NZ Wars: Stories of Tainui | Extended Interview - Kawhia Muraahi | RNZ

thank you i guess let's just start right back at the beginning with a fukado um you know in in your opinion with all your reading and the korean tokuiho and stuff what do you think the purpose of the war on waikato tainui was i think if we look at the bigger picture in terms of the intention of the british at that time i would contend that the purpose was to consolidate the power and authority of the british empire on this part of altera rua new zealand and of course there are a number of barriers to that being realised you often talk about the doctrine of discovery along with um and say it's important when we talk about the war on the waikato on waikato we look back into history can you just you know without going back too far just give us a little bit of a background of where you think the motivation for war came from i think we need to contextualize our history waikato invasion the wake of the invasion of the king into the broader context of not only the treaty conversation or the putanga or new chidini conversation but into even a more wider global conversation framework in context and it started of course in my limited and unqualified view with the doctrine of discovery with the four five six seven people bulls which one after another enshrined within that institution a certain world view a certain set of norms which were based on a twisted sense of arrogance and white privilege and use religion to justify essentially imperialism empire building the taking over of people's lands their natural resources their wealth it also justified slavery um ethnocyte genocide so if we look back to what the doctrine of discovery what its intention was uh the intent was to christianize the world so those who were outside of the faith for want of another word were uh to be seen as infidels which included of course the saracens or the muslim people and everyone outside of the catholic faith they were to be seen as lesser than those who were catholic or christian at their time and they were to be treated lesser their resources were basically to be put up for grabs on the open market their lands were to be um taken over and their children to be for one of another would enslaved all in the name of the faith now way back then and this is um we're talking about just prior to the reign of henry viii in england and for those of us who know what henry did he married several times and the pope obviously said no to the divorce and so he established the church of england now by then these edicts these papal bulls had already been exposed there's this sort of world view this stereotyping already entrenched amongst the european elites so we have countries like spain portugal england and the dutch via the dutch east india company these were states that were super powers when it came to colonization and what they all had in common is that they were all prior to henry they were all catholic and the influence of the papal bulls were quite significant in justifying the imperial activity in their empire building so that allows us to come ahead quite a number of years um i think 1802 if i remember correctly i stand to be corrected our dear friend in the um english parliament his name was lord william wilberforce after 20 years of struggle he was able to get his bill passed in parliament that bill was the abolition of slavery across the british empire that was in 1802 i believe it was passed now had our friend who very few of us know not been successful in passing that particular bill it would have been probable that when the english came they came with a very different intent well maybe not the intent but a different mechanism in terms of their imperial and empire building process lucky for us slavery was outlawed by the british parliament and lucky for us our people now we are not descendants of those who are enslaved physically but i think it's a lot more complex than that constitutionally and legally i believe that we have been enslaved um so one way or another we are still dealing with the effects of british empire building and colonialism so the question coming back to the question the intent of the war in waikato was the same as the intent of the war in taranaki same with the intent of the war in the north on the east coast south of the north island maungatu it's the same when we come to new zealand following that history we know um we had the arrival of missionaries both missionaries here and then the signing of the treaty of waitangi and if we fast forward to 1860s when we're in this position um we're actually 1850 late 1850s with potato feral feral and then kingitafio who were had a belief that you know te tiriti or waitangi was going to protect them and their lands what what do you imagine the crown position was given the treaty had been signed just a couple of decades before it's difficult i mean [Music] the question the difficulty comes in trying to identify who the crown is um for me a descendant of someone who signed the treaty my definition of the crown is that she sits in england when we have the establishment of a colonial government and we have the term crown now being used to identify members of our new zealand parliament who are in fact a third party in a process then complexities begin to arise and the word crown is now nowadays refer to more parliament in new zealand and the um the executive branch and all of that constitutional arrangements which um are part of our modern day life when you think the headspace of those colonial soldiers under governor gray were given the treaty of waitangi had just been signed a few decades before [Music] well again i think there's a difficulty because there are those who are pushing for the treaty with good intention and the colonial officers intentions were to maintain the integrity of in the manner of the queen in victoria and her successors but