Moemoeā

Abstract

Rāniera Ellison, a “half caste” of Taranaki Māori lineage, was born at Korohiwa, near Porirua, in 1839 and died at Ōtākou in May 1920. Rāniera was also known as Dan Ellison or Rāniera Erihana.[i] He wrote numerous diaries in te reo Māori that included whakapapa, waiata, discussions and prophecies, letters between his family, economic transactions and farming instructions, and so forth. In nearly all of the diaries he also wrote about his moemoeā. He noted what makes a dream good or safe, as well as those that give signs of something bad to come. He described many dreams including several about the prominent Taranaki leaders from the nineteenth century; Te Whiti-o-Rongomai and Tohu Kākahi. Rāniera’s accounts illustrate that dreams provide significant insights and that recording them descriptively was important to him

I am the great, great grandchild of Rāniera Ellison. He was a half caste of Taranaki Māori lineage. He was born 1839, possibly in the Wellington area and died at Ōtākou in May 1920. He was one of three children from a European whaling father and a Māori mother. His parents were living in the Queens Charlotte Sounds in Marlborough in the Upper South Island and had to flee to the North Island at the time of the raids from Southern Māori to the area. They crossed over the Cook Strait and his father set up a whaling station at Korohiwa in the Wellington area. Rāniera was nine months old when his father drowned while taking a whaling boat through the rough surf at Titahi Bay. He was raised by his mother and aunts in a Māori village called Te Aro in Wellington.