ŌTUATAUA
The Ihumatao Stonefields in Manukau
“One day these
fields and land will come back to us as kaitiaki,” the impassioned words of
Mavis Roberts, kuia of Te Ahiwaru tribe sat in her lounge looking out across
the waahi that was once a sacred site for her people of Ihumatao, now being
swallowed up irrev0ocably by Auckland’s International Airport expansion.
Some weeks
earlier, I sat amongst the Otuataua rocks with a sketch book in hand and felt
the nearness of her ancestors looking over my shoulder nodding their heads approvingly
now, her words echoing their anguished cries when they were stripped off these
cherished acres going right back to 1863 for alleged disloyalty to Queen
Victoria. A long time to grieve.
As I sat amongst those rocks, there was an
omnipresence of Te Ahiwaru generations around their fires, fishing nets and
gardens. I also felt their presence when
the local tribes gave evidence to The Waitangi Tribunal Manukau Harbour Claim
1986:
“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)
For Mavis, her
son Saul, and nephew Jim, “This is more than a commercial thing without a
heart, a cash till nor is it a space for
boxes to be built upon boxes.” I asked,
“What does this land mean?” “He pūmanawa!
A heartbeat!”
“The old name
for those stones is Atuataua – The Warriors of the Gods,” Saul Roberts told me.
Aucklanders
turned their backs on this space in the 1960s when the sewage ponds were sited
here, “Though in a funny way that has
protected the area from going the same way as other parts of Auckland.”
The stone walls is evidence of a thriving industry
built around survival; every stone moved with bare hands their warmth trapped
in mounds provided the hothouses to propagate seeds and seedlings for planting
in the fertile soils.
I saw images of
harvesting the bounties of Tangaroa protected by the kaitiaki of The Manukau
Harbour, [1]
Kaiwhare’ the watchful taniwha. Their mana and prosperity was intact up to the 1860s
when things went awfully wrong. This sublime rural landscape is as old as human
habitation as early as the ninth Century.
The Otuataua Stonefields is testimony to the resourcefulness of early
Maori 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.
What happened?
What happened is well documented in the
testimonies put before The Waitangi Tribunal:
“... 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)
Tainui tribes had valid customary rights promised
under the treaty when it was signed in 1840.
Those rights were protected and guaranteed by the British Crown. In
closing its hearing on The Manukau Harbour, The Waitangi Tribunal wrote;
“… 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,
Kawerau-a-Maki and Ngati Te Ata in poverty.”
1894, The Validation of Invalid Land Sales Act
meant that any Pakeha settler mis-dealings concerning Maori land were
legitimised by this Act. Te Ahiwaru, Te Akitai and Ngati Te Ata in Auckland and
other tribes lost land through this vicious Act.
Evidence of Pakeha settlement here in the 1800s
also abound; reminders in the names Ellett, Rennie, Wallace, Mendelsshon 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.”
Well, the signs
are that’s come to an end …
The second
runway for Auckland International Airport has already gobbled up whanau and
land. Tracts of rich horticultural soils
around Mavis and her whanau are going.
And there’s no easing back in sight.
Saul Roberts
told me, “Big wet boxes go up everywhere and nowhere. Once land becomes urban then there’s no going
back. It’s called progress, but at what
cost?”
“Every time I
open my back door, I see the shadow of an airport,” Mavis concluded. “No, it’s
never too late; the heartbeat of our ancestors breathes in us.”
And so, despite a Royal Commission Report, and a
hearing before The Waitangi Tribunal, the litany of broken promises for Mavis
and her people continue.
Rua
Cooper, Tainui kaumatua left us this taonga:
“Ahakoa nga hara kua ūtaina ki
runga ki te moana tapu e hora nei, ngā he me ngā whakamomori kei tua, ahakoa te
kaika te ngākau o a mātau rangatahi, ka ū tonu te ngākau māhaki o te iwi o
Manukau ki te ture Atua, ki te ture whenua, me te ture o te motu. Engari, me whakatika ngā hara ahakoa atu mehe
tīmata ano”
Rua Cooper 1992
(Translation)
Despite wrong
doings to the people and to the Manukau Harbour, and some chafing at the bit by
our young people, those before us reaffirmed their loyalty to the nation; it’s
not our loyalty that is in question but the good faith of the other partner of
the treaty. Past wrongs can be put
right, and it’s not too late to begin again.”
Manukau has a
special cultural heritage. The Ōtuataua
Stonefields can only survive where it is.
[1] Te Manuka – the name, meaning “anxiety” over the
dangerous harbour crossing was named by Hoturoa, captain of Tainui canoe