Te Hikoi ki Waitangi

Tu Tangata, Issue 16, 1 March 1984, Page 30

Te Hikoi ki Waitangi

Te Hikoi ki Waitangi swelled to two thousand strong upon arrival at Waitangi this year. From a couple of hundred marchers leaving Turangawaewae about a week before, the hikoi grew in support. Along the road to Waitangi, much korero took place, especially in the sessions at night. The bulk of the marchers were young Maori with some kaumatua, but pakeha supporters increased towards the end. Each night was spent on marae along the way, with hikoi members carrying their own food to compliment the manaakitanga of tangata whenua. The hikoi arrived at Waiomio marae near Kawakawa two days before Waitangi Day and prepared for the final stage of the march. Most tribes seemed to be represented on the hikoi

and rosters of the represented groups showed Kahungunu, Ngapuhi, Tai Tokerau, Tamaki, Waikato, Taranaki, Tuhoe, Ati Awa, Ngati Raukawa, Poneke and Kai Tahu. Tribal meetings were held to discuss the implications of the treaty. Over 500 members of the hikoi camped in a tent city on the marae with Tawai, Riwi, Maihi Kawhiti, the black, white and red flag of Kotahitanga flying in front of the meeting house.

The Waitangi National Trust Board met at this time and the Governor General, Sir David Beattie expressed interest in the possibility of receiving submissions from the hikoi. Trust Board members, Sir James Henare and Sir Hepi Te Heu Heu met with hikoi leader, Mrs Eva Rickard see how this

could be achieved.

Early on Waitangi Day, a group of Tanui elders arrived, with police preventing access to the main treaty grounds for the hikoi. Because of security precautions, 100 ‘moderates’ were all that were allowed to present submissions to the Governor General and this proposal was turned down by the hikoi, which then returned to the Waiomio marae.

Sir James Henare said he was saddened that what could have been a tremendous historic occasion had been lost. Mrs Rickard said the Kotahitanga movement was alive again after being dormant for decades. Now the Maori people had a platform for their views. “The country will feel the results of this hikoi.” .

‘‘When the Europeans came in and allowed the system of individual title, the land became a negotiable piece of goods. Once that hit them, they lost it. And they lost the capacity to be able to see themselves as trustees. They got into the selling act because they realised that they were now dealing, not in barter, but in money goods and the guy who had the money had the clout. You know, and I take the point, they learnt so quickly that they even cheated themselves. It wasn't enough to be cheated by outsiders, we had families cheating families, brothers against brothers. But that again was the whole idea of providing rules for the colonials to get the land.”

(Male, trustee. 60s. landowner)

“It is harder to convince some of these younger, city people that we have any of the right answers. They look at us and see our generation as much more passive than the ones coming through now. What they don't understand is that we had much less opportunity to be other than passive, we were indoctrinated to such an extent as to our lack of worth.”

(Male, trustee, 60s, landowner)

“As far as land is concerned, I really have nothing to give my children, and yet everyone of the mountains and hills of our place evolves a very strong emotional response for me, and, some extent, my children, because they know the stories of the place, they know their tipuna associated with it. I guess if you analyse it, it boils down to a need, certainly in me, and maybe in some of the present generation, to maintain a link with the past and of everything that it represents to us as a people and as people they are our Maori tipuna. Land is more or less symbolic of all this. So that when Igo back home, all of those things, the hills, the river flats, the bush, are still there to remind me, to evoke feelings and recall the past. It is really an emotive response, it has nothing to do with commonsense or logic, or what I am going to get out of it.”

(Female, 50s, landless)

“I can’t speak for everybody on this, but to me, owning land is still important, particularly if people want to play dominant or major or significant roles, whatever they are, and I think people feel that they must have this kind of support. Probably in my case, it would not worry me so much if I didn't have it, but it just so happens that I have got it and I guess I see it from a different dimension. Now, some of my relations, all their land went to one member of the family and was not shared amongst them. They were not unduly upset by it because the marae are still there where they can go, and they see this as replacing their own land from which they have been, in a sense, disinherited, and they see the marae as compensating for that.”

(Male, 40s, landowner)

“You are faced with a whole change of people who have grown away from their traditional land and are trying to establish themselves in an area that is difficult for them. You are getting a whole new generation of Maoris, I suspect, in the metropolitan areas where they have no idea of what we are talking about, and who will have different ideas from what we would have. They have very little concern for the old ways. At the same time, they are seeking to forge an identity for themselves which they will be happy with, and will still be recognisably Maori.”

(Male, trustee, 60s. landowner)

“Look, a lot of the South Island Maori lands were allocated after 1906 under the Landless Maoris Act. Almost 1,000 people were given title to land in Murihiku and elsewhere because they had no land. Now, these lands are looked upon as ancestral lands by the present-day descendants. In the legal sense, they weren't ancestral because they had been under the Crown title, but as far as I’m concerned, they used to be Mamoe and Waitaha lands, and the present owners are Mamoe and Waitaha people, so they are ancestral lands. They were only Crown lands for 50 or 60 years anyway and they’ve been back in Maori title no longer than that. From our perspective, Murihiku was Ngati Mamoe and Waitaha land. It always was, always will be, no matter who has title, no matter who uses it, no matter what. That land provides us with another link to our tupuna, who were the original owners and users of the land.”

(Male, trustee, 40s)

“See, if you look at the river, the mountain and the ariki as symbols of Kingitanga, Waikatotanga and Tainuitanga. At the present time that is the remaining of the Kingitanga, put it another way, people are looking to the retention of those lands to treasure them as symbols. There is, of course, that constraint no matter how bad the land is in development terms, there is no thought of selling it. But there is, because of this ideology of confiscation, subconsciously what we are saying is, ‘okay, ahakoa i tangohia i raupatuhia o tatou whenua’. We will spend the next two hundred years getting it back or the next several centuries getting the land back.

“E hoki mai ai aua whenua, when we had the board, when they were talking about the board of compensation, some of the old people said, ‘I riro whenua atu me hoki whenua mai’, as the land was taken, so land should be returned as compensation. But in the interim we will accept the cash settlement, mo nga hara o te kawanatanga, it is not compensation for the land, it is damages for their wrongs, it is not compensation for the land. That is what Government is saying, it is compensation for the land, but our people always said, no, it is not compensation for the land, hei utu ke i to hara. The land reckoning will come in the next couple of centuries. We'll wait if we have to.”