Hei tawāpou (tawāpou seed necklace)

These ‘hei tawāpou’ are contemporary examples of a taonga once commonly worn by Māori of the far northern and eastern coasts of New Zealand. They are made of seeds gathered from the tawāpou tree.

The tawāpou is a small to medium evergreen tree found in limited numbers from North Cape to Tolaga Bay. Its Habitat is usually littoral, on rocky headlands, steep hillsides and offshore islands.

Alan Cunningham collected specimens at Whangaroa, Bay of Islands and Hokianga in 1833 with H.M.S. Buffalo, and published the first botanical description in "Annals of Natural History" Vol.2.

It is one of the group of tropical and subtropical trees found in New Zealand with close affinities with genera found through the Western Pacific. Other relatives in the tropics are famous for their fruit and their hardwood timber.

Māori pūrākau (tribal narratives) link tawāpou to the arrival of the Waipapa waka at Doubtless Bay, where lengths of wood made from tawāpou were utilised as skids to move the waka onto land. Some of these lengths took root and the resulting tawāpou trees today; a memorial to a successful journey from Hawaiki.

Tawāpou is in flower and fruit throughout the year, and the large berries may be seen in all stages of ripening, in an array of colours ranging from green, cream, yellow, orange, red and brown. When ripe, the berries contain two to four polished seeds which were strung together by Māori to make necklaces and bracelets.

Unfortunately, the seeds of the tawāpou are also a favourite food of rats, and heavy seed predation has impacted on the number of mature trees in the environment, potentially explaining the decline and rarity of hei tawāpou today.  Seed gathering has only recently become possible in modern times with the development of more effective rodent control methods.

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