the problem was there were intermediaries there were business interests uh there were religious interests behind the scenes manipulating in and conniving to do something different in what the intention of the treaty clearly was then we had on top of that a judiciary a legal system which really at the time was not one that was structured or designed to deal with two parties to a treaty so already there's complexities emerging in that process i think um maybe there are those who were crowned members of parliament who had good intentions and those who who did not or had ulterior intentions and i think history speaks to more to the latter rather than the former i wonder if we could talk about some of the um the characters who were you know our tupuna and maybe i'll start with um can you describe to us um [Music] so when we speak about him we use the term manga as opposed to there we but that was his anglicanised name did we and you know i have to be honest what i say is merely a view i wasn't around back then but what i've heard from our old people was that he was definitely different two things um i think which contributed to his uniqueness and his character one was his education missionary school so he was educated formally in a parking way which none of us tupana before him ever were he could write he could begin to think rationalize things from a pakia perspective because he was taught and on the other side of course was his um ngati patatakawa matuas who have a history of being involved in peacekeeping for the tribe and so he received both a traditional and a contemporary education um and obviously that sets him somewhat aside from his contemporaries his cousins and his uncles and aunties all the time so it's clear looking back i think that he was a person who made decisions but has new information came to light could change his position because information and decision making is based on the best information at hand and if that information is outdated new information comes forth then you change according to the information you have so he was very flexible and i think history shows that how a number of times he changed positions because of new information he wasn't a big physically he was not like his cousin he was a big big man manga was quite small rugged the age of 14 had already been blooded in battle so he knew [Music] i guess the cold facts of war and i'm not trying to paint war on a positive note i mean he knew the price of war he knew the the look in the field of blood he knew what it was like to go to war hand-to-hand and to take people's lives and you know and to see all of that on on the battlefield so he wasn't a person that was a politician by trade um he grew up in a time when there was a lot of war his father and his grandfather were involved in many many campaigns so he came from that reality he was taught at a corporate school he got a new level of thinking exposed to new ideas a different way of looking at the world he began to understand the pakia mindset so from that point of view definitely a man of his time there's a lot said about his relationship with tamihana maybe you have any you could share anything there or if you can't then could you tell me what you know about oh wouldn't we tamihana as it comes down from tawaharoa a very very noble lineage within tanui at that time obviously was quite an influential man being the one who crowned uh the king being a christian a devout christian man of the bible i've been leader of his of his hapu and very influential in the waikato political forum peacemaker a strategist a a man of great courage and great dignity and manner i the connection i know is that within the king's council and i think manga sat on two of the king's council portato's council and his son tafio so he sat on those two councils for the two kings i do know that at times there were differences of views between manga and his contemporaries and sometimes differences of views with on matters but that in no way did that complicate or undermine the commitment to the concept and notion of mana maori motuhake most times they agreed as an example just prior to the battle of oracle three four weeks prior a great council was held amongst manuputo which was around photopapa south somewhere and that council agreed that there we used to continue his command position of the defence forces that he was to go and see within and together establish a uh a defensive plan for the final phase of the of the invasion of the waikato we do know that after that meeting of course our tripana was living at waikiri at the time on his way to go and see his colleague and um and friend that they came upon a group from tuhue and raukawa who had been encamped at titah on this side of maungatotari and manga's job was to go and see wirimutamihana on the other side of my totally to establish and a systemized defensive plan or a counter plan that never happened the rest is history so i think there were attention sometimes but overall the relationship with the women within tamaha was definitely one of positive relationships because they both believed firmly in the notion of to maori before we come to oraco which we will shortly i just wanted we were at here yesterday and and speaking with rahui not with our papa tom just yet but understanding um a little bit more around willi mutamihana's reaction i guess because he was a man of god to what happened there at randy alfie you know you talk about him being a mad man of god and and there's there's there's a number of stories around the missionaries at any alfie i mean when you read his letters and you know hear the stories what do you think must have gone through his head you know following what had happened out there the killing of women and children i'm not sure what went but you know if i was in that situation i would certainly be shaken my faith would be shaken would have been shaken because the