"The pakeha, in their desire"


Don't call me white, Don't call me white
Don't call me white, Don't call me white

I wasn't brought here, I was born
Circumsized, categorized, allegiance sworn,
Does this mean I have to take such shit
For being fairskinned? No!
I ain't a part of no conspiracy,
I'm just you're average Joe.

Don't call me white, Don't call me white
Don't call me white, Don't call me white

Since I'm partially of Native American ancestry, I really care about this issue. But, I need to point out to you that your letter uses so much language that people from other areas wouldn't be expected to understand, that it amounts to gibberish. Your note would have worked much better if you'd either used more common words, or given definitions of them so I (and others like me) could follow them.

As a suggestion - use the courts. You said that your indigenous people have legally established rights - defend them and use them in the courts. If you don't do that, you will loose them, just as we are loosing everything here. Slowly, steadilly, and very surely they are disappearing. Don't let it happen to your people.

Remember the words of the early US Statesman Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither."

merlin -perhaps if you bothered to check some of that language using an online translator, it might not be that foreign.....and seeing as this is a new zealand site, why should maori have to translate anything? would you translate native american words if they were on a site local to your area? please try and be a little less ethnocentric in your comments :)

"Use the courts"

- Maori have been using the court and the legal system ever since they existed in New Zealand. In this case the legal channels have already confirmed the developers rights - I don't think there isn't enough time. There is also a history of direct action getting results, which is what Geoff is suggesting here. I think tactics are up to those most directly affected to decide in this case.

This is my rough translation of some of the words. Like in any translation, words can have several meanings and european words often don't have a direct correlation to Maori ones (like with any translation). I also don't think it's up to Geoff to provide a translation at all. There are good online Maori-English dictionaries, that can easily be found online. Here's one:

www.learningmedia.co.nz/nz/online/ngata/

Iwi: tribe
Pa: fortified village
Kupe: Historical figure that is believed to have discovered Aotearoa, NZ
Whanau: extended family
Pakeha: NZ European
Whenua: land
Mana whenua and other concepts listed: these words in this list are too big a set of concepts for my pocket dictionary knowledge to handle. I think they largely relate to identifying who was there and their relationship to the land around them.
Tangata whenua: people of the land
Nau mai, haere mai: Welcome
Kai: food
Tautoko: support

If anyone has a problem with me doing this, please let me know directly through this site, or other networks.

Good luck! If I was in Wgtn I'd join in. I know there is Maori anger over the same issue in parts of Auckland - for instance, in the southeast, where the Manukau City Council has allowed some wealthy people to build big houses on pa sites along the Hauraki coast.

I'm a not sure quite what your problem is. Have you been down there lately? The site is currently being “dug” by archaeologists and has been for the last two weeks or so. Tents have been placed over the areas of interest to protect them from the elements while the individual sites are being excavated. Dirt is being sifted, photographs are being taken, positions of items found are being recorded, items are being listed and categorised. Some of the people I saw working on the dig are Maori. Are Pakeha archaeologists not good enough to carry out this research? Is it because they (according to you, like all Pakeha) have a “desire to put profit before the rights of Iwi” and “clearly show this by their total disregard for Iwi”, despite the fact they are excavating the site?

Can I just say that not all pakehas go about desecrating cultural sites or supporting such practices. I presume you had developers etc particularly in mind when you used that word, but it's also how I identify myself so I don't like being lumped in with the likes of them. I saw the site before it was covered by the archaeologists and I feel lucky and privileged to have done so. I would like to see it preserved rather than built upon, but given the extremely developer friendly approach taken by this council, realistically I cannot see this happening. Good luck with any occupation though.

Sounds like a job for the ELF! The minute those developers move those earth raping machines in they need to be decomissioned.

Anyone fighting this issue that really wants to stop this heres how:

www.reachoutpub.com/osh/

Mass action would be good, but when its down to a few to protect the sacred, this is the way to go.

