Launch of ‘Opotiki-Mai-Tawhiti
te-pati-maori
Mon Apr 30 2007 12:00:00 GMT+1200 (New Zealand Standard Time)
Launch of ‘Opotiki-Mai-Tawhiti
Monday, 30 April 2007, 11:20 am
Press Release: The Maori Party
Launch of ‘Opotiki-Mai-Tawhiti, Capital of Whakatohea’ written by Dr Ranginui Walker
Omarumutu Marae Opotiki
Te Ururoa Flavell, Member of Parliament for Waiariki
Saturday 28 April 2007; 7pm
The Listener, dated 24 October 2004. There is a letter addressed to Helen, Bill, Richard, Peter, Jeanette and Jim.
The letter started off:
I have been here a thousand years. You arrived only yesterday. My territory extends 35 km along the coastline of the Bay of Plenty from Maraetotara at Ohope in the west, to Tarakeha at Opape in the east and inland to the forested mountains in the south.
In between the two coastal boundaries lies the Ohiwa Harbour, the abode of the bountiful 'daughters of Whakatohea', the mussels, cockles and pelagic species of fish that come into the harbour to spawn.
When your tribe arrived from England you too were given access to 'the daughters of Whakatohea'. To confirm our relationship, I signed a treaty with you at Opotiki on 27th May 1840.
It was signed:
You ask who am I? I am Te Whakatohea ki Opotiki.
And with that Dr Ranginui Walker, in his characteristic style of suave diplomacy enticed the reading public into the world of Te Whakatohea. That letter may well have paved the way for today’s launching ofOpotiki-Mai-Tawhiti: Capital of Whakatohea.
I am extremely honoured to have been asked to be here today, to participate in the launch of this book and to give tribute to the intellectual might of a man who has inspired so many New Zealanders to respect the legacy our ancestors have handed down to us.
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Whether it be about the intricacies of kaitiakitanga; the responsibilities of customary ownership or unravelling wider perspectives of history, Ranginui has opened the doors to intellectual discovery and cultural integrity.
Ranginui is one of a rare category of leadership - both in a national and international sense.
The profound gift that Dr Ranginui Walker has given to each of us has been to challenge us to discard mediocrity, he stimulates our intellectual curiousity, he guides us in the pursuit of more questions to ask, more lines to follow.
And he has never been shy to put a view out there. Like him, one of the greatest freedoms of the Māori Party is that unlike some other parties, we are allowed to express our truths without having them edited out by the Bosses!
In fact I remember back to my first encounter with Ranginui, in the huge first year lecture halls of Auckland University, having just left the cosy complacency of St Stephens. Those lectures completely opened my eyes to the challenge of Māori politics.
I can say that I probably ended up in Parliament through him, not that I had ever thought it was to be a career path at the time but his influence on this young mind some thirty years ago has been significant.
The excellence of my education up until that time had failed miserably in equipping me to understanding the nature of colonization, the impact of land alienation, the concept of legislative theft, and the laws of suppression and oppression that characterized Māori engagement with the State.
Suddenly I was considering the fate of tangata whenua by analysing the impact of urbanisation, the evolution of gangs, the debates around the ownership of Māori land, the realities emerging from Māori fisheries, Māori educational development, Māori representation in Parliament, and that was just in stage one Māori studies.
Bastion Point, the hikoi from Te Hapua to Poneke, the part played by the Kingitanga, Nga Tamatoa and the prophetic movements in the political renaissance of our people, the New Zealand Maori Council, and so on…. Here was this whole new world view that generations after generations had not heard about.
I can remember sometimes being in absolute disbelief at the information he provided. I thought we all lived together in blissful harmony, I had been to a church school and some of our best neighbours were Pakeha! He shook the tree to consciousness and I like many have benefited hugely from the fruits of his teachings.
I was talking with another former student the other day, who said that seventeen years after having been in his classes she still treasured the notes she took down in his classes - at a fierce pace. She laughed as she remembered Dr Walker striding to the front of the lecture theatre, pulling off his tie, unbuttoning the first button on his shirt, and starting his address, all at rocket speed.
For Ranginui has never been one to sit idle.
In between his professorship in Anthropology and Māori Studies, his chairmanship of the Auckland District Māori Council; his foundation role and ongoing mentorship of the World Council of Indigenous People; his appointment to the Waitangi Tribunal; his election as a Ngati Patu member of the Whakatohea Trust Board; raising three children and nine mokopuna and nurturing thousands of others; Ranginui has made an enormous contribution to the national archive through:
• Nga Tau Tohetohe The Years of Anger 1987,
•
• Ka Whawhai tonu Matou Struggle Without End 1990,
•
• Nga Pepa a Ranginui The Walker Papers 1997 and
•
• He Tipua The Life and Times of Sir Apirana Ngata, 2001
•
And today, we are here to witness the arrival of another timeless treasure - Opotiki Mai Tawhiti, Capital of Whakatohea, the story of Whakatohea’s struggle during the nineteeth and twentieth centuries.
This is a history like no other.
Here is a history rich in scholarship, which manages to document the epic journey of Whakatohea from the Musket Wars which ravaged the heart and soul of the tribe in the early 1820s, right through to their persistent and painful struggle for social justice.
A history like no other - and yet also replicating an experience of land confiscation, of military invasion, of devastation which is common to other tribes, other peoples in Aotearoa and throughout the indigenous community.
The book tracks through the traumatic annihilation of Whakatohea; the abandonment of Opotiki, the brutal impact of the Land Wars.
We learn of the intensity of the attack from Ngapuhi and Ngati Maru; the incarceration and shattered survival of those who returned to Opotiki. And we weep for the generations of grieving uri that never forget the trials of war.
