Māori horticulturalists identified at least 30 different types of soil.
Oneone means soil, and ‘one’ is used as a prefix for the names of different soil types. One-parakiwai was silt, one-pū was sand and one-nui was a rich soil made of clay, sand and decayed organic matter. ‘Kere’ was used as a prefix for some types of clay, including keretū, kerematua and kerewhenua.
Tenga kākāriki (parakeet’s crop), a white volcanic sand in the Bay of Plenty, was so named because it resembled the rough inner surface of a parakeet’s crop (a pouch near the throat).
A kaumātua (elder) from Ngāti Kahungunu discussed the relative merits of four types of soil for growing kūmara (sweet potato):
[I]f the soil is one-matua [loam] that kumara field should be gravelled; gravel will improve it. The reason why persons dislike that soil is on account of the heavy work of carrying gravel. If a spot having one-paraumu [dark, friable soil] can be found, that is desirable, the work will be light, gravel will be carried only to put under the leaves, lest they suffer from mud and wet. If there be no one-paraumu, and one-haruru [light, sandy loam] can be found, that will serve well as a cultivation ground. The one-tuatara [stiff brown soil] is never approved of, it necessitates so much labour in pulverising, also another labour is carrying gravel for this soil. 1
The preferred soil for growing kūmara was light, warm and sandy. Where this was not available, Māori horticulturalists added gravel and sand, and less commonly charcoal and shells, to the existing soil, probably to improve drainage. Large amounts of gravel were quarried for this purpose, and the holes left from this are known as borrow pits.
Modified soils are found in both the North and South islands, and are also known as plaggen soils.
Missionary William Colenso noted that compared to kūmara, taro required ‘a very different soil and damp situation ... light and deep yet loamy, or alluvial, often on the banks of streams or lagoons, and sometimes at the foot of high cliffs near the sea.’ 2 In Northland, taro was grown in swamps with drainage networks.
To fertilise soil, weeds and ash were spread on it. Before Europeans settled in New Zealand there were few animals capable of producing manure – but even after stock were introduced, Māori at first did not use manure for agriculture. The laws of tapu (initially made to prevent sickness) prevented excrement being associated with food. In some cases, this opposition to manure lasted generations.
In 1929 anthropologist Peter Buck (Te Rangi Hīroa) visited Ra’iatea in the Society Islands, a possible location of Hawaiki, the ancient homeland of Māori. ‘On landing I felt that I should reverently pick up some of the sacred soil of Havai‘i from the first footprint that I made on stepping ashore. But it could not be done, for we landed on a modern wharf with wooden buildings forming the background. ... It was all wrong.’ 3
Red ochre, found in clay, was smeared on people’s faces and bodies as a sign of chiefly status. It was also used on carved items such as waka (canoes) or houses, and even on the bones of the dead. Kōkōwai, one type of red ochre, was rolled into balls, baked in fire or hot ashes, then mixed with shark oil. Tākou was another type of red ochre.
Taioma, a white paint, was created by burning and pulverising a clay of the same name, then mixing it with oil. Pukepoto was a cobalt blue colour found in clay rock. Uku, a white or bluish soapy clay, was used for washing. Food was sometimes cooked by enveloping it in clay mixed with water and placing it in a hot fire.
Place names were often an indication of the type of soil found there, including:
In tradition, the link between Māori and the soil stretches back to the time of creation. One of the primal parents, Papatūānuku, was the earth, and the first human was formed from soil taken from Papatūānuku at Kurawaka. In one tradition, Tāne made the first woman, Hineahuone (earth-formed woman), from soil before breathing life into her. In another, it is a man, Tiki-āhua, who is formed from soil by Tāne.
In a number of traditions, Māori explorers from voyaging canoes were interested in the agricultural properties of the soil in different areas.
When the great navigator Kupe returned to Hawaiki, he is said to have commented on New Zealand’s fertile soil, saying: ‘There is a distant land, cloud capped, with plenty of moisture, and a sweet-scented soil [one-kakara],’ and ‘The soil of Aotea-roa is good, it is one-paraumu [rich black soil].’ 1
Turi, captain of the Aotea canoe, has a saying associated with him: ‘Te oneone i hongia e Turi’ (the soil which Turi smelled). He went to Taranaki, as Kupe told him the land was one-kakara (sweet-scented soil), suitable for growing kūmara. Simply smelling the soil at Pātea convinced him of its fertility, and he settled there.
Whātonga, one of the captains of the Kurahaupō canoe, temporarily settled at Nukutaurua on the Māhia Peninsula, and sent his two sons, Tara and Tautoki, to find a better place for settlement. They noted that the island Motu Kairangi (now Miramar peninsula in Wellington city) and Porirua had one-matua (loam), but were too hard for a small group to defend. Wairarapa had different soils, including one-paraumu (dark, fertile soil), one-matua (loam) and one-pakirikiri (gravelly soil), but was also difficult to defend without a large group. Matiu (Somes Island) and Mākaro (Ward Island) were both defendable; they settled on Matiu as it had good soil.
In one tradition the Tākitimu canoe landed at Whangaparāoa, in the eastern Bay of Plenty. Its captain, Tamatea, asked Hoturoa and Ngātoroirangi of the Tainui canoe what the land was like. Ngātoroirangi, the tohunga (priest), replied:
It is good. There is one-tai (sandy soil), one-matua (loam), tuatara (stiff, brown, fertile soil), one-paraumu (dark, fertile, friable soil), one-rere (good draining soil), one-haruru (sand and loam), one-puia (volcanic soil), one-kirikiri (gravelly soil), one-powhatu (stony soil), and one-takataka (friable soil). 2
In 1950 Rora Fernandos visited the Anzio war cemetery in Italy and collected some soil from the grave of Flight Sergeant Tionga Waaka of the Royal New Zealand Air Force. Waaka had been shot down over Italy during the Second World War, and was said to be the only Māori buried in the cemetery. After a three-year search to locate the young man’s family, Mrs Fernandos returned the soil to them at Rotorua.
Sacred earth, both sand and soil, was often used as a mauri (talisman). Ruawharo, a tohunga of the Tākitimu canoe, stopped at Māhia and deposited a parcel of sand from Hawaiki as a mauri for whales. Soil from the ancient Polynesian altar of Rangiātea was brought to New Zealand on the Mataatua canoe and placed at a garden known as Matirerau in Whakatāne.
The Tainui canoe also brought sacred soil from Rangiātea. It was brought ashore by Hoturoa and used to construct an altar at Kāwhia. Tainui ancestor Tūrongo took some of the soil to Rangitoto in the Waikato where he set up an altar. When Ngāti Raukawa migrated to Ōtaki they buried soil as a mauri under the altar of their new church, which was also called Rangiātea.
The link to the land was strong. The terms ahu whenua (soil cultivator) and ihu oneone (soiled face) both had the metaphorical meaning of hard worker. When a child was born its placenta (whenua) was buried in the earth (also called whenua). Death completed the cycle.
When the demigod Māui failed to convince Hine-nui-te-pō, goddess of the underworld, to let humans die like the moon (die and return) she told him, ‘Me matemate-a-one’ (let man die and become like soil).
When someone captured in battle was dying, or about to be executed on another tribe’s land, they might request, ‘Tukua mai he kapunga one ki au, hei tangi’ (send me some soil from home that I might grieve over it).