TAUPO-NUI-A-TIA

Taupo Times, Volume II, Issue 93, 30 October 1953, Page 1

TAUPO-NUI-A-TIA

TALES OF THE TAUPO COUNTRY k (By R.H.W.) By way in which the nucleus of the Tongariro National Park was given to the Crown is an interesting story, connected not only, with the Te Heuheu family, but also with a pioneer pakeha family of Taupo-nui-a-Tia, and with the old Court House which still stands in Taupo. It is a story that was first recorded by the late James Cowan, noted writer on Maori matters and the early days of pakeha settlement, in his book, "The Tongariro National Park" (1927). In the ; early 'eighties the chief leader and warrior of the Wanganui tribes, Keepa Te Rangihiwinui (Taitoko), known to Europeans as Major Kemp, came to Taupo with a party of followers. At the time, some of the Wanganui tribes were claiming thej Murirnotu country j and parts of the southern Taupo mountain area, and Kemp appeared in the Native Land Court to support this claim. He referred to his "raupatu" rights, the fruits of conquest, and said that he had lit his fires on the land, his "ahi-ka" had burnecC in southern Taupo. The paramount chief of the Taupo County, Te Heuheu Tukino, who had taken the name of Horonuku, "Swallowed up in the earth," in memory of his father's death in the Te Rapa lanslide of 1846, listened to the speech of the Wanganui leader with rising anger. In his turn he rose to speak.

"Who are you," he said, "that speak of your fires of occupataion burning in my country? Where is your fire, your ahi-ka? Where is it? You cannot show me, for it does not exist. Now I shall show you mine! Look yonder!'/ He pointed across the Lake, where against j the southern skies a plume of smoke rose from the crater of Ngauruhoe. "Behold my ahi-ka, my j mountain Tongariro. There burns my fire, kindled by my ancestor Ngatoro-i-rangi. That is my fire of occupation. Now show me yours!"| Keepa was silenced by the typical Maori argument, and found it useless to press their claim. It is to Horonuku that New Zealand owes the nucleus of the National Park, but the moving power behind the gift came from a suggestion by Mr Lawrence M. Grace, a son of the Rev. Thomas S. Grace, pioneer missionary of Pukawa.

A sitting of the Native Land Court was held in March 1886, in the Court House at Taupo, to decide the ownership according to Maori custom of the various lands within the "rohepotae," or general boundary, of Taupo-nui-a-Tia. Horonuku Te Heuheu, then about sixty-six years of age, white haired and tatooed, was present, with all the other chiefs of Ngati-Tuwhare-toa, and many people of the various tribes inhabiting the country round the Lake. Mr L. M. Grace, member of the House of Representatives for Tauranga, which electorate then included Taupo and Tokaanu, was present as adviser to Te Heuheu, whose daughter Te Kahui he had married. When the apportionment and disposal of the mountains Tongariro, Ruapehu and Ngauruhoe came up, Mr Grace noticed that the old chief seemed troubled, "pouri." When the Court adjourned Te Heuheu hold his friend that he was troubled about the future of the

sacred mountains. He feared that if they were passed through the Court included in the various blocks, they might be sold, one piece going to one pakeha, another piece to another. They would become of no account, the ancient tapu would be gone. The old chiefs mind went back to the ways of speech of his ancestors. "Tongariro," he said, "is my ancestor, my 'tapuna.' It is my head. My 'mana' centres round Tongariro. My father's bones lie there today. I cannot consent to passing these mountains through the Court. After I am dead, what will be their fate? What am I to do about them?"

Mr Grace agreed that the mountains should. be regarded as "tapu" from private hands, and suggested that they might be made a "tapu" place of the Crown, under the 'mana' of the Queen. "That is the only way," he said, "to. preserve i them for ever as places out of which no person shall make money. Why not give them to the Govern7 ment as a reservel and park, to be the property %of all the people of New Zealand, in memory of the Heuheu and his tribe?" "Yes," replie'd Horonuku, "that is the best course, the right thing to do. They shall be a sacred place of the Crown, a gift for ever from me and my people." The suggestion was placed before the Judge, Major Scannell, and agreed to by the people. By common consent the mountain tops were left in the hands of Te Heuheu and his family. Mr Grace then drew up a brief document, on a sheet of foolscap paper, offering the peaks to the Crown, and it was

m signed by Te Heuheu, with whom were associated for the purposes of the gift a number of his principal co-chiefs. A day or two later Mr Grace took Te Heuheu to Rotorua, where they met the Native Minister, the Hon. John Ballance, a representative of the other Taupo chiefs accompanying them, Hori Te Tauri,-'of Tau-ranga-taupo, and the preliminaries of the gift were satisfactoriiy settled. Later the matter was finalised by the making out of a Crown Grant of the land involved to Te Heuheu, who then made the three mountains over to the Crown in a formal parchment deed.