New Zealand Fishing

Seafoods of New Zealand include:

The Octopus, octopus maorum, which grows to armspread of about 4 ft with a body length of more than 9 inches.
The Squid, sepioteuthis bilineata, which usually grow to length of about 1 ft.
Black-footed paua, haliotis iris, found below low-water mark on boulder beaches and considered a delicacy. The shell is used for ornamental purposes.
The Sea cucumber, stichopus mollis, which grow to 8 inches long are found under low tidal stones, on sandy bottoms of pools and in dredgings of shell gravel.
Oyster, ostrea angasi, are found throughout New Zealand commonly known as the Bluff Oyster. They are a cold temperature bi-valve, found subtidally or at extreme low water.
Snapping shrimp, alpheus socialis, are found on rocky shores and low tidal inlets. They can change colour to merge with their background.
Spiny crayfish, jasus lalandei, are found anywhere along the New Zealand coastline below the tide level.
Prawn, palaemon affinis are found in rock pools and grow to about 2 1/2 cm.
Sea egg, evechinus chloroticus (sea urchin) are found clinging to rocks near the low tide level and grow to average diameter of 4 inches.

New Zealand History

The Fish of Maaui

Polynesian legends attribute the creation of land to Maaui, the supreme angler who fished up the North Island of New Zealand. Long ago, perhaps 1000 years before the Christian era, on an island in the western Pacific, there lived a people who, because of their isolation, developed a physique, a culture, and a language which distinguished them from all others. Where they lived, these ancestral Polynesians, is not certain. Tonga is the likeliest homeland, but it might have been Samoa, or even Fiji.

There is no direct information about the appearance of these proto-Polynesians, no skeletal remains have been found which date that far back. But since their descendants today are physically similar, whichever island group they come from, it is certain these ancestors were like them - tall, brown-skinned, with wavy hair, dark eyes, and massive limbs ( sounds like Jonah Lomu!). A great deal is known about their culture, both from archaeological finds, and from the evidence of language. They were island-dwelling fishermen, and their familiarity with the sea was to lead them to discover and people hundreds of islands dotting millions of square miles of ocean surrounding their first homeland.

As fishermen they conceived the creation of their land, and of the islands they were to discover, as something fished from the sea. In almost every island group, fromt eh Western Polynesian outliers in Melanesia, to Hawaii in the north and New Zealand in the south, the creation of the land was ascribed to the fishing prowess of the same super-man, Maaui-tikitiki, son of Taranga. Captain Cook has porvided the first record of Maaui. In his journal for June 28, 1769, he says: "we proceeded further and met with a very extraordinary curiosity called Mahuwe... It was the figure of a man made in basket work 7 1/2 feet high and every other way large in proportion, the head was ornamented with four knobs resembling stumps of horns three stood in front and one behind."

Six months later and 3000 miles away Cook was to hear of Maaui again when he tried to get a name for the North Island from the Maoris of Queen Charlotte Sound. "Aehi no Mauwe" is Cook's spelling of what they said; "fished up by Maaui" - but Cook did not recognise the name of the hero whose image he had seen in Tahiti.

The early missionaries were to hear of Maaui, and record a little of hi sadventures. At first they thought that Maaui was a god, even the supreme god of Maori religion, but his real place in Maori myth was seen when gifted Maoris, using the techniques of writing taught them by the missionaries, wrote down at length the adventures of the greatest of the Polynesian heroes. The stories of these heroes, less than gods but more than men, superhuman but not immortal, form a large portion of the legends of any Polynesian island group...