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Student Name:
Christopher Mangion
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Programme:
Bachelor of Counselling
Course Code:
CPS5144
Course Name:
Tangata Whenua, Tāngata Tiriti 2021
Assignment Number:
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Word Count:
1730
Course Educator:
Tauha Te Kani
Due Date:
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Assignment 2, CPS 5144/SW: Tangata Whenua Tangata Tiriti
Ko Tākitimu te Mauka
Ko Aparima te Awa
Ko Uruao, Ko Āraiteuru, Ko Tākitimu ōku waka
Ko Waitaha, Ko Kati Māmoe, Ko Kai Tahu ōku iwi
Ko Thomas Sharpe te Tupuna
Ko Ōraka Aparima te Takiwā ahau e noho ana ināianei
Ko Christopher Mangion tōku ingoa.
In the ngā mihi above I have connected myself to the Iwi and takiwā o Oraka
Aparima Runaka. This takiwā is a large section of land that is roughly to the right of
centre in the Murihiku purchase,
“Thou hast it now! land, rents, and favouring aid
From sublunary powers; and should heaven grant
That no historic eye shall spy the matter,
The Maori wrongs shall vanish in the past,
As Maori lives in present. They depart
Like mist-wreaths of the morning; but a book
Which graves the stubborn facts on winged leaves;
Guard thou 'gainst that! for it shall tell the tale
To countless generations, and 'twere better
To do no wrong than let the wrong be proved
In the eternal blazon of the truth”, [sic].
(Rusden, G.N. 1888, Aurere-tanga, in Waitangi Tribunal, 1991, p.11)
In this 1888 poem of George Rusden’s he verges on being a prophetic on the
formation of the Waitangi Tribunal. In his prophetic manner he laments the injustice
to Māori, that the powers acted on greed and tried to hide the fact. Rusden also
highlights that it would have been better to have done right in the first place than to
have generations to come observe their wrongdoings through the lens of truth,
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Assignment 2, CPS 5144/SW: Tangata Whenua Tangata Tiriti
(Reese, 2007). This lament of Rusden’s is juxtaposed with Bible verse below, in as
far as that Micah 6:8 is a blueprint for relations and dealings that were ignored by the
bureaucracy managing New Zealand on behalf of the crown in the 19th century.
“He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you
Except to be just, and to love [and to diligently practice] kindness (compassion),
And to walk humbly with your God [setting aside any overblown sense of importance
or self-righteousness]”, (Micah 6:8, Amplified Bible).
In this essay I will be discussing the Murihiku purchase which occurred over a three
year period from 1851 to 1854, and the consequences of that sale. The local
rūnaka for the Murihiku area are; Te Rūnaka o Awarua, Te Rūnaka o Waihopai,
Oraka-Aparima Rūnaka and Hokonui Rūnanga, (Batchelor et al., 2008). All of these
Rūnaka and associated marae are multi-hapu based, (Mantell, 1886). The area
called Murihiku as named by local Māori at the time of the purchase was for an area
of significantly different boundaries to that of the boundaries Walter Mantel used.
The area Mantel claimed in his definition was approximately 12,500 km 2 greater.
Although Mantel used the Māori word Murihiku for the area of the purchase, he
ascribed his own meaning to it. To local Māori Murihiku did not include, (and to
some still does not include), Te Whakatakanga o te Karehu a Tamatea, that is the
area now called Fiordland, or the modern Māori name Atawhenua, (Batchelor et al.,
2008). In Evison, (2006, p.155), in his discussion on the confusion of the area being
sold to the crown he attributes the understood boundary issues to there being no
provision of an adviser as there had been done for the Otago purchase. This point
of contention led to it being one of the grievances brought before the Waitangi
Tribunal, (Came et al., 2020).
To lessen confusion unless otherwise stated, the meaning of Murihiku in this essay
will be that as used by Mantell in his Murihiku purchase boundaries, (Evison, 2006).
In modern times the term Murihiku is generally ascribed by the wider community to
the regional boundaries of Southland.
In April 1851 Governor Grey and Mantell, “discussed and agreed on the procedures
for extinguishing Māori title south of the Otago purchase” [sic], (Evison, 2006. p.153).
