Tuesday 27th August. Piha. I had a lie in this morning. I woke with the dawn as usual, but through the curtain I saw an overcast and drizzling sky. So I pulled the curtain and closed my eyes again. I’d had a late night watching the America’s Cup racing. Last night was the last race in the “Challenger series” for the Louis Vuitton Cup. As was expected, Team New Zealand won, easily, and they now go on to challenge the current holder “Team Oracle” for the America’s Cup itself. The race wasn’t that exciting an event. The Italians made a serious error in the pre-start tussle and allowed Team New Zealand to have a free run to the start line… they never got close again. The interest for me wasn’t the actual race, rather it was just watching amazing these boats sail. These boats are huge catamarans, 20m long and just as wide, and they are quite literally flying. They have both hulls out of the water, lifted by hydrofoils. They are moving so fast they can stay up on their foils even when turning. Try this. nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c_id=4&objectid=11114233 Only after I’d breakfasted did I realise how long I’d lain in bed… the first news I heard on the radio was 10:00 a.m. I’m not used to starting the day so late. I was just preparing to get on with a particular job when I had a friend drop by. He’s a patient guy is Murray. He listened, with apparent interest, as I went on and on about Maori pre-history; who went where, how they lived, social practices, people, places, events… all sorts. In no time at all we’d each had 2 coffees go cold and it was three o’clock. I think I dominated 80% of the conversation. I must stop doing that, otherwise I’ll have no visitors. I had a job to do that I’ve been looking forward to for a while. Yesterday I picked up something to fit to the van, and today I mounted it. Simple things make me happy, and this is one of them. I have a particular problem in the van. This is my office as well as my home. Normally, in a house, essential but otherwise disassociated and random bits of information are stuck on the fridge with magnets. However, my fridge is aluminium… and the magnets just fall off. Anyway, my fridge is too low down, and not in my eye line at all. Today I mounted a decent sized whiteboard above my desk. I’ve added a photo. Joy! By late afternoon it was time for some fresh air. I took a stroll northwards up the beach to catch the last of the sun falling on Lion Rock. The wind was up, and it was a southerly. On the west coast of New Zealand a southerly means cold, and cold it was. My fingers and face were going numb, so after I’d grabbed whatever pictures were on offer I went up the beach and sheltered behind the dunes for the return leg. Admiring my office on my return I got stuck into a solid few hours’ work. I didn’t look up until the Ten o’clock news. I have now identified the origins of the tribes that see Tasman for more than 60% of the length of coast he travels. Talking with Murray earlier today made me realise that the emphasis of this work is shifting. The ‘story’ is now more of the prehistory of the Maori up to 1642, set against the timeline of Tasman’s journey, rather than an account of Tasman’s journey from the points of view of both landward and seaward parties. I now have more to say about what was happening on the land than I have about what was happening at sea. Most of this early Maori information has never yet been presented drawn together. It has stayed silo-ed in vertical timeline columns in isolated tribal cells. I’ve not seen anything that attempts a horizontal time slice across many tribes. Regarding the firm science, much of the anthropological detail I’ve unearthed (unearthed?... that would be archaeological wouldn’t it?) has never previously escaped academia. So, right now, it’s time to get back to it. I’m currently just finishing off researching how the descendants of the Tainui canoe occupy the coast from Mokau to the Kaipara. Then it’s on to the Aotea canoe. These people occupy the space between the Tainui down to the Ngai Tara. Finally I have to find who occupies the west coast from the Kaipara up to the Hokianga, and where they originally came from. Ok… I can see your eyes are closing again! I’ll leave it there. I’ve posted some more pictures in the Album August 2013. More tomorrow. Goodnight all.
Posted on: Tue, 27 Aug 2013 12:10:11 +0000
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