Crown Finally Bows To Tupuna Maunga

Friday, 31 January 2025, 8:28 pm
Article: Craig Ashworth - Local Democracy Reporting

Taranaki Maunga made the very ground we stand on, the land we live from.
Drawing clouds close he brings our water: his snow and ice, his once-glorious awa.
The reefs he flung out shape our waves and all those lives beneath the waters, teeming for countless seasons. Although wounded, his deep forest remains.
He cherishes the people who come from him, nourishes the people who come to him, stands sentinel.
What do you call this?
Progenitor, provider, protector. Tupuna.

For Taranaki Māori he’s always been a tupuna and now the Crown agrees.

On Thursday Parliament officially recognised Taranaki Maunga as a tupuna maunga – an ancestral mountain.

The lead negotiator of the redress agreement for the eight iwi of Taranaki said it’s not so much about what the mountain alone is – it’s more about relationship.

Jamie Tuuta said Māori always viewed the Maunga and his surrounding peaks as living, indivisible beings, as ancestors they have a relationship with and a responsibility to care for.

“If we view our Maunga as a grandparent, how do we care for our grandparents?

“And why is it important to get to know your grandparents and understand who they are and what their narratives, what their history, what their experiences are?”

“It helps us care for our maunga, and that’s quite a simple concept for non-Māori to grasp. That’s the big paradigm shift here, legal recognition encourages others to see our maunga that way.”

Te Pire Whakatupua mō te Kāhui Maunga (the Taranaki Maunga Collective Redress Bill) makes legal the negotiated agreement to settle the mamae – the deep pain – felt for the confiscation of Taranaki Maunga.

The Crown agreed to formally give up ownership of Taranaki Maunga, instead sharing management of the national park with the region’s iwi and officially recognising the peaks as tupuna.

The peaks jointly become a legal person called Te Kāhui Tupua, which will own itself, and the park will be renamed Te Papa-Kura-o-Taranaki.

Te Kotahitanga o Te Atiawa trustee Wharehoka Wano said tupuna status encompassed Taranaki Maunga’s overwhelming influence on the region’s environment – and crucially was based on whakapapa.

“It's more than just a personification, that's our lineage, our connection.

“That's a very cultural thing, but to bring it forward to now it's about us protecting and ensuring that Maunga of ours is well looked after and cared for.”

Wano, who’s also tumu whakarito (chief executive) of Te Kāhui o Taranaki, says the Maunga has fared poorly since the Crown took him as part of the half-million hectares confiscated in 1865.

“You know, it hasn't got the wildlife, the bird life, the flora and fauna are under stress. In pre-development, pre- European days, it was noisy with birdsong.

“We are kaitiaki [guardian caretakers] and we have a responsibility to look after him, and then he will look after us.”

His brother Hayden Wano said since childhood they knew they had a relationship to Taranaki Maunga as a living being and he hoped non-Māori could now extend their understanding.

“I'm not sure how that would work if you're starting somewhere in the middle of your life on that journey but I think it's possible for people to move in that direction.”

Te Kāhui o Taranaki chair Jacqui King said Taranaki Maunga had been regarded as an ancestor by people in Taranaki even before the arrival of the waka Kurahaupō.

“It's just inherently natural to consider our tupuna as exactly that, our ancestor, our heart of our whānau.

“That's where we derive our identity and our whakapapa from.

“There’s a whole genealogy that goes with that, that's been passed down through generations and generations. And this lineage isn't something that's just spiritual, it's something that's real.”

Scholar and Parihaka leader Dr Ruakere Hond said relationships in Te Ao Māori are mostly based on whakapapa.

“There are levels at which the whakapapa talks about the actual physical Maunga and then it crosses over at a certain point where it becomes the whakapapa of people.

“So that means basically the Maunga is an actual tupuna of the people.”

“For so long we've just been saying this ourselves and it hasn't been supported within the structures of authority.”

Another Taranaki scholar, Dr Tonga Karena, said ancestral wisdom comes from centuries of observation and engagement with the Maunga and surrounding lands.

“Those whakapapa reside in the histories and manuscripts of our ancestors and they're very specific and they're also very tapu.

“But the underlying philosophy is to create that family network within our taiao [environment] and those whakapapa have been the mechanism to do that.”

The tumu whakarae (chief executive) of Te Korowai o Ngāruahine, Te Aorangi Dillon, likened the relationship to the Whanganui expression ‘I am the river, the river is me’.

“Ko au te Maunga, ko te Maunga ko au.’

Dillon said a student at Ngāruahine’s school, Liam Ngātai Olsen, recently extended that thinking in a speech, saying that if he intrinsically knows his Maunga, his Maunga knows him.

“Ka mōhio au ki tōku maunga, ka mōhio hoki tōku maunga ki au.”

Student Aisha Campell is a holiday intern at Te Kotahitanga o Te Atiwa and said her Maunga-linked identity gives her confidence to walk tall.

“I can look and see how Taranaki Maunga stands tall, proud, resilient.

“I also know that's in my blood, I know that's in my whānau blood, I know that's in my iwi's blood and I know that's what will keep us strong and united and at peace.”

Fellow student Trinity Kumeroa is interning at Te Korowai o Ngāruahine between academic terms in Christchurch and said she grew up with her Maunga “always looking out for me.”

“It’s a feeling that my nana has given me growing up surrounded by tikanga and love and respect for Taranaki Maunga and what he represents how he continues to look after us.

“Especially being down in Christchurch I feel very connected back to Taranaki, I always come back and I always want to be in the midst of it basically – and I feel the mana he gives me and my family.”

At the final reading of the Maunga bill in Parliament, Te Tai Hauāuru MP and te Pāti Māori co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said the Crown’s recognition of the harm it had caused was the starting point for restoration and healing.

“This harm was not only an injustice but a deliberate act by the Crown to strip us of our connection, our taonga, and our mana.
“The impact of this muru raupatu has been felt across generations, and its mamae remains with us today.

"This victory is for our tūpuna who have watched over us, for our whānau who have carried the pain, and for our mokopuna who will continue this legacy and walk in the light of our restored identity.”

LDR is local body reporting co-funded by RNZ and NZ on Air

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