We don't need to agree about history to recognise its importance

Friday, 22 January 2021

OPINION: I had the recent privilege of attending part of the three-day celebration to commemorate 175 years since the battle of Ruapekapeka. My prior knowledge of the battle and the context in which it was fought is sadly lacking, despite being descended from many of its participants.

Attending a wananga on the battle at Kawiti Marae in Waiōmio, near Kawakawa, home of the battle’s instigator Te Ruki Kawiti, brought home how little I knew of the motivations, context and relevance of the battle in our early colonial period.

The benefit of studying our own history is that we can literally walk the whenua on which it occurred – at Waiōmio we saw Kawiti’s weapons on display; at the battle site we investigated the holes of the “bat’s nest” and saw his cannon damaged by return fire from the British.

We could also appreciate the choice of battlefield – away from the village, and overlooking the maunga of Northland – the metaphorical walls of the sacred house of Ngāpuhi – representing the huge tribal alliance at stake in the northern wars. The tangibility of these resources makes for easier understanding of the motivations for war – sovereignty for the British, and the affirmation of mana and preservation of integrity of boundaries and relationships for the various iwi combatants.

**READ MORE:

* Northland pā 'pristine' in time for remembering key battle

* Reconciliation still sought, 175 years since pivotal Te Ruapekapeka NZ Wars battle

* The importance of relationships in te ao Māori

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Many northern Māori like myself whakapapa to men on both sides of the battle – I am one of over 20,000 descendants of Patuone​, who along with his brother Nene, fought with the British. Early views about such alliances labelled such Māori as “kūpapa”, or traitors; characterising the conflict as Māori versus Pākehā, rather than a civil war among hapū, which the British joined, which is more accurate.

The theme of the commemorations was “kawea a pūriri mai”​ – in reverence, remembrance and respect. The pūriri tree is a hard wood – providing the palisades that resisted British fire in the battle. It is also associated with mourning and burial – entombing bones, and providing coronets of leaves for mourners to this day. In the Bay of Islands, the ancient proverb “ka kata ngā pūriri o taiamai” – the pūriri trees are laughing – is used to greet or congratulate honoured guests.

The airing of multiple perspectives at the commemorations honoured the theme, and the concept of “hohou kōrero” – the sharing of speech. This is not with a view to finding the truth or consensus as to the events and their consequences, but to understanding different views.

I reflected on the relevance of this encounter to the forthcoming compulsory teaching of New Zealand history in schools, and to the notion of conflicting perspectives. For one, the amplification of Māori voices can broaden our knowledge and understanding of one another – not just in our substantive views, but in our historical method, and cultural ways of holding, passing and valuing knowledge.

I was reminded of the Pākehā prioritisation of “truth” in a passage in Professor Alison Jones’ excellent recent memoir, in which she corrected a kaumātua for his inaccurate recounting of an historical event involving his ancestor Hongi Hika. She realised in hindsight that they were at cross-purposes – his kōrero was not intended as a record of verifiable facts, but as one in which he promoted the mana, character and power of his tūpuna.

One of the kaumātua at Waiōmio pressed this same point, in describing Ngāti Hine history, asking the crowd, “Do you believe me? I don’t care if you do, because we believe these things.”

It also reminded me of the Māori preference for relationality or whakapapa – what Sir Mason Durie describes as the antithesis to the Western scientific method of drilling down to isolate to an individual, to the truth, to DNA. In contrast, the Māori world view is to connect people, places and things, within overlapping webs of relationships, obligations and issues.

The whakapapa of Ruapekapeka reaches both before and after the events of 1845-46. It speaks to the common ancestry of the Māori combatants from Rāhiri, our eponymous Ngāpuhi ancestor, the pursuit of sovereignty and means of production to underpin a capitalist economy, and the importance of rangatira to lead their people and provide for their interests.

“Revisionism” is a somewhat tarnished term in historical circles, with its emphasis on correcting our collective views on the past. Including Māori methods and perspectives of sharing views could be seen as a counterbalance to the current trend of “cancel culture”, whereby rather than cancelling old or untenable views, we add to them through a diversification of voices and ways of knowing and understanding. We don’t need to agree, nor are we likely to, and that’s OK.

On my way to Kawiti Marae, I stopped in Moerewa​ to buy the delicious local peruperu​, or Māori potatoes. The kaumātua selling them told me he would not be coming to the marae, as he disagreed with his cousin who would be speaking.

We chatted about the nature of their disagreement, centred around the largely debunked theory that the attack on Ruapekapeka on a Sunday was a deliberate breach of the sabbath, when the converted among Kawiti’s men would be at prayer. They each had their own views on that, and he was content in their disagreement, respecting their differences.

Interpretation is at the heart of history. Immediately after Ruapekapeka, Kawiti proclaimed “takahia te riri ki raro i o waewae – titiro ki ngā taumata o te moana” – trample conflict underfoot, look to the horizons of the ocean. Was he looking to the literal arrival of more Pākehā? Or metaphorically looking for unity and a collective future? Discuss.