Lets be clear here, there is excavation going on, and then they will pile a building over the top of it. I think this site is significant to all Wellingtonians - and should be preserved as such, at least any destruction of the site shouldn't be driven by profit.

I think there is a quite a bit of typical oversensitivity going on here, which is ignoring the obvious potential loss of history that is happening right under our noses.

'NOFX' are you saying you arn't Pakeha? Isn't Pakeha a better label than white? To me it is, I mean you ask a Maori if they are Moari they'll prolly say no, then identify with a specific tribe. Pakeha is kinda the same. These Pakeha doing this fucked shit I'd prolly prefer to call Neo-Cols myself, they don't understand what a gift it is to be Pakeha in Aotearoa, they are acting like they havn't lived here, they have no sense of place and act like neo-colonial jerk offs. There ideas are the new colonialism, ideas imported from the U$A. So as a Pakeha, I too oppose these Neo-Cols and the threat they pose to Pakeha culture. For further reading I suggest "what it is to be Pakeha". Oh Merlin, the NZ Goverment has two official languges (APPARENTLY!) Te Reo, and English, so more people practicing it the better, plus its all pretty basic stuff for anyone from Aotearoa.

ANYWAY!!!! LESS TALK (about which Pakeha did what and why and am I white, or I have no cultural identity so I'm ganna whinge and blame the Maori and bulldoze what culture my forefathers havn't already destroyed) MORE ROCK!

Those who do nothing are siding with the opressors against the oppressed by their inaction.

"Pakeha, in their desire to put profit before the rights of iwi".

isn't this an issue more about capitalism than culture? capitalism will always subordinate genuine human needs to the profit motive. plenty of maori elites complicit in just that.

ka pai ELF thanx 4 this information it will definately be passed around the tribes, in fact they are doing many of the things depicted in the handbook which is why this colonial government has made building more prison and filling them up as their main priority and they have used this as one of their main election platforms in the last thirty years. Now the indigenous people of this country make up near to 70% of the entire prison population, and those that are not in prison are either on the side of the colonisers or they are causing mayhem on a daily basis without any encouragement from anyone. But the more info we can have such as this the easier it would be for Iwi to access how to do it better.

and after yous got allthat stuff whos gonna grab it,we need we want freebies? how much do the wastrels want now?the self sufficient warriors can bring the beer and the smokes? those on the dole and not looking for work will still be on the hand outs?who cares about an old maori longdrop?

The Waitangi Tribunal recognised that Taranaki whanau that being Ngati Tama, Ngati Ruanui, Taranaki & Te Ati Awa had ancestral rights, the report excluded Muaupoko & Ngati Mutunga. I agree that we shouldn't forget that other iwi were in Te Whanganui a Tara too, however as Te Upoko o te Ika a Maui every iwi in the motu would be able to whakapapa to this area under the umbrella of Tini o Toi. As for this sacred site, what or who was there during Pre European times, that is the question I want to know, bring in the iwi archeologists to obtain another perspective, not those paid by the developers or council, and the resource consent process is questionable such as who the regional council consults with, whether the resource consent was advertised publicly to ensure a fair and reasonable process e.g; Wind Farm in Makara, and that the people who it affects is given a fair hearing. Therefore, no develpments till the truth is found.

Whatever 'Chi Pin lieu Foo'. Pakeha (# 1) is right. It's really an issue of capitalism rather than race. Iwi archeologists should be brought in, regardless of whether Pakeha ones are already there - I believe they have the right to preserve their heritage, and they can probably provide valuable insights that Pakeha archeologists might overlook. I think the desecration of sites such as this one is a tragedy.

