Ngā Rauropi Whakaoranga

In Appendix 1 (140-149) is a charming account of Cook"s visit to the Coromandel by Te Horeta Taniwha, a young boy at the time. Beaglehole took his version from White"s Ancient History of the Māori,volume v, pp 121-128.

One part refers to the introduction of potatoes. "The goblin chief ... gave [our old chief] two handfuls of what we now know were seed-potatoes. At that time we thought they were parareka, and we called them by this name, as the things he gave to the old man were not unlike the bulb of the parareka, or like the lower end of that fern, at the part where it holds to the stem of the fern-tree. The old chief took the gift and planted it, and we have eaten potatoes every year since that time. These things were first planted at a place in the Wairoa called the Hunua, half-way between Drury and the Taupo settlement, east of the entrance of the river Wairoa, opposite the island of Waiheke; and the old chief to whom the potatoes were given was of the Nga-ti-pou tribe, who occupied the Drury district at that time.

After these parareka had been planted for three years, and there was a good quantity of them, a feast was given, at which some of the potatoes were eaten, and then a general distrubution of seed parareka was made amongst the tribes of Waikato and Hauraki."

The account goes on to claim that the tribes of Thames were first in New Zealand to have the potato. Te Horeta Taniwha says they still (1852, when his story was first taken down at Lieutenant-Governor Wynyard"s direction) grow wild in the Hunua district.