I Te Timatanga
(in the
beginning)
Ko Te Kore (Only
an emptiness)
Ko Te Ahunga (A
stirring, movement)
Ko Te Apunga (a
desire gathering)
Ko Te Kune Iti (the
smallest filling out)
Ko te Kune rahi (increasing, swelling, thoughts)
Ko Te Po Po Kumao (the Night fading into light)
Ko Te Po Nui (The
Great Night)
Ko Te Atatu (The
Pre-dawn)
Ko Te Ao (Tis increasing light)
Ko Te Whitinga mai o Te Ra (The
burst of day)
Hi aha ha! (Ah tis the world in light)
OTUATAUA – ATUATAUA
“He taonga ngarongaro atu ka whawhai
tonuti kia hoki tonu mai ano.”
Last Saturday iwi members of Tainui’s Kawerau-a-Maki
heard the Minister, in the presence of King Tuheitia and about 200 tribal
members make this declaration on the Ihumatao Marae in Mangere. Sustained work,
yes going back into the 1860s and continued in recent decades. Local tribes got their first chance to put
their claims before the Waitangi Tribunal on Ihumatao Marae on 8 October
1986.
Four years ago, I sat with Mavis Roberts, kuia of Te
Ahiwaru, her son Saul and nephew Jim in her humble home under the lengthening
shadow of the airport runway expansion. She looked out her kitchen window across her
tiny section, “One day, these fields will come back to us as kaitiaki.” That
was in November 2010. She remembers
attending the first Waitangi Tribunal of thirty years ago when her people
presented evidence on her marae across the road, Mavis gave her testimonies
before The Waitangi Tribunal as did others who have now long gone. Sir Apirana
Ngata in the Stout government in 1926 produced a Royal Commission Report.
“The Natives were treated as rebels and war
declared against them before they had engaged in rebellion of any kind and in
the circumstances they had no alternative but to fight in self defence. In their eyes, the fight was not against the
Queen’s sovereignty, but a struggle for house and home ...”.
(The
Hon Sir William Sim, Royal Commission Report, 1926)
“The struggle for our kids continues”, Mavis Roberts whose
home and marae slapped against the airport expansion. For her, and whanau,
“This development on ‘our lands’ is not merely a commercial thing, but a
monster without a heart; it is a cash till for multinationals to building boxes
upon boxes”. For the land is, “He pūmanawa! A heartbeat! Heart of tupuna.”
Saul tells me, “The old name for those stones is Atuataua
– The warriors of the gods. They are kaitiaki since our landing here. Aucklanders
turned their backs on this space in the 1960s when sewage ponds were sited next
to us here, “Though in a funny sort of way that has protected the area from
going the same way as other parts of Auckland.”
The stone walls are evidence of a once thriving industry
built around survival; every stone moved with bare hands. The warmth trapped in
mounds provided the hothouses to propagate seeds and seedlings for the seasonal
planting. This sublime rural landscape is as old as human habitation possibly
as early as the ninth century. The Otuataua Stone Fields is testimony to the
resourcefulness of the early inhabitant to use stone-walls to trap the heat in
the walls of their houses and stone mounds. In their storage pits the stones
provided a way to preserve food stocks such as kumara, taro and in later years,
potatoes. Evidence of Pakeha settlement here in the 1800s also abound;
reminders of the Ellett, Rennie, Wallace, Mendelssohn, Nixon and Montgomerie
families.
The Ōtuataua Stone Fields were secured as a reserve in
1989 by The Manukau City Council, in Sir Barry Curtis’ words; “To honour the history of the land and the
people who built their homes and raised the families here over the past 800
years.”
And as for her dream Mavis and whanau want to see lands
come back, but the second runway for the airport put stop to that gobbling up remnants
of whanau and tribal lands, “Going, going ...
“. So, what happened, I
asked? What happened is well documented
in the evidence put before The Waitangi Tribunal in 1986, “It’s all there.”
Saul tells me.
“...there were several Maori villages
near Auckland – Mangere, Pukaki, Ihumatao, and others – inhabited by relations
of the Waikato tribes. A large proportion of these people were old and infirm.
Yet our arrangements for governing native settlements, even close to our own
doors were so defensive that instant war broke out (though we had ten thousand
men in the field), to allow these people to remain in their homes. Twenty Maori policemen could have quelled the
whole of them even in actual revolt, but the government had not a single Maori
policeman on whose obedience they could depend.
It was therefore resolved to drive these poor men and women and their
children from their homes and confiscate their lands. There was no difficulty
in finding a pretext. They were Maoris
and relatives of Potatau...”.
(The Hon Sir William
Sim, Royal Commission Report, 1926)
In its closing report
The Waitangi Tribunal summed up:
“… its
governors and officials acted with ruthless pragmatism that sidelined the
treaty and deliberately advantaged settlers over Maori, and its purchases left
Te Ahiwaru, Te Aki Tai and Ngati Te Ata in poverty.” (13 October 1986, Ihumatao Marae)
“Ka
mamae tonu .... each time I open my back
door, I see the shadow of a monster getting bigger and bigger possession
without end.” And so despite a Royal
Commission and a tribunal hearing, there is still a long list of lies and
betrayals for Mavis and her people. Will
it ever end? Mavis is optimistic. “It’s never too late to start again; the
heartbeat breathes on in us.”
Tukuroirangi Morgan in reply to minister Findlayson said,
“... Minister this is not an end only a start of an
enduring relationship as we move forward to work in a unified and collaborative
way. A solemn time for us and a
nation.” (Tukuroirangi Morgan, Tainui treaty settlements negotiator, Makaurau Marae, Ihumatao, 22/02/14))
Comment: This kind of state and media
hegemony meant that the people of this area, a peaceful people who time and
again expressed cooperation with the state, loyalty to Victoria yet in a very
short time became wards of the state. The
people of Tainui were are an ingenuous people who gave up land to build
schools, churches, offered trade in other words they were excited to build a
new nation. But, as we watch the power
struggle between iwi and state, we are today seeing positive and creative
leadership in the mould of Tukuroirangi Morgan, Grant Hawke, Sonny Tau, Mark
Solomon, Annette Sykes, Iri Tawhiwhirangi, Hanah O’Reagan and others who are
paving a way for equality and peace in our blessed nation. The Maori struggle will always be a peaceful
struggle. It is, as Ranginui
Walker writes, “A Struggle Without End”.
You know, when you’re dispossessed of your culture, you
become possessed by it – fight for it; maybe die for it as Tainui did at
Rangiriri.
As morehu (survivor) Mavis watches helpless and sees her rights
trampled underground. Immutable. Alienating. If you don’ have it; it becomes a taonga – a
treasure to be remembered. The stone walls of Ihumatao have a special cultural
space in Auckland. Will they go? Otuataua
can only survive where it is.
Ae! AND THAT IS WHY OUR CHILDREN
MUST HEAR OUR STORY