'Force to be reckoned with' Auckland iwi remembers
Tuesday, 20 March 2018
A double anniversary sheds light on Auckland's past and its future.
On Tuesday, prominent Auckland iwi Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei marked the day its chief signed the Treaty of Waitangi and the day the iwi was evicted from Bastion Point.
On March 20, 1840 Ngāti Whātua tried to stave-off musket-armed northern tribe Ngāpuhi by signing the treaty enjoying protection and partnership with the crown.
Instead, by the 1970's confiscations had whittled-away Ngāti Whātua's holdings to Takaparawhau/Bastion Point and in 1978 the government was trying to take that valuable waterfront land.
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This came despite the iwi, as a gesture of goodwill or 'tuku' in 1840, gifting more than 1200 hectares of land, roughly stretching from Herne bay to today's downtown Auckland, to the Crown.
Tuku means 'I share this with you in order for us to prosper together,' Ngāti Whātua administrator Sharon Hawke explained.
Gifting the land effectively enabled waterfront trading, and the establishment of Auckland as we know it.
Although many Māori chiefs signed the treaty at Waitangi on February 6, many more including Ngāti Whātua's Apihai Te Kawau signed it as it toured the country.
'February 6 is not really our day,' Hawke told a small crowd huddled under tents and umbrellas outside the iwi's new Bastion Point kiosk.
'Today is our day'.
The iwi had been 'culturally ravaged' during the last 178 years, she said.
'But you as a people have been strong, respectable and basically bloody strategic at getting our land back'.
Teenage Hawke had joined her campaigner father Joe and hundreds of others during the iwi's 506-day Bastion Point occupation to prevent the land being taken under the Public Works Act.
Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei's public battle to keep Bastion Point was key in Pakeha New Zealanders awakening to injustices dealt to Māori, AUT historian Paul Moon said.
'Ngāti Whātua, you are now a force to be reckoned with,' Hawke said.
Iwi business development manager Jamie Cook said the progress the iwi has made has been 'huge'.
'Our story is one of tragedy, suffering, resilience and now prosperity, today's now about celebrating, we can start moving forward.'
The months old zero-waste visitor 'Koi' kiosk is one symbol of the iwi's revival, Cook said.
'Koi is an anagram, it means 'knowing our indigenity.''
Ngāti Whātua, with its hapu (or iwi descendants) boasting more than 2660 members, recently started its own savings and insurance scheme.
The tribe offers extensive services to its members and controls a substantial portfolio of Auckland waterfront land.
More than 400,000 visitors now enjoy Takaparawhau's stunning harbour views while tourists can take augmented reality walking tours.
Ngāti Whātua also grows more than 20,000 trees per year and has started beekeeping producing 150 litres so far.