basic tenets on which your faith is built and to know that there were men of faith taking part in that particular massacre because we do call it not an incident or engagement by the powhatan mexico of raniaphia that um not only were men of faith there that it was a sunday and the people were at karakia and um i think tamihana would have been absolutely devastated to know that that's what happened to his people who are people of faith did it change things for you know those who believed in in the faith and god for the people of manipur who were involved in those churches did it change them i think there would have certainly been some deep deep reflections on what does this mean we you know so much trust was given to the clergy and to have them involved even though it's from the sideline observing certainly not stopping what was happening i think it certainly would have caused our people a lot of angst anxiety and would have caused them to rethink the you know the foundations of the of their faith following you know the following and the confiscation of land you know there were maori faiths that did pop up behind maori dance do you think this you know do you think that was a reaction to what had happened the mistrust of the missionaries i think it's absolutely highly probable and definitely um if you think about what happened during the wars absolutely for me it would have shaken my faith had i been a person of faith so the fact that we have the emergence of the pain from taranaki brought down to waikato by king tafio they've been entrenched as the king's religion we have other faiths that have emerged and i think it is a response to acknowledging that what was brought here maybe the integrity really wasn't there and so our people as we do we are very creative and innovative we'll find something different and we'll create something of our own that reflects who we are and our our space in the world and that supports our norms and our worldview following [Music] what happened next in terms of the war where did they come next was it odaco straight away haideni alfie haideni or ko obviously after rangi alfie there are a lot of emotions running very high all of the kingitanga people heard what had happened in all of those along the coast as well because you have the connection there with our people from the east coast these are the people from matatua who are implicated through the actions of faulkner and his so-called murderer to their wide ramifications from ragna alfie so from rainy alfie cameron was moving his troops and our people really needed to vent i believe themselves and do something quite significant so a stan was made at haidini which is not too far from oracle it's between kihikihi it wasn't very well thought through a lot of our people who were wounded and number of them shot and in fact manga's brother was wounded there at hardini a few years later he died from his wounds so it was a an opportunistic attempt to i think led off steam and to show the colonial forces that what they had done was not um acceptable so audaco was it ready was never ever a part of any battle plan or any defensive strategy at all so orders had been given a mission the mission was to go and see a link up with tamihana make a a plan for phase two or the last phase of the defence and on the way there on the way across manga to turi to ensure that we've got as much relevant information as possible like any fuel commander would do you'd send out reconnaissance groups to go and gather information on the enemy's disposition on their weapons and on their morale how they're located what are they doing and then you take that information with you you'd sit down with your co-commander to draft your plan on the way there it there we received manga received word that a group a large contingent from tuhue tufarito and rokawa to kohera had gathered at tita and we're wanting to engage with him and to discuss some important matters so he went there to meet with his allies because they're as allies and you have to understand that a part of them being there was because of himself amina's cousin um tawini tana tuporta early on um prior to the breakout of of war in the southern part of the waikato actually into gathering up um support for the war so they had come over um and they really wanted to engage directly with the troops they didn't want to take their weapons back all the way to tour without being fired to pirates who was there from ngati kohiro he was adamant that if well he was adamant that this is the time and the place so the emotions were quite strong that an engagement should be taken very soon their decision and idea was to do so to raku manga's view was totally opposite you have to understand why that's the case this is his land he knows the lay of the land he knows where the good places are and they're not good places you know he's living at wake area so all the lands around here these fall within his mana he knows the land first thing um second thing is it wasn't his mission he was determined to meet with tamihana and to do something um less opportunistic but more systematic that didn't happen so he was put in a bit of a catch-22 situation you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't um tua had um a number of um matakita with them they brought with them seers to help with their decision making and they had said that the cs had seen you know great things to happen it's going to be a great war and we're going to win this particular engagement now manga did not believe that one cent and then actually he sung um he sang a mata to them saying that great disasters will come and i'll be the only one walking out of this but they were insistent that they should fight and they decided that it would be at oracle so manga being the most senior commander there and the thing is you know in a command situation um if it's your people you have total command over them