SAVE
THE SOUL OF IHUMATAO
I
sat with Mavis Roberts, kuia of Te Ahiwaru, her son Saul and nephew Jim in her
modest 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
November 2010.
It’s Sunday 11pm 21
February 1864 at Rangiaowhia, near Te Awamutu where a congregation of elderly
men, women and children are about to begin Holy Communion with ‘the blood of
Christ’. A rifle shot shatters the peace
as eighty-eight men of The Forest Rangers of the 65th Regiment led by Col George
Marmaduke Nixon mounted one of bloodiest attacks that pinned down the
congregation and the church alight. Von
Tempsky and his Forest Rangers entered the fighting later. Everyone inside perished. Today there are streets around Ihumatao and the
airport named after those bloody ‘heroes’ of the Empire. A monument to Nixon stands in Otahuhu. Here in Ihumatao the people of Te Awhitu, Kawerau-a-Maki, and Te Ahiwaru,
Ngati Te Ata are not alone as they dig in for the remaining shards of their
cherished Lands around Ihumatao; ancient, sacred and a future about to go.
(Photo) The SOUL(diers), cousins of Ihumatao: Waimarie
McFarland,, Moana Waa, Pania Newton, Haki Wilson, Qiane Matata-Sipu,
Bobby-Jo Pihema and children
SOUL (Save Our Unique Landscape) is led by new generation rangatahi who have
put themselves through law school and into the media who now take the fight to
where it matters most. Cousins, Moana
Waa, Pania Newton, Waimarie McFarlane, Haki Wilson and Quiane Matata have a linking
heritage to the land and to the ancient Otuataua Stonefields around Ihumatao in
Mangere. They, with their supporters last November presented a petition to
parliament with 4,000 signatures opposing The Special Housing Areas Act (SHA62)
taking up land to build 480 homes on land around Ihumatao. They know that they would be forsaking their children and generations to come if
they don’t make a unified stand now. They
also know that their mana, prosperity and wellness was intact up to
the [i]1860s
when things turned very bad for them. “Since the
confiscations of 1863,” says Quiane Matata, “This community has been knocked by
one set back or another as we prepare submissions to the Waitangi Tribunal.”
‘SoulTimes’ points out that, “The SHA is (1) In breach
of the Treaty as the Act is passed without consultation and (2) That the Act
does not make provision for the protection of Taonga and (3) It undermines the
ability of the residents to exercise Kaitiakitanga in relation to the land.” Their objections
are laudable given that The Otuataua Stonefields and the land is the last
bastion of Tainui history dating back to the ninth century.”
The state stripped them of their
birthright making them dependent wards in their own country, first by confiscation
and later by legal device through The Native Land Court to remove tupuna from
their villages. The state waived its own laws to legitimise appropriation. The lust for Maori land was cruel, unlawful and
undeserving. The
consequences for the home people were language loss, cultural erosion, and
social breakdown in the new nation they so enthusiastically helped to build.
They spread out like vampires thirsting for the
life-blood of Earth. Free market capitalism is the new theology
where wealth, not people is the new religion with its ethos of speaking so no one understands.
SOUL asks, “When will earth living humans learn to live with the land
and stop plundering the generosity of a giving earth?” We constantly face the ravages of weather, gun
violence, fear and the deepening disparities between the poor and those who
want more now choking our silent planet to the point where it’s ridiculously
out of control.
Mavis Roberts adds, “We watch helpless as the mana of our
land is sucked, like the water that’s bottled and sold.” And since tribal
identity is linked to land, the loss is more devastating. I see richness in SOUL, in their elders and in
their wider community. But that’s wearing
thin.
Te Ahiwaru, Te Akitai
Te Kawerau-a-Maki and Ngati Te Ata are a giving, ingenuous people, deserving of
respect. They have been giving, open and
future looking. Their connection to this
land is now seriously threatened by mergers and consolidations of wealth
extremism.
“Let’s be nice”, some say, only
trouble is nice doesn’t exist anymore.
The cold fingers of penury are
reaching deep into the blood stream of our nation, especially when we see a mum
with four kids (one a baby) facing winter sleeping out in a van in a cold street.
The Maori landscape
is defined by a continuous cultural link to natural features such as wai
(water), ngahere (forests), repo (marshlands), wharua (valleys and estuaries), waahi tapu (sites,
burial grounds, stone fields), waahi mahinga kai (cultivations), parekura
(fortifications and fortresses), paparahi (ancient tracks), and ahi ka (fires
on the land).
This threatened space is for the people of Ihumatao a taonga or a
cultural treasure. It means also the obligated Kaitiakitanga or protection of the
land and its natural resources. During
the Waitangi Tribunal hearings (1985), the nation heard other stories of heroes
like Tarapipipi Te Waharoa of Ngati Haua who, with a mere 500, built a formidable
fortress between the Waikato River and Lake Waikare at Te Kauwhata defending their
mana against the overwhelming odds of 1300 troops and a gun-boat, on 20
November, 1863. They routed the might of
the mightiest empire. For trying to
defend house and home, they were quickly slapped with The Suppression of
Rebellion Act of 1863 for a rebellion that didn’t take place.
“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)
So, 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)
Is this retribution for a ‘rebellion’ to defend
house and home? Eleven thousand acres around
Ihumatao was confiscated and today all that is left is 1.5 acres of Maori
Reservation Land on which the Makaurau Marae stands. They feel powerless against the political and
corporate elite of power brokers to preserve what little is left. “Since the confiscations,” Says Pania Newton,
“Our community has suffered.”
I see a people spurned whose voice is no longer a voice in the wilderness. It is the voice of moderation for justice,
not violence nor insurrection. Yet. How much more can they take? Still, they continue to watch over their dwindling
acres and exercise kaitiakitanga just as Kaiwhare, their benevolent taniwha
oversees the harbour and the bounties of Tangaroa. Strangers keep coming, whose
underlying ethos was strictly to gain more land. They came in the guise of friends from their
own repressive structures.
“Standing at this corner, “says Pania Newton,
one of the cousins, “And looking over the land, I see this beautiful green
space; a peaceful, very spiritual space.
I see European and Maori history. I see the Maori history when our tupuna were
settled in this area. It’s very quiet here. It’s peaceful. It’s devastating to look at this land and try
and picture a 480 unit, high-density housing going up.” Qiane Matata-Sipu adds, “The SHA Act doesn’t allow for Maori to have input about what areas are designated as Special Housing Areas. That goes against the Treaty of Waitangi. I want my children to have some connection to the whenua in the way that their great-grandparents did.”
Soul will take their peaceful fight to the
streets, to the courts and into parliament.
They are fighting
for the mana of their tupuna. They’re not alone. Ironically, Tainui in Mangere has
again shown great generosity of spirit as they did in the 1860s by opening the
doors of one of its marae at Te Puea to the poor and homeless. They deserve respect and they deserve honour. The ‘cousins’ of SOUL Ihumatao are telling
their story. The more disagreeable the
truth then the more it must be told. Their
fight is for house and home. “They want
everything,” Mavis Roberts concludes, “When will the struggle end? We have only hope.”
They cling to hope. Hope is inside. No one can take it away. No good thing ever dies.
Haare Williams Papakura 28/07/16
[i]
1863The Suppression of Rebellion Act
No
right of trial before imprisonment its intention was the punishment of ‘certain
aboriginal tribes of the colony’, for rebelling against the Crown