WAY UP SOUTH

Kaea, Issue 3, 1 June 1980, Page 16

WAY UP SOUTH

News from Te Waipounamu

No doubt some readers will be asking, “How come they’re giving so much attention to Te Waipounamu?” Well, one reason is that there has been a lot going on in the south. But the other reason is that Ngaitahu-Ngati Mamoe have taken the trouble to keep us informed, and we cannot keep our readers informed unless they keep us informed!

Ma muri ano a mua ka totika ai Awhinatia mai a Te Kaea Whangaia mai kite korero

It has been a busy six months for the Ngaitahu and other Maori people of Te Waipounamu as a range of projects which have been in the pipeline for several years have begun to come to fruition. Late last year the Minister of Lands returned the ancient Takahanga site at Kaikoura to the people, and the upper part of the nine-acre reserve was promptly dedicated as a marae and the tapu lifted by 350 people led by Ngaitahu kaumatua, Riki Te M. Ellison. Archaeological work required by the Historic Places Trust before development can proceed has been carried out by the tangata whenua under the direction of Mike Trotter of the Canterbury Museum, and they are currently coping with the requirements of the Town and Country Planning Act. A small marae about a “bus and a half’ is planned for the site.

In early November the Poutini Ngaitahu in the form of the Mawhera Incorporation opened their first investment leaseback project in central Greymouth. The building, which was named Poutini House after the taniwha which is the guardian spirit of the western coast of Waipounamu, is a two-storeyed retail furnishing complex leased to one of Greymouth’s most enterprising businessmen, Mr Roy Anderson. Costing in excess of $310,000 and built by Fletcher Developments Ltd, the project was financed jointly by the Maori Trustee and the ANZ Bank. Built on the site of two

demolished buildings on the prime commercial intersection in the town, Poutini House was described by Mawhera Chairman, Stephen O’Regan, as a mark of faith in the future. “We are serving notice on the West Coast community”, he said, “that the Maori owners are not going to be passive rent collectors but active participants in the West Coast economy”.

February saw the opening of two major marae projects which will be of great importance to the development of the South’s Maori future. The traditional Ngaitahu marae have seen much renovation and renewal in recent years, with the new Rapaki wharekai probably the most ambitious so far. However the dominating fact of Maori life in the region is the steady migration of northern Maori into the ancient boundaries of the Ngaitahu people, and it is in the urban scene that

new relationships are being forged and old ones changed. The first stage of the new Araiteuru marae in Dunedin’s Kaikorai valley was opened in brilliant sunshine by Ben Couch, the Minister of Maori Affairs, and provided the opportunity for some careful statement on the nature of a cross-tribal marae. One of these by Dunedin’s Ngaitahu kaumatua was to the effect that on the traditional marae of the region the manawhenua of Ngaitahu was supreme but on the new marae they saw themselves as no more important (but certainly no less ) than the other tribes represented.

The other big urban project was launched in Christchurch with the opening by a big ope of Waikato led by Dame Te Atairangi Kaahu of the new wharekai on the Rehua marae in Springfield Road. Named after Hemokiteraki, the wife of Tahupotiki and the founding womb of the Ngaitahu people, the new wharekai and ablution facilities bring the marae to a complete functioning whole and mark its independence from the adjoining Rehua Hostel with which its history is so intimately connected. Originally a part of the Rehua hostel complex, the marae is now separately vested in the “Ngaitahu kaumatua and their invitees”. These “invitees” are in fact the Rehua old boys living in Christchurch who have been the driving force in the development. The close involvement and association with the Ngaitahu kaumatua renders the Rehua development another variation on the multi-tribal theme another approach by Waipounamu people to the shaping of their Maori future.

The most ambitious undertaking by Maori in Waipounamu, though, is the shortly to be opened Te Waipounamu House which already dominates Armagh Street, in commercial downtown Christchurch. This six-storey office building, which stretches from Armagh Street through to Oxford Terrace on the banks of the Avon River is a strata title development fifty per cent owned by the Ngaitahu Maori Trust Board, which will have its new boardrooms on the top floor. The administration of the Board’s affairs and those of a number of Ngaitahu tribal enterprises, including the Mawhera Incorporation, will be centred in this new building.

With an annual income from the Crown of $20,000, the Board currently pays out approximately $50,000 in grants to its beneficiaries each year, figures which demonstrate that its investment policy is at least giving inflation a run for its money.

The Ngaitahu Trust Board has adopted a policy of selling off its North Island investments and shifting the tribal capital home within its own area. As this process continues we can expect to see other new Maori undertakings within the Ngaitahu rohe, the farthest spread of any Maori tribe.