but where these are outside people they come with their own commanders and they will only listen to their own commander so there's this sort of political tensions going on and um cut a long story short he said well we shall see and so you know they began building uh a palm mayoral it's called which is a fortified earth defensive position at ordarco major problem with that of course access to fresh water timeliness between the beginning of the construction of the fortification to its absolute completion and the problem with that is the british troops nor the colonial and imperial troops arrived on the scene before the power was finished so not only was the power not finished the logistical situation was absolutely dire because they hadn't been able to secure sufficient ammunition absolutely insufficient water the only food they had with potatoes and kumara pumpkins and the peaches from the peach trees i can't remember if it's actually in season but very little kai so your ability to withstand a a multi-day siege is very limited coupled with that the tactical situation on the ground the way the ground falls it's terrain it opens itself up to being surrounded quite easily so unfortunately all of these lemons came into came into her feet where they all came together to create a disastrous tactical situation for the commander to be in now you overlay with that the fact that probably a third of your people that you're responsible for are men and women that even creates a more complicated situation what happened what was on my view a absolutely unwinnable situation where i believe the english commanders and officers thought that no one would come out of this alive the maori defenders would not walk out of this alive i think due to good generalship um of the over 300 that were in the in the power um over a third of them came out with their lives still intact although somewhat beaten and battered and injured see there are discrepancies in the numbers but like um here you say that they had little resource and ammunition what did they use they did had they had some ammunition that was with them so in order because it was a three-day siege um a lot of the engagements were one day you know context boom finish two days bomb this was a three-day siege so what they had to do is to ensure the little ammunition they had would last at least as long as possible so um the director of innovation and creativity thought wow why don't we use the peach the um the inner core of the pitch and that and use that and construct it and and at least we could pretend that we still have ammunition and fire those at the enemy it's a bit of an invasion there uh the ru it was a ruse just to keep up the perception that the defensive force still had ammunition when in fact there was very little in the power itself so the symbol of the peach tree is actually quite an interesting one when we talk about oracle oracle has a powers actually situated amongst peach trees the peach tree grove uh who said it where and what part of the battle was it said and what became of it well the day the general arrived on the scene general cameron the battle was almost at the end they've been fighting already for a number of days so the one of the first things that cameron did of course will send out his emissary to go and treat for peace well surrender actually let's get it right and um so he carried the general's message to the defensive force and the response came from the power the formal response came from the power now i think um there are views on who said that but at the end of the day it's irrelevant because there's only one commander on the scene and what comes from the defensive position is the word of the commander and so as far as we are we are concerned that came from mother through his intermediaries whoever they may be that's irrelevant and it symbolized the determination not only his but of maori people you know it symbolizes something better than just the words themselves and if we look at this whole notion of british colonialism and empire building been a global phenomenon as it was at that time installers today although in a slightly different form if we look at the term what does that mean back then it meant you know we are physically at war with you and we will not surrender i think if we look at their term now for me it's really about yes that is a legacy that's handed down it is a legacy entrenched in the notion of struggle uh struggle for your rights struggle for the treaty for the whakaputanga but a struggle for your humanity and today it's really the battle is not a physical battle it's really a political battle and for our people it's it's a cry it's a battle cry that's all about continuing that campaign and that that struggle to ensure that our grandchildren will no longer have to contend with being slaves constitutional slaves legislative slaves of a regime that is not of our making that does not represent who we are that does not articulate our dreams and aspirations into the future and that is a struggle for our freedom and it's an ongoing struggle the battle of oraco lasted three days we're talking some 300 defenders versus 1400 or so attackers what does that say about those whanau there or you know i think it tells a lot about the spirit of our people actually that when the tide is high when everything is against you when you are all the odds that there are are stacked against you that our people have this deep sense of resilience perseverance and determination and i guess for me odako is really all about values it is a conflict it is a point in time in history but the enduring story of odako is the values which underpin the narrative and you know we talk about courage we talk about selflessness we talk about compassion determination perseverance integrity honor these things to me represent what odaka is about they also to me represent what's best in our people so horaco's