Arriving on Southern Murihiku shores he broke suite of his usual processes and did
not call a meeting of all those entitled to Māori title, he instead chose to visit the
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Assignment 2, CPS 5144/SW: Tangata Whenua Tangata Tiriti
communities individually. Mantell under the guise of if the sale went ahead
discussed with the Māori communities what reserves may be set aside for them,
there was much debate about the size of the reserves that Mantell chose, (Evison,
2006. p.154). It is also worth observing that the whalers come farmers among the
local Māori had through marriage and agreement with local Māori in the most part
enjoyed a mutually beneficial blended community with the locals, while they were
considered squatter’s by Mantell, (Thomson, 1937).
It was noted by Rusden in the late 19th century that while some of the breaches of
Ngai Tahu land agreements were taken to court the majority breaches that affected
the Māori population at large was ignored, (Brown & Norton, 2017; Reese, 2007).
Those that were taken to court at this time were dismissed.
The following is a very brief summary of Te Tiriti o Waitangi breaches as listed in the
Ngai Tahu Land Report, Waitangi Tribunal, (1991), that are relevant to the Murihiku
Purchase. Treaty or The Treaty will be used for Te Tiriti o Waitangi and The Treaty
of Waitangi, and tribunal will be used for Waitangi Tribunal in the following section as
this is the language used by the Waitangi Tribunal in their 1991 Ngai Tahu report.
There was no legal representative made available which contributed to the level of
loss for Local Māori this was a breach of the Treaty obligations. The tribunal found
that the Crown failed to protect Māori Treaty rights by not appointing a legal adviser,
a protector, for the Murihiku Purchase. This breach of Māori Treaty rights had a
flow on effect that helped to escalate and compound the situation, resulting in further
breaches of The Treaty. Lack of legal representation in negations caused a
prejudice in the Crowns favour. Many of the negative effects of the following
grievances could have been lessened for Murihiku Māori if the sale agreement had
been understood in its entirety.
The tribunal found that the cession to the Crown in Article 1 of The Treaty, in any
interpretation of the article, did not give the Crown right of pre-emption of purchase
of land needed by Māori. Article 2 of The Treaty was breached, Mantell under
direction of the Crown decided what lands were to be retained by Murihiku Māori,
this led to severely undersized reserves, limited access to and the destruction of
mahinga kai and the loss of Fiordland. Breaches under Article 3 include the allotted
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Assignment 2, CPS 5144/SW: Tangata Whenua Tangata Tiriti
land per person, this was less than allowed for the settlers. Under this article Māori
have the same rights and privileges as British subjects.
Issues of further concern to the tribunal which harks back to lack of legal advice to
the sale is that the deed makes it clear that Ngai Tahu were selling all of their,
“anchorages and landing-places, with the rivers, the lakes, the woods, and the bush,
with all things whatsoever within those places, and in all things lying thereupon.”,
(Waitangi Tribunal, 1991). It would require a vast stretch of anyone’s imagination to
think that such a sale would be allowed to take place without the provision for
themselves to continue to have access to mahinga kai, pounamu and other
resources. On these grounds the tribunal rejected that part of the Murihiku
Purchase.
The unsuitable size and quality of the Māori reserves the lack of land allocation for
half caste Māori was a heavy burden for the community. This was all the more
made worse by the loss of access to much of their mahinga kai and exasperated the
effects of loss of land. In reference to Mantell’s stubbornness and hard heart
Murihiku Māori called somewhere rocky "Te Upoko a Matara” essentially Mantels’
head, a stark contrast to the Justness and unpretentious called for in Micah 6:8. In
the decades that followed the number of Murihiku Māori without land and restricted
access to mahinga kai was almost 50%, those that had access to land had so little
they were essentially excluded from the local economy, (Evison, 2006; Orange,
2019; Waitangi Tribunal, 1991). The loss of land and the subsequent loss of
mahinga kai deprived Murihiku Māori of an economic base for their communities.
This economic depravity led to increasing numbers of Murihiku Māori to leave their
rohe to search for employment. As whānau left, the backbones of communities
were weakened. As Murihiku Māori became the increasingly smaller part of the
population they became exposed to the growing negative settler attitudes towards
them and their culture, and so needed to assimilate into to the dominant culture more
and more to survive. This loss of independent economic viability cascaded down into
an increasing loss of culture.