Kia Ora Morrie me koutou ma

Much of the environs of wellington particularly the te aro area clearly shows in the writings, commentaries, paintings and sketches by earlier peoples some settlers and some not that there were other tribes here as well. This was well before the amiowhenua runga whenua expedition of 1817 - 1819 which is the expedition that included nga puhi, te ati awa or ngati awa, taranaki whanui te roroa, ngatï whätua, terarawa and others where they encircled the land. this precipitated the migration for a time into the area by mainly taranaki tribes, they didn’t stay long, however some did. If Ngätata I te rangi was here and that’s what you base your claims on then so was te kaeaea, tuwhare, rangihaeata, hongi hika, waikato, te wai-wera as well as Te rauparaha and others. They were a collective of ariki who had volunteered at the behest of the ariki-tänga or the united tribes or the te whakaputanga o nga hapu o 1835 to mirimiri the land. The taiopuru in 1847 was waikato tairea te whareherehere he led the expedition. Te Rangi Topeora the sister to Te rauparaha also had a stint at being the taiopuru. The amiowhenua was ratified by the confederated tribes in Waitangi and from there the ones who came to the Te whanganui a tara area were visitors and have been that ever since. Prior to that the collective tribes were known as the te kohuiarau and each rohe had its own te whakaminenga, or it was a collective o nga hapü o te whanga nui a tara, so what you say does not add up, it lacks crucial details such as who had mana whenua, was it the kohuiarau, the te whanganui a tara whakaminenga or the päkehä (they weren’t even here in enough numbers to warrant our being pushed around by them) and where exactly ngätata I te rangi and his son witako had their whare can not be clearly shown and no amount of asserting it will make it any clearer so until we have an archaeological examination of the site there will not be any satisfaction not on my part or on the part of all the other disenfranchised Iwi in the area. Check this Iwi source Hohepa Te Rake (1926) Iwi symbolism.

Doing an extensive archaeological examination of the site of course with indigenous archaeologists will go a long way towards giving us the evidence that we need to show not only what the material and technological cultural practises of our people were at the time, it will also show us maybe who the land owners were. I’m suggesting that it belonged to the whakaminenga, and that te äti awa and the other three named tribes of this area are the self asserted kaitiaki of the land, among their role as kaitiaki is to care for the rest of the iwi who are from te upoko o te ika, not to disenfranchise them as the päkehä require. A stratified site examination has to be done to determine these pertinent questions, such as who was there/here then before we will be satisfied by the council and the käwana theory. A site stratification methodology would help in this regard as it could go down thirty feet or however far we determine it to go, as ten inches could represent one generation, this way we will be able to look back into the 12th century and earlier thus adding to the knowledge of this area and of our people and how they lived, which on many fronts we seriously lack conclusive documented evidence of. But if what I think you are trying to imply in this instance is that our rights as the tangata whenua of this area have been extinguished by te ati awa, then that is incorrect. So for all intents and purposes and so as not to offend the tenths trust, te ati awa or anyone, having the site examined by indigenous Iwi archaeologists at this point is the only way to assure the people.

Others iwi were there then too (Best: 1916: 45-67) some came later (Ballara: 1987). Where the central business district is, Lambton quay, kaiwharawhara, jervois quay etc., are many marae, three major marae spring to mind these were huge marae covering the entire wellington city central business district, up te aro street, brooklyn hill, karori, mt vic, newtown, island bay rongotai etc. The te aro pa was the principal marae at the time what with its easy access to the water and its huge beach for the thousands of waka the whakaminenga had at its command. So by then I doubt whether in the short time te ati awa were in the area after the te amiowhenua expedition that they could have ruled the area by 1839, that is against tikanga. That is unless they want to admit to some genocidal practices which can even today under international court of justice rules not be precluded as evidence in a claim of genocide from those times by other people. An account which I seriously do not believe happened anyway as we only have the evidence of some highly imaginative pakeha who wanted all the natives rounded up and shot, which the settlers of the time duly set about doing in the upper south island. Ngati Tama could claim mana whenua rights at te aro as much as te ati awa or to those that you state can, even our ancestors Rangitane could lay claim to the same area, in fact if we did a stratified examination we would proabaly find evidence of them more than anyone else. So when we see a desecration of our ancestral lands being perpetrated in front of our very eyes we don’t get hoha we try to get even.

