The other side of Waitangi Day

It’s an awfully lengthy technique to Bruce Bay in South Westland from nearly wherever.

However this week greater than 100 individuals made the trek there simply to be at Te Tauraka o Waka Maui marae for Waitangi Day.

And an excellent half of them, presumably extra, had been Pākehā. 

The legendary touchdown place of Māui is a six-hour drive from Christchurch and one of the vital distant marae within the nation.

Perched on the sting of State Freeway 6 with solely a row of mammoth boulders and a fence defending it from the wild Tasman, the beautiful whare inbuilt 2005, is the ancestral dwelling of Ngāti Maahaki.

And each second 12 months, the small Poutini Ngāi Tahu hapū – whose members largely stay removed from dwelling – descend on the place to throw the doorways open to the general public, providing hospitality, hangi and a little bit of historical past on the facet.

4 hundred individuals confirmed up for final 12 months’s occasion, hosted by the iwi’s northern hapū, Ngāti Waewae on the extra accessible Arahura marae.

However Ngāti Maahaki kaumatua Paul Madgwick is proud of this 12 months’s occasion.

“It was an excellent cross-section of the neighborhood,” he says.

“And an excellent day. I believe there’s a rising appreciation of the opposite facet of Waitangi Day and a craving to study extra about who we’re as a individuals.”

The group included the same old Waitangi Day suspects – officers from native councils and authorities departments; fireplace security officers spruiking smoke alarms; native well being staff urging brochures; and new potatoes on manuhiri.

However they had been significantly outnumbered by those that had been there to help manawhenua and study extra about them. 

“Toitu te Tiriti,” stated the cheerful younger man who opened the powhiri in the one barely political exhortation of the day.

“Mauri ora!” responded the company, with enthusiasm.

And after a quick break for a cup of tea, they piled again into the whare for a chat by Madgwick on the historical past of Ngāti Maahaki, their land losses, their half within the Ngāi Tahu Treaty declare, and its settlement.

That in itself is a heartening signal, says Ngāti Maahaki’s Makaawhio Runanga chief government Kara Edwards.

“The truth that so many have come right here at this time, and had been so engaged with the korero about our heritage and historical past – there was nobody left within the whare kai – everybody was sitting within the whare, and that’s an incredible factor. Folks wanting to speak to us, examine us out, is absolutely wholesome.”

The one draw back for the small hapū is that Ngāti Maahaki individuals themselves don’t get many alternatives to listen to the tales, she says.

“Most of us stay and work away … we’re all right here as volunteers and we’re all the time within the kitchen internet hosting when that kōrero is going on.

“We’ve needed to combat to find out about our cultural heritage and it’s so fragile – Paul’s an knowledgeable however there’s most likely three individuals like that on the Tai Poutini (West Coast) and nobody along with his depth – so if we misplaced him it might all be gone.”

Madgwick, whose day job is modifying The Greymouth Star, was chosen as a boy to study his individuals’s tales and was taken out of sophistication by his elders to attend Māori Land Court docket hearings.

Like most histories of the time, it’s not a cushty pay attention for a Pākehā.

Virtually all of the land on the West Coast – 7.5 million acres – was purchased by the Crown for 300 kilos, in 1860.

The one exceptions to the sale had been 6500 acres of Māori reserves together with the Arahura River and its pounamu – which for Māori was the deal-breaker.

“[James] Mackay returned gleefully with 100 kilos change and his deed of buy – which he needed to borrow from Ngāi Tahu as a result of his copy was misplaced the following day,” Madgwick tells the attentive manuhiri.

“In his haste to get out of city he crossed the Gray River in flood and bought turfed out of his boat and the satchel with the deed he’d simply signed went to the underside .”

Though the chiefs had bargained for all of the land between the Arnold and Hokitika Rivers, they got largely ineffective land, Madgwick says, though they did retain their 500 acre pa at Mawhera (Greymouth).

“As quickly because the settlers arrived with the goldrush they plonked their city proper on the pa website and located they needed to negotiate leases with Māori and so they resented that. They nonetheless grumble about it at this time.”