We have been coming along a path of justness, kindness and forgiveness since the
Waitangi Tribunal was formed. I suspect that the effects and the ongoing
challenges of the Te Tiriti breaches as we move forward in time as a Sovereign
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Assignment 2, CPS 5144/SW: Tangata Whenua Tangata Tiriti
Nation that is made up of multiple nations of people will be felt still for several more
generations to come. In Murihiku there has been many positive changes in the last
couple of decades. Local Rūnaka are involved in natural resource management on
land and at sea, and have the ear of farming bodies, corporations and Government
departments. They have started hauora organisations for the communities and
employment and housing improvement initiatives.
How does this fit in with counselling? The problems our Māori clients face are likely
not just about poverty and lack of resources. Wether they realise or not it is worth
investigating the loss of continuity with te āo Māori, their whakapapa, marae and
whenua. In a colonised environment healing is not just about the individual,
chasing justice or recompense, (though these may help), it is the battle with the
inequality on the structures set in place by the settler state, that is structures for their
benefits of their cultural group and provides some of the biggest psychosocial
challenges for our whānau. The structures set in place by the colonising state often
are at odds with iwi, hapū and whānau structures even in modern times. Our
tūpuna were traumatised and this trauma has often been passed on. Generational
post traumatic stress is a real thing, when Māori present for counselling we need to
be mindful of this. It is also vitally important that we have a developed
understanding of the modern breadth of te āo Māori. The extent of Western cultural
influences on Māori vary and the level of identification of the individual is based on
their preference and knowledge, (Reid et al., 2017).
To finish I would like to close with a mix of Micah 6:8 and Rusden, (1888). Just walk
in love and compassion, walking humbly dropping any self-righteousness and do this
in the fires of the truth.
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Assignment 2, CPS 5144/SW: Tangata Whenua Tangata Tiriti
References
Batchelor, I., Jolly, D., & Te Ao Marama Inc. (2008). The cry of the people; Te Tangi
a Tauira; (Ngai Tahu ki Murihiku Natural Resource and Environmental Iwi
Management Plan 2008, Issue.
Brown, H., & Norton, T. (2017). Tāngata Ngāi Tahu; People of Ngāi Tahu. Bridget
Williams Books.
Came, H., O’Sullivan, D., Kidd, J., & McCreanor, T. (2020). The waitangi tribunal’s
wai 2575 report: implications for decolonizing health systems. Health and
Human Rights Journal, 22(1), 209-220.
https://www.hhrjournal.org/2020/06/the-waitangi-tribunals-wai-2575-reportimplications-for-decolonizing-health-systems/
Evison, H. (2006). The Ngai Tahu Deeds: A Window on New Zealand History.
Canterbury University Press.
Mantell, W. (1886). CENSUS OF THE MIDDLE ISLAND NATIVES MADE BY Mr.
COMMISSIONER MANTELL IN 1848 AND 1853; Return to an Order of the
House of Representatives, dated 6th July, 188S.
paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/appendix-to-the-journals-of-thehouse-of-representatives-1886.
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/AJHR1886-I.2.3.2.19
Orange, C. (2019). The Treaty of Waitangi. Bridget Williams Books Limited.
Reese, A. (2007). Truth, repentance and Naboth's vineyard : towards reconciliation
in Aotearoa New Zealand. https://www.karuwha.org.nz/wpcontent/uploads/Reese-Truth-Repentence-Reconciliation-NZ-2007.pdf.
https://www.karuwha.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/Reese-Truth-RepentenceReconciliation-NZ-2007.pdf
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Assignment 2, CPS 5144/SW: Tangata Whenua Tangata Tiriti
Reid, J., Rout, M., Tau, T. M., & Smith, C. W. R. (2017). The Colonising
Environment: An Aetiology of the Trauma of Settler Colonisation and Land
Alienation on Ngāi Tahu Whānau. UC Ngāi Tahu Research Centre.
Thomson, J. C. (1937). Records of Early Riverton and District. Southland Times
Company for Riverton Celebrations Limited.
Waitangi Tribunal. (1991). Ngai Tahu Land Report (Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, Issue.
https://ngaitahu.iwi.nz/ngai-tahu/te-whakataunga-celebrating-te-kereme-thengai-tahu-claim/
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