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Motuara Island AI simulator
(@Motuara Island_simulator)
Hub AI
Motuara Island AI simulator
(@Motuara Island_simulator)
Motuara Island
Motuara Island is a scenic and historical reserve that lies at the entrance to Queen Charlotte Sound / Tōtaranui. It is notable for the actions of James Cook. During HMS Endeavour's stay at nearby Meretoto / Ship Cove, Cook climbed to the summit of Motuara, and formally (and controversially) claimed it and the adjacent lands in the name of and for the use of the sovereign of the British Empire.
The island is 59 hectares (150 acres) in size. Motu means island and ara is a path; hence, Motuara literally means the island in the path (of the canoes).
The entrance to the Queen Charlotte Sound / Tōtaranui area was an important point of arrival and departure for the steady flow of trading waka (canoes) crossing Cook Strait, and Motuara Island was a staging post for people and goods crossing the strait, as well as a trading post for pounamu (jade) and pakohe (argillite).
Rangitāne people resided in kāinga (unfortified villages) near food gathering and growing places. Although the residents enjoyed long periods of peace, due to its strategic location over the years different tribal groups contested, fought and merged there; hence, the fortified pā upon a partly attached rocky islet off the south east point of Motuara Island. Whenever trade opportunities or strife loomed, people gathered at the pā. Today this islet is called Hippah Island, after the early British use of the word "Hippah" for any fortified Māori site. The islets cliffs provided protection in times of skirmishes.
At the time HMS Endeavour sailed into the sound, Motuara's chief was an elderly man named Topaa. He and his people paddled waka out from the pā and encircled the ship. In terms of first contact, it was friendly and prolonged encounter, smoothed by Tupaia, the Tahitian priest and interpreter.
As Cook wrote in his journal:
The inhabitants of this place invited us ashore with their usual Marks of Friendship, and shew'd us all over the place; which indeed was soon done, for it was very small, yet it contain'd a good number of people, and they had in it, Split and hanging up to dry, a prodidgious quantity of various sorts of small fish, a part of which they sold to us for such Trifles as we had about us.
— James Cook, Cook's Journal: Daily Entries,
Motuara Island
Motuara Island is a scenic and historical reserve that lies at the entrance to Queen Charlotte Sound / Tōtaranui. It is notable for the actions of James Cook. During HMS Endeavour's stay at nearby Meretoto / Ship Cove, Cook climbed to the summit of Motuara, and formally (and controversially) claimed it and the adjacent lands in the name of and for the use of the sovereign of the British Empire.
The island is 59 hectares (150 acres) in size. Motu means island and ara is a path; hence, Motuara literally means the island in the path (of the canoes).
The entrance to the Queen Charlotte Sound / Tōtaranui area was an important point of arrival and departure for the steady flow of trading waka (canoes) crossing Cook Strait, and Motuara Island was a staging post for people and goods crossing the strait, as well as a trading post for pounamu (jade) and pakohe (argillite).
Rangitāne people resided in kāinga (unfortified villages) near food gathering and growing places. Although the residents enjoyed long periods of peace, due to its strategic location over the years different tribal groups contested, fought and merged there; hence, the fortified pā upon a partly attached rocky islet off the south east point of Motuara Island. Whenever trade opportunities or strife loomed, people gathered at the pā. Today this islet is called Hippah Island, after the early British use of the word "Hippah" for any fortified Māori site. The islets cliffs provided protection in times of skirmishes.
At the time HMS Endeavour sailed into the sound, Motuara's chief was an elderly man named Topaa. He and his people paddled waka out from the pā and encircled the ship. In terms of first contact, it was friendly and prolonged encounter, smoothed by Tupaia, the Tahitian priest and interpreter.
As Cook wrote in his journal:
The inhabitants of this place invited us ashore with their usual Marks of Friendship, and shew'd us all over the place; which indeed was soon done, for it was very small, yet it contain'd a good number of people, and they had in it, Split and hanging up to dry, a prodidgious quantity of various sorts of small fish, a part of which they sold to us for such Trifles as we had about us.
— James Cook, Cook's Journal: Daily Entries,
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