is a legacy of resilience and resistance today cover 19 we are a resilient people following that battle after the three days how what happened then how did it end well our people [Music] on the last day two three o'clock in the afternoon they made a break through the defensive lines they moved in disciplined fashion they did not run screaming and yelling they were very disciplined in their retreat so they made their way they broke through um the lines to the south of the position it's a five kilometer walk to the punya river and it is in that over that um five kilometers that many of our people collectively our people were killed um the cavalry the um the forest ranges um all of the units within the imperial and colonial forces did their very best on those five kilometers to diminish the number of survivors that would finally make their way across the punia river to safety and it's in that retreat that our entrepreneur and his son were killed along with many others so they crossed the punia river what survived as they could across the punia river some waited till middle of the night or early the next morning to cross their head made their way south some went into ottawa some went to other parts in manipur to seek respite to get their wounds attended to and finally those who are left from touhou from tokohedra from 242 from kahanganu from ngati fari and the other tribes slowly began to make their way home long journey home for our maniputo people we retreated further back into the hippot and because at that time most of waikato had mobilized south and we had to ensure that as a tribe manipur we're in a position to give refuge to over 12 000 waikato people who had moved from they've been forced off their lands in the north they needed to be looked after to be housed to be fed to be given home so that was the next big important kaupapa to address and that manipur needed to take care of our kin from the north and it happened over a 10-12 year period it must be extremely tough times very very tough times if you look at you know situation then um manufacture in the hinterland uplands or the central king country there's not too much big long flats where you could grow lots of kayas in the waikato very different terrain so the challenges were very difficult for manyaputo to ensure that they were looking after the kin from the north tough times by all but again you know resilience perseverance waikiki were finally allowed to return home but that's after a long long period living in someone else's home when you consider that story um the fact that everyone was referred to as rebels because they wouldn't cede to the queen and to the colonial forces and that and this suffering the confiscation of lands and then the next part for manipur which was the you know legislative confiscation if you like i've learned what do you think the impact of the war on waikato tainui has been i think the impact for waikato has been significant i'm huge um you know culturally spiritually physically intergenerationally it's hugely traumatic and there's no word other than trauma you know a tribe is traumatized uh traumatized by what happened because when you no longer have access to your natural resources you once did you no longer have the authority to make decisions for yourself you are expected to abide by rules which are not of your making the schools you go to are not your schools everything is foreign and that is you know that's huge problems i think a lot of new zealanders generally have no idea of how difficult problematic that time was for waikato tainui and continues to be settlements are a transactional process they are not a healing process when you drive around this lush countryside of manipur and waikato and you see the land that's gone and now in farmland you know somebody who knows the stories of the history of this land what's that like for you i think for me it's just a matter of being understanding reality for what it is and how it presents itself um i'd prefer that all of this land that you see around us here will stall out to bundesland but it's not it was taken through the public works act not through confiscation as you rightly say the crown used a different mechanism against manipur and just here just around us the ten thousand acre block known as the tokunu block was one of the first to go under public works act within the site of the okati which is the king country 10 000 acres was taken justified for a reformatory farm and a mental hospital so you know five thousand each maybe it's a pretty big prison pretty big mental hospital you think that's punishment there's no question about that at all in fact i've seen evidence of it i've seen the original maps where the surveyors had names of soldiers on the blocks that were going to be petitioned off after the 10 000 acre block was carved out by the native land court at the time is there an irony now and and the fact that they confiscated this land around you so close to oracle to ranging and now we have the imprisonment that you know one of the largest prisons in the country with over 51 maori that uh accommodate it um i'm not surprised it is the modus operandi of the colonizer to punish those who will stand against you so for our people here um nachipuritakawa who were very active during the waikato war um we understand that this is the punishment for doing what we did and but we also understand that we are resilient that we will wait and we will abide our time and we'll have a plan to ensure that what was taken is returned what would you like um you know parking new zealanders who live here around on this phenom of parite kawa or even just in the waikato tainori or even just an aotearoa what would you like them to take away from these stories i'd like mid new zealanders to understand and to appreciate the fact that new zealand's economy as it currently exists was built on the backs of our tupuna and