've just got the bare 500 mussels here etc. But then there were 3-4 other cars that went with them. |
00:35:06 |
If your going to look Te Puru then you have to know when they come in, how many people are coming in and how much they're taking out and what's the rate, so you could say okay Te Puru looks like it's going down hill a bit, we might have to close a bit of it or give it another month or whatever you want, so that's possible under the new system where you could have someone who's paid as a coordinator with a network of H.F.O, s run by that person and those HF.O.s are paid in the sense that they get gas, a telephone etc. it's paid for, it's not something you've got to provide yourself so then your using the ears and eyes of the people and the system is backing you up in terms of prosecuting and educating people as well |
00:37:14 |
It's all about education, handing out pamphlets on what they're allowed to take but the problem lay with Ministry themselves, they expect us to do it for nothing |
00:37:39 |
It's new now in the sense that it's you who are developing the plan as to how you want your shellfish used and it's you have authority to then say this bed will be used or that bed will be used and so much will be closed, the rahui provisions are going to come back in so you can close them down, so that system will be there and the Ministry wants to provide that training and support and it's beginning in the South Island, they've had people trained down there now to do that and I think it should be bought into Hauraki if you want to have that system. |
00:38:18 |
I think that's a
good system, the board needs to be in partnership with M.O.F. and they've
accepted that, especially Tauranga. Some H.F.O, have attitude problems and communication
isn't the best If someone has more than they're allowed they are still allowed
to have their quota. Anyone outside
of Tainui Waka always come to the board for permits and we respect that but
sometimes or main problem is the Tainui Trust Board themselves, I've had a go
with their chairman in a meeting we had here and he said "we don't need
a permit because that's our Kaimoana" we say to him you've got to have a
permit but out of respect Hauraki is the Kaitiaki and we would like a
little bit of respect from them anyway. Other Iwi outside are good, like
Huntly and Auckland, they give the board a ring and the board gives me a
ring. There was a permit for Turangawaewae Marae and they were asking for 24
bags of Kina, they can have it I said but they were going to have to work
hard because we had a westerly wind blowing and they said they were going out
of Tapu to get it and I thought they won't get Kina in Tapu, they have to
right to Wilsons Bay and up to Coromandel. Andrea asked me, "can you get
Kina at Tapu". I doubt it I said because I do a lot of around amongst
the rocks and there's maybe one or two here and there all along to Wilsons
Bay, otherwise you've got to go around the other side of Wilsons Bay to get
Kina, 24 bags which you couldn't get that in a day especially the way the
breakers were on the weekend. The board said we need 7 days notification,
when are you going to get it and they said they were already on the way. |
00:48:56 |
How many Marae an there on the Thames Coast that rely on those beds? |
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Just the Thames Coast? |
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Yes |
00:49:09 |
We've got the one at Thames, Matai Whetu and then we come back to Kerepeehi Marae, on the Kaiaua side and then we go on to Manaia, Ngati Whanaunga, they are the Marae. |
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So that's three? |
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Yes, three to Manaia. |
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So they all come down into the gulf to take mussels and Pipi? |
00:49:13 |
Yes, actually as far as Thames and Manaia are concerned, they have their own patch and that. Toko Renata voiced his concern because cars used to drive on the beach but now it's blocked off and there own people go down on horses but people still can go and get Kaimoana. Oysters are at a good size and there's plenty of them all along the gulf and up the Waihou and Piako rivers. |
00:56:31 |
I've heard about rows of stakes in Thames to signify fishing boundaries were for each whanau |
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I've heard about it but didn't see it and also the Maori rock baskets, we've got one at Thorntons Bay |
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Like the one at Colville? |
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Yes. |
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If the one at Thornton Bay very obvious? |
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Yes, especially at low water and you see it there, how they moved the rocks I don't know, they've got a narrow gap there and they used to live up in the hills, there was a Pa there and I don't know the name of it or the Iwi either. There was a burial ground there. |
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What actual area is that in now? |
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Thorntons Bay is where the Pa is, right up on the hill. I think Tamatera and Maru have a piece in it. The Pa hill is still there, there used to be a garden down the bottom and they filled that up. By the time John McKenteer knew about it, it was too late, they had excavated. That was Waahi Tapu, years ago and a lot of artifacts and bones were taken out of there by an old historian called Toss Hamon who used to live there and I think the artifacts are in the museum now. |
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You weren't told any stories of the stakes in the water for fishing? |
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Up Miranda way, yes that is my area. |
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Did you have information about who had what area or where the rows of stakes were? |
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No I haven't. I think their own Iwi there would have that, probably some of us here might have it, I don't know. All our elders used to get together and talk about those things and I thought they put their stakes there and then they put their lines on it but they were boundaries but we didn't have that up this coast Mostly at the flat land, Miranda, Kaiaua. |
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So they must have had a different way of showing ownership down this way, did they? |
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Yes. |
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How did they show ownership down this end? |
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They were mostly Marutuahu people anyway, the flats were a good place for floundering at the time which they used to live on. Further out were the snapper. |
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So anyone could go down there if you were Marutuahu and fish without restrictions? |
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No restrictions, it was all Marutuahu and jealously guarded by the Iwi of Marutuahu. |
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Were there any rules there? |
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There were Rahui and reserves in different places for spawning times for all fish, mainly flounder, which they were very strict on. |