Tribes make peace over sacred ground

Press, 16 February 1979, Page 12

Tribes make peace over sacred ground

PA Tauranga A bid by members of the Arawa tribe at Rotorua for ownership of the sacred Mount Moehau reserve at the northern end of the Coromandel Peninsula, could have led to “the closest we would ever get to tribal war,” according to a Hauraki Maori elder. However, it appears that the Hauraki Maoris will retain ownership of the 60ha reserve after an amicable agreement at a Maori Land Court hearing on the Pai-O-Hauraki marae at Paeroa. The application from the Arawa Trust Board for the mountain to be reserved as the ' burial place of the first Arawa chief, Tama Te Kapoa, was opposed by the Hauraki elders, who had tentatively agreed only to Arawa representation on a board of control. According to a local elder, Mr Shu Tukukino, about 100 people from Rotorua, Waikato, Whakatane, Tauranga, and Hauraki spent three hours discussing the issue before the Maori Land Court hearing, presided over by Judge K. B. Cull. The court hearing has been transferred from the Thames courthouse to the marae at the request of the people. Mr Tukukino described, as "unanimous and

amiable” an agreement reached that Mount Moehau should be reserved in favour of the Marutuahu (Hauraki) people for the benefit and use of the descendants of Tama Te Kapua. Previously, the Arawa people had applied for the mountain to be vested in them on the grounds that Tama Te Kapua, captain of the Arawa canoe, was buried there. Submissions were made to the court by Mr H. Rogers, chairman of the Arawa Trust Board; Mr Kingi A Tenga, of Rotorua; Mr R. