Rangiriri Pā

EPISODE SUMMARY: On this episode of Indigenous Urbanism we visit Rangiriri Pā, and the site of a new symbolic reinterpretation developed in reverence to the original pā footprint, and as a setting for continued education about the Battle of Rangiriri and the subsequent invasion of the Waikato.

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GUESTS: Moko Tauriki, Dean Whiting, Sam Bourne

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FULL TRANSCRIPT:

Jade Kake: If you look over to your right on State Highway 1, about 45 minutes north of Hamilton, you’ll see a site of cultural and historical significance. The wetlands and Pou mark the site of a pivotal battle in the 1863 Waikato land wars - The Battle of Rangiriri.

Dean Whiting: So where we're standing at the moment, Rangiriri Pā, so this was the pā that, where one of the major battles, Waikato-Tainui and the British troops that were coming through from Auckland. So there were a series of battles that happened down that line.

JK: In more modern times the significance of the site was overshadowed by the expansion of State Highway 1.

DW: There was a huge cutting through the space, that cut right through the centre of the Pā site.

JK: But now a collaboration between Waikato-Tainui, the New Zealand Transport Agency, and Heritage New Zealand has seen the repatriation of this significant site.

Sam Bourne: When the opportunity came up to re-align State Highway one, that also opened up this opportunity to reimagine and acknowledge the damage that had been done in the past to the pā site, but also make that lineal infrastructure in service to that cultural landscape, and the story of Rangiriri, and the story of the battle that took place there.

JK: Tēnā koutou katoa

Nau mai haere mai ki te Indigenous Urbanism, Aotearoa Edition, Episode 12.

I’m your host Jade Kake and this is Indigenous Urbanism, stories about the spaces we inhabit, and the community drivers and practitioners who are shaping those environments and decolonising through design.

On this episode of Indigenous Urbanism we visit historic Rangiriri Pā, and the site of a new symbolic reinterpretation developed in reverence to the original pā footprint, and as a setting for continued education about the Battle of Rangiriri and the subsequent invasion of the Waikato.

We spoke with Moko Tauariki nō Ngati Naho, who was the Waikato-Tainui lead for the Project.

Kia ora Moko. Thank you so much for agreeing to be on the podcast. Just to start off with, ko wai koe? nō hea koe?

Moko Tauariki: Ko Taupiri te maunga, Waikato te awa, Waikato te iwi, Tainui te waka, Mourea te marae, Ngāti Naho te hapū, ko Moko Tauariki taku ingoa.

JK: Rangiri is a really significant site for Waikato and for all of New Zealand. Could you tell us a little bit about the significance of that site to your hapū and to your wider iwi?

MT: The significance of Rangiriri to Ngāti Naho, Ngāti Hine, Ngāti Pou, Ngāti Mahut - Ngāti Mahuta ki uta - is that it's a place where many of our ancestors stood in defiance of an imminent invasion by the Crown, and basically made their sacrifices there. And so, it's significant to us today because we are actually the kaitiaki that takiwa, of that place, now. Which has been, I guess since the invasion of Rangiriri in 1863, has been under the ownership and the administration, if you like, of the Crown, right up until 2016 when we actually had that particular site handed back to Waikato-Tainui. The invasion into Waikato begins, if you like, at Mercer. That we currently know as Te Pina. And it's probably appropriate for me to focus a little bit on Te Pina, in terms of its significance to Te Puia. And so Te Puia, for many people would know her as the lady who established a cultural kapa haka group called Te Pou o Mangatawhiri. And that group was named after a significant that King Tawhiao did, prior to the invasion of Rangiriri, and he did that on the banks of a stream called the Mangatawhiri stream, which basically is a tributary to the Waikato river. And that became our aukati, or our landmark, and basically signalled to the Crown that you go past this particular landmark, where I have placed my pou, then you declare war. You declare an invasion into Waikato. And so in 1863, General Duncan Cameron, under the orders of Governor Grey, said, well up yours natives, we are the much superior power than you, so we will take this land by force. We challenge you to be rebellious against the Queen of England, and the inception of the Kīngitanga was certainly a threat to that. And so in the month of July, and in actual fact it was on the 12th of July of 1863, Te Pine, or Mercer, was invaded. They then continued to sack, or to invade, occupy other pā sites towards Rangiriri, and in particular Te Tiotio Pā, Te Koheroa Pā, and Meremere Pā. So these are all locations that anybody driving between Auckland and Rangiriri, they would naturally drive past these sites, without a second thought even...