The way we were: First Māori farm manager steps back in time

From vesting to incorporation to contemporary business, the triumphs and opportunities have been hard-won. In its 50th year, Ātihau-Whanganui Incorporation has many stories to remember and celebrate, none greater than those of the leaders and workers who broke new ground to turn the impossible into reality. Moana Ellis talks to Ātihau-Whanganui Inc’s fi rst Māori farm manager, Lou Tapa.

Above (l-r): Whatarangi Murphy-Peehi, Lou Tapa, Keria Ponga and Shar Amner.

Lou Tapa’s is a story grounded in a diff erent lifetime. Born 92 years ago on Morikau Road, his life is forever linked with the development of Morikaunui Incorporation and the events and people who shaped the history of Ātihau-Whanganui Incorporation.

Morikau stands as a significant pou for the river lands, its decades long battle to regain compulsorily acquired whenua leaving a legacy of strong leadership and support for the river tribes. For Lou Tapa - born in 1928 and living most of his life on the lands that became Morikaunui - tenacity, commitment and hard work were just part of the landscape.

What was it like, growing up on the upper reaches during the Depression? “We worked hard,” Lou says. “All my family knew how to work. I was only eight when I started getting the cows in at 4.30am and milking them. After school - go home, get a piece of bread, milk the cows, 6 o’clock have tea, chop wood for the old girl, go to bed.”

“She was hard yakka in those days. It’s been hard yakka all my life, really - cutting posts and going fencing with my father when I was a little fulla. I’ve always known if I want something I have to work for it.”

But in his earlier years, it was a different story. “Spoilt. I was adopted out to an old lady up the river when I was two,” he says.

Ninety years later, he speaks fondly of their fi ve years together. “E Kui, I called her. She had a name, Ngāone Harihona - she was the only one in our parts with a moko.”

They lived in the hills behind Kawana, the only access by foot, and te reo Māori the only language. About 70 years old, she used to carry him on her back to the river at Matahiwi, and then by canoe to the western bank and the wharepuni at Galatea (which later floated down the river to Koroniti, Lou says).

“Do anything, go anywhere - that was my life. That’s where I learned my reo, from the old duck. Walked to school, four and a half miles. I don’t know what we lived on. When we got short of tucker, we’d catch some eels.”

When Lou was eight, he returned to his parents at Rānana and began milking at the farm on Morikau Rd. The hard yakka was broken up with occasional trips to Whanganui on the Hattrick boats. He remembers the Waione and the Whakapai, and how it took all day to get to town.

He finished school at 14 to work at Morikau for the farm manager’s wife, Mrs Davidson, and the old teamster, Whata, who rode up from Jerusalem to do the cropping. “I would catch six or eight of his horses, give them a feed, brush them down, and get them in their harness.”

When he was 16 he joined the shearing gang run by his father Bob, shearing for a couple of seasons at Bartrams and Morikau. His grandfather, Tanginoa Tapa from Parikino, also worked on Morikau Farm at some stage, fencing, sowing swedes, or shearing.

Lou saved money and went to Wellington in his late teens, where the proud Te Ātihaunui-a-Pāpārangi river rat met and married Pikihuia Whakaewa Linderen Brown (known as Linderen), of Parewahawaha, Tūwharetoa, Raukawa and Ngāti Toa. They have been together for more than 65 years. Lou worked at a paintworks and the couple had the first of their six children before returning to Rānana in 1954, at the request of Lou’s father, to help prepare for the resumption of 13,635 acres of incorporated lands in 1955.

The newly formed Morikaunui sheep and cattle station stretched from Rānana to Jerusalem. With huge paddocks of 300 to 470 acres, good shepherds were crucial. During the first stint of his 31 years at Morikau, Lou shepherded for 18 years, the last six as head shepherd.

In 1962, Lou’s father became a member of the Ohorea Advisory Committee, established to represent owners, following the groundswell movement buoyed by the Morikaunui example to resume 115,000 acres of ancestral land that had been vested at the turn of the century in the care of the Aotea Māori Land Council. The Committee members were: Messrs Bailey, Metekingi, Wright, Peehi, Amohia and Tapa. But it was Morikaunui chair Te Rangitākuku Mete-Kīngi who had Lou “in his rifle sight”. According to Lou, shortly after Ohorea Station was formed in 1969 with 5824 acres of resumed land, Rangi Mete-Kīngi squeezed the trigger and Lou became the first Ātihau-Whanganui Inc Māori farm manager.

Above: Lou Tapa helps celebrate 50 years of Ātihau-Whanganui Incorporaton by cutting one of the commemoration cakes at the 2019 AGM with Ellen Haami.

He started at Ohorea - near Raetihi - in January 1973, just before Ātihau took control in June. The land had been managed on behalf of Māori Affairs by George Johns, formerly of Morikau.

“Ohorea was quite easy to farm in those days compared to Morikau. George had it pretty right. All the stock was looked after, all the paddocks were grazed. Contractors did the cropping but there was very little of that in those days. I got used to doing little jobs compared to Morikau, which was twice the size. At Ohorea I had about 3000 ewes, whereas at my last lambing at Morikau I had 14,000 breeding ewes and 2500 cattle,” remembers Lou.

“The paddocks at Ohorea were small compared to Morikau, but to get around the farm you still had to use horses. I had a shepherd, a rouseabout and a fencer. Ohorea was easy country, better than Morikau, although we had some steep cliffs. The farm was pretty well developed.

“Having snow was something new - the trick was to block out so many paddocks for the winter.”

The homestead at Ohorea was beautiful, reached by driving through a stand of bush.

“But it was cold. In those days, no such thing as insulation. But we had open fires and plenty of maire. You got used to the weather. We were five minutes from Raetihi. There were more people in those days – you go to a rodeo now... hardly anybody! In those days, there were hundreds of people from everywhere,” Lou says.

After a few years, Rangi MeteKīngi began pressing Lou to return to Morikaunui as farm manager. Although Robin Murphy-Peehi tried his best to convince him to stay, Lou’s home had always been Morikau. In 1976, after three years at Ohorea, Lou went back to manage Morikau for 13 years, retiring in 1989.

Now living with one of their sons at Pūtiki, Lou and Linderen enjoy their many great grandchildren, all the while observing the progress of Morikaunui and ĀtihauWhanganui.

“Good luck to Ātihau, they’re doing Although he’s had recent health challenges, Lou still counts himself a hard worker, and still drives.

“It’s the hard yakka that’s made me like this,” he says. “Life is just what you put into it.”