We marvel at the entrepreneurial vitality of those who endured, to conduct a greatly stimulated economy. Two small ships were purchased by Whakatohea. Ngati Rua purchased a schooner which they named Hokopoaka, after the pigs that were used to pay for it. Ngati Rua then went on to trade six huahua with Ngati Rangitihi of Te Arawa for six canoes.
This remarkable history of enterprise is described as dominating trade in the Bay of Plenty for over a decade. Ranginui also draws out the fascinating context of inter-hapu competition as being a motivating factor in the purchase of more than twenty iwi-owned vessels. Whakatohea, resplendent in its success in cash cropping and engagement with the Auckland market, was in its heyday.
This vital economy is perhaps personified best through the legacy of Hira Te Popo of Ngati Ira, who had substantial cultivations of wheat at Waioweka; built a flour mill, operated a cutter to transport produce to the Auckland market…and was the epitome of innovation and success.
But as we well know, economic success without political authority, without rangatiratanga, is a life without any real security, and inevitably in 1865, a military invasion destroyed the mill. A military invasion etched in the hearts and souls of the people as Nga raru o Whakatohea.
For if there is one particular story in this book which seizes the reader in the oppressive grasp of the Settler Culture, it is the tragedy of Mokomoko.
The events which lead up to the killing of the Reverend Carl Sylvius Volkner at Opotiki on 2 March 1865 have been traversed by other authors, other tellers of tales, long before this book.
I have a video of a TV programme called One Nation Two People. It is a documentary type programme which opens the door to Treaty Settlements, the Mokomoko story and Whakatohea history. It remains for me a very moving story exposing the nation to Whakatohea history, indeed a picture to the experiences of other tribal nations.
This is story of surrender and execution, of sacrifice, of retributive justice which has been so powerful to me that I used to rely on it as a key theme in workshops I ran on decolonization. And indeed referred to it in my very first utterances in the House as a new Member of Parliament.
Tangohia mai te taura i taku kaki kia waiata au i taku waiata
Take the rope from my throat that I may sing my song
The story is set in the context of Pai Marire, under the influence of the disciples of Te Ua Haumene. The followers of the Hauhau movement were promised immunity to Pakeha bullets, and became a focus of Maori resistance to European domination.
And we learn about Kereopa Te Rau. I was taken aback to discover from the book that Kereopa was of Ngati Rangiwewehi.
Dr Ranginui Walker has always engendered my utmost admiration, for the principled stands he takes, the courage he reveals in standing up for what is right.
Where there is injustice, he has railed against it.
Where there is corruption, he has ruthlessly exposed it.
Where there are double standards, he has asked why.
And so, here am I today, Ngati Rangiwewehi, facing Whakatohea.
Whakatohea, kua tangihia te kohurutanga o to koutou rangatira a Mokomoko, i murua e te Karauna nga whenua wha rau iwa tekau mano eka a, i whiua ki Opape era o koutou i tu ki te whawhai ki a poro kai a whanako.
Our tribal histories together, are scarred for all time by the torching of the whare karakia at Rangiaowhia.
Let us cry together, let us remember together, all of the injustices that have been imposed upon our respective peoples.
And let us work together, to confront the ongoing legacy of events that occurred 142 years ago.
I believe it is extremely revealing that despite the complexity of their past, the moemoea of the Whakatohea Trust Board is stark in its simplicity:Whakahokia nga whenua o te Whakatohea. What more is there to say?
Ranginui, in his 2004 letter, captured it in all:
‘All I ask is respect and care for what my ancestors bequeathed to me. Unfortunately, when I was outnumbered by your tribe, whose hunger for my land was insatiable, you made war on me to take my land’.
This book gives testimony to a momentous episode in our emerging nationhood.
We know of the pain that penetrates the people despite the full and official pardon; the apology delivered by Justice Minister Doug Graham in 1993 to Te Whakatohea and the descendants of Mokomoko.
We know of the ongoing conflicts that have been exacerbated and not settled by the Government’s package of $40 million compensation; a package which the Raupatu Committee rejected as a product of an “illicit and undemocratic process, defined by the Crown and run by the Crown”.
Ranginui brings out the external and internal raru. He names the protagonists; he gives interpretations and analysis around the key players, the governance structures, the social service delivery agents; the Board management; individuals and iwi alike are not spared the luxury of selective memory.
Ranginui documents the record of Board meeting discussions; motions presented and lost; right down to the detail of newsletters sent, progress reports completed.
The doors are truly flung wide open; hakihaki and all –the reader becomes exposed to bad debts; ill-conceived loans; misguided investments; unauthorized expenditure; personal grievance cases; management disputes; personnel rifts.
And if that doesn’t entice you to read this book, I’d be amazed!
These stories need to be told, our pre-conceived assumptions thrown on their head. Whakatohea will know the boundaries that were crossed and the agents of the state desperately need to feel the indiscriminate impacts of injustice.
And Aotearoa too needs to appreciate the face of Opotiki-Mai-Tawhiti, as so aptly described by Ranginui, as “a microcosm of the history of New Zealand”.
This book is Whakatohea writing about Whakatohea, an iwi member talking about his own iwi.
Whakatohea have a view which must be highly regarded as it gives an insider’s perception of historical events.
Such a view is unique in Aotearoa, as views are so often those of outsiders looking in – perspectives which are inevitably ‘coloured’ by the cultural norms and mores of the writer.
Whakatohea has a history that we must never forget or reinvent.
Ranginui; Te Whakatohea – your story must reverberate through our collective identity as a nation.
This is your truth and your story.
Ends
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