There has never been any evidence found to date that conclusively proves that those huts were built by te ati awa alone, nor that the rest of the site, which has been conveniently covered over with 2005 sand, does not have evidence that conclusively proves that there are any artefacts that could be of interest to us. It would seem much more feasible that the huts could have been built by the hundreds of other Iwi and hapu that were here at the time. The amounts of people living on the site and in the te aro environs if you discount pakeha evidence and search out Iwi sources like Hohepa Te Rake, David Simmons, and others that there were other tribes resident in the te aro region, in fact there were hundreds of different Iwi groups, hapu, whanau, individuals and whangai living here. Also it is well evidenced that Iwi society was a highly developed anarchist society, therefore the land the resources of the land belonged to everyone or to the local whakaminenga never to individuals people, tribes Iwi hapu or whanau. The only evidence to show that the land belonged to taranaki whanui exclusively applies if you go along with the colonial governments claims, that the land belonged to terauparaha and was secured by him to te ati awa and others who kept a kaitangata siege of the land launched from kapiti for close to thirty years, just before wakefield illegally bought the land thereby confirming your claims to the land, and only because te ati awa, ngati toa, raukawa ruanui and ngati tama people were there to receive the goods wakefield left on the beach all the rest of the tribes in the area did not want anything to do with the perapatetic pakeha.

Engari, that is not the issue here, it just seems ludicrous that because these sacred sites, and for many of us thats exactly what this refers to, a "sacred Iwi site" can be callously disregarded not only by the kaitiaki of the land te ati awa or the tenths trust or whoever, the land developers and the city council in approving the resource consents. This will destroy any evidence of our existence in this part of the country and it will destroy our chance for us to test the tenths trusts theory, or to test any theory as to who the land belongs to. It will even destroy any chance of us finding artefacts of interest to us, these could be adzes, hair ties, pins, utensils, fish-hooks whatever, these will be lost if we allow this blatant abuse of sacred Iwi sites to go unchallenged. Also, I do not trust the archaeologists that are presently swarming over wellington building sites, how do we know they are not withholding evidence from the bypass sites and other building sites all around the city, and what artefacts have they shoved under the carpet so as to not delay theie bosses building projects. What have they left lurking below the surface never to be seen by us its children, they are being paid by the developers surely that’s a conflict of interest. So we want to know who was there before your tupuna, and who was there before my tupuna, also we want to know anything else of that nature that can be found at the site, because ignorance is not bliss. Case study: Archaeologists in Iraq in the 1930's uncovered the city of Nineveh after the indigenous people demanded that the developers get off some land, where they had uncovered some old workers huts, so the developers archaeologists were sent away and the indigenous archaeologists were bought in, it took them thirty years to fully excavate the site but they got to the main discovery of the find the thousands of papyrus manuscripts that were found in the libraries of ninevah. These were written in such an ancient language that even today they have not been translated. This find may be of a similar magnitude, how will we know if we do not take this chance to see what may have existed on the site, to me it is craziness not to investigate, and the tenths trust should provide us with the means to do this and to assist us if we have to launch an occupation of the site. So as soon as we are satisfied we will persist in occuppying any sites which may contain evidence of our people, so what do say you te ati awa me nga tangata whenua, shall we examine the site I’m in are you, never mind trying to sweep this under the carpet.

Geoffrey Karena

My father used to tell the (serious) joke about a developer who dug up his grandmother's grave to put in a sewer.
Trust developers and their city council mates? Sure can't.

i send my tautoko wano and hope to come in person i was at the ngawha protest it is all about money it doesnt matter what we do or what our tupunas did in the past they will never admit their wrong so go hard wano kia kaha i will remember you all and our wano protesting all over aotearoa in my prayers god bless us all and our beautiful country aotearoa

dhghj h fh