that the fundamental political religious social freedoms that exist and that they enjoy are enjoyed because of others and the suffering that others have had to endure and continue to endure and they need to be appreciative of that and show that and understand that what does it mean to you as someone who's from ngati maniopoto to live with this history the mummy of it the impact [Music] being informed comes at a price and when you know the history of your people and the suffering that they've not only endured 100 years ago more but continue to endure it's very painful that is a bit of a burden you know to carry but at the same time we have to balance it out with been having an optimistic view that in knowing this information and understanding this history there is an obligation to do something about it to try and balance the ledger and balance the books so to speak to ensure that there is justice not only seen to be done but is actually done and done in a way where um there is no residual negative um feelings but rather releasing yourself from that past you know in a positive way that's constructive and it's transformative it's really important and i guess in many ways my involvement in this space is because of that view and possibly also because of your name that you can never forget i was wondering if you'd share that with us okay if you want yeah okay um 1999 i traveled to canada and stayed in the shawnee people the confederacy of the six nations at a place called oneida which is just out of toronto by a couple of hours my role there was to do some research on treaty settlements and partic and also in particular to look at that that people's constitutional arrangements which were about 700 years old and still still very much in place so i stayed here for some time and prior to my departing i was called into a special ceremony by the uh the elders there and given a a first nations name which is their customs so i came home back here to parity kawaii and spoke to all my quiz and told of my trip and the fact that they had given me a name and i was wanting to register myself under that name because it had meaning for me you know it had some significance it symbolized something really important in my life so um they said oh what's your maori name i said i don't have one oh no no never ever to take that name and we're going to give you a name so after about a month or two i got called summons to back to the to the queers my my mom's elder cousins and they said we've got your name and this is your name kaffir murahi you'll carry that name you will not go and adopt some strange foreign name so that was in 19 2018 yeah on the turn of that 2000 period um so the name kaffir is my it's a tupuna name my mother's brother's name was kavya and our tupuna's name which is zewi's father his name was also kaffir so you that's where the names come from it has some meaning thank you for raising that i never thought of that in particular i was interested in the murahi the origin of that i think we talked about that now so during the retreat from the power poor nikki and his son nikiti or mai tupuna our tupana they were with the formation as it was traversing that five kilometer track prior to it breaking up into smaller groups and nicotine the sun um he was shot he fell back his wounds he couldn't get up and walk and continue to move forward his father poor nike who was in the formation saw his son fall so he pulled back and went to to his son and he could see him bleeding and there's nothing much else that he could do for him the cavalry and the soldiers were advancing at some pace and he knew that you know there's no way out for him and so porneke began to sing his puraparaki to his son and they were both killed there now the story comes through an eyewitness on my other side my tehuya whanau side luckily young nikiti had a son at the time of the war of the battle he would have been about eight to ten years old and his name was remy so a number of years after the battle remy's tupunariwe and he changed his name from remy poneke to temurahi in memory of the battle and where they fell his parents fell those who fled um how were they you know shot down you know what were the stories about them i think i recall you know there was people had written to the taoima to papers back in the day and i thought there were some recordings about you know uh bodies that had been left in there oh yeah of course yeah they were yeah so maybe if you could help some of those people who fell in the oraco battle what was the story about how they died there is after the war sometime after a lot of soldiers i understand wrote into newspapers informing them what they had seen and and referred to it as a massacre because children young children were seen women were seen killed bodies were left in the open and in fact when they went to berry finally got around to burying many of those tupuna who laid there in the battlefield they were stripped of the clothes and put into mass graves highly indignant burials at that time there was records that some of the prisoners who were taken from from the battle were taken back to garrison soldiers raped and one in particular was killed and her name was um this is a tupuna of assad but his tupuna this is the late now speaker of the house from terror the late great doctor peter tapsell's tupona she was killed by the troops as a prisoner of war when you look at it the majority of the troops and those in command of the troops by the actions you understood what was in their minds you know that they did not see our people as equals at all and treated them less than equals

Channel: RNZ

Views: 5,333

Rating: 4.8356166 out of 5

Keywords: RNZ, Radio NZ, NZ On Air, Great Southern Television, Aotearoa Media Collective, NZ Wars, Tainui, Aotearoa, New Zealand

Id: I4lC6eACA80

Length: 58min 7sec (3487 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 11 2021