Maggie and her eels – a story verified

While visiting Tākaka in early 1929, a Nelson resident decided to verify a story of a young lady and her eels.

Making his way to Anatoki he found Maggie (Margaret Elizabeth) McCallum who confirmed the story was true. She took the visitor to the banks of the Anatoki stream to ‘summon’ the eels by tapping the surface of the water several times, calling out “Eelie, Eelie”.

Almost immediately eight eels swam towards her and gently took shreds of meat from her fingers. One eel of around 15 pound (6.8 kilo) crawled out onto to a rock where Maggie was able to stroke it.

This particular eel had been a pet for around 10 years and was known to nip the younger eels if they got too much attention. As the eels moved away, Maggie was challenged as to whether she cold get them to return to her, so she rippled the top of the water, and they returned.

Maggie was born in Tākaka in 1900 to Alexander and Sarah McCallum, one of three children, and grew up on the family farm. From past information it is gleaned that Maggie was around 10 years old when she began to feed the eels by stopping her horse and cart mid-stream and throwing in curds from milkings off the family farm.

It did not take very long for the eels to become familiar with her and Maggie developed a friendship with them, and as it grew she was able to feed them from a spoon, stroke them and even take them from the water.

By 1939 around 14 eels would gather when Maggie called.  On occasions it was reported that she fed them with tapioca custard via a spoon and shreds of raw meat from her fingers.

The media caught on to a good story and Maggie and her friends from the little valley soon become famous. In 1929 and 1939 Maggie’s story went national with numerous newspapers printing her story including, Otago Daily Times, Greymouth Evening Star, Waikato Times, Poverty Bay Herald, King Country Chronicle,  Manawatu Times, Auckland Sun,  Evening Star, New Zealand Herald, Fielding Star,  Kaikoura Star, Hawera Star, Franklin Times, Samoanische Zeitung, Taranaki Daily, Levin Daily, Wanganui Chronicle and  Gisborne Times.

For a period of 28 days in February 1939 Maggie kept a book with visitor names in it, and by the end of the 28 days more than 400 people had visited from as far away as England, Samoa and Australia. When Maggie died in 1966, her sister Edna took over feeding the eels until she was no longer able to, after which locals of the Anatoki Valley pitched in to keep the link between eels and people alive. Anatoki continues to this day to have tame eels that can be fed.