Over time, the federal government nibbled away at Poutini Ngāi Tahu’s remaining reserves, taking chunks of land for a failed settlement at Jackson Bay, a wartime aerodrome and roads, Madgwick says.

The Arahura River and its pounamu had been restored to Ngāi Tahu in 1976 beneath the Muldoon authorities.

However it took till 1997 earlier than the Crown apologised for its different breaches of contract – and paid Ngāi Tahu compensation of $170 million – a sum it has now grown to $2 billion price of belongings.

Waitangi Day company listened attentively to the potted historical past of the hapū – which on the time of the Mackay buy was down to only 102 individuals –after the ravages of Te Rauparaha and new illnesses.

It’s been rebuilding ever since; however even as much as the Eighties, Māori had been barely seen on the West Coast, Madgwick says.

These days there are two lovely marae (Te Tauraka Waka a Maui opened in 2006), new customer centres going as much as mark the ‘Pounamu Pathway’ and manawhenua sitting at council tables. 

“Poutini Ngāi Tahu at this time in comparison with what we had been 30 years in the past, is unreal – we’re streets forward,” Madgwick says.

“The settlement was a part of it however it coincided with the Māori cultural renaissance and we’re now seen in enterprise, in companies in the neighborhood in ways in which we couldn’t have dreamed of again then.”

And what does he make of the ‘sandflies’* nipping on the edges of the Treaty in Waitangi this week?

“A whole lot of it’s been stated in ignorance, I believe. They’ve been studying that the exhausting manner at Waitangi this week. That received’t do them any hurt.”

Kara Edwards is much less sanguine.

Poutini Ngāi Tahu has an incredible deal to lose if Treaty clauses are faraway from laws or watered down – particularly Part 4 of the Conservation Act, which obliges the Division of Conservation to “give impact to the rules” of the Treaty, she says.

“If we consider right here, the place 95 p.c of land is managed by DoC, and Treaty clauses are what our partnership hangs off … when you take away them how are the federal government companions going to reply and what is going to that imply on the bottom?” she worries.

Poutini Ngāi Tahu has constructed up sturdy and enduring relationships regionally and been in a position to make use of individuals and work with DoC in programmes like Jobs for Nature, Edwards says.

“So after they have enlightened native management we will obtain that, however they do it as a result of they’ve construction and coverage that directs them to work in that manner as companions.

“When you take away these clauses, over time, that’s an erosion of the partnership. We wrestle now to have a seat on the desk at instances, in order that’s a regarding factor.”

Eighty-something kuia Huriana Mason agrees.

“I do know the Authorities is saying they received’t again Seymour’s Treaty invoice previous the primary studying, however the issue is it’s on the market in the neighborhood now, isn’t it. And there are individuals who help it –prejudice continues to be alive and effectively in locations.”

By now the southern sandflies are nipping on the ankles of the group gathered to see the hangi come up behind the whare kai, sparking slap dances and hearty blasts of insect repellent.

A younger French vacationer couple, who simply occurred to be passing by and had been welcomed in, take excited selfies of their stencilled ta moko. 

Pākehā neighbours from Haast and Hokitika quiet down on the lengthy tables to sort out a plateful of hangi and steam pudding.

It’s been an excellent day, they are saying. They’ve discovered heaps.

And because the manuhiri depart, Madgwick, who can be Makaawhio iwi chair, will get able to wheel out the cleansing cart and see to the wharepaku.

Te Tai Poutini is one other nation, you may say. They do issues otherwise there. 

* At Waitangi , the Authorities, particularly Act chief David Seymour, was heckled and in comparison with an annoying insect, the sandfly specifically. He was indignant, saying not even Trump’s opponents referred to as him an insect. He was seemingly unaware of the historic significance of the reference. 

The time period comes from a well-known prophecy by the good Ngāti Hine common, Kawiti, who had defeated the British forces utilizing an ingenious type of trench warfare. However he determined preventing was futile after the battle of Ruapekapeka in 1846. 

Kawiti informed his individuals to carry quick to the taonga and values of their ancestors, and to attend “till the SANDFLY nips the pages of the guide” (the Treaty).

“Then you’ll rise and oppose,” he instructed.

His Bay of Islands descendants have taken this as a particular injunction to behave, in defence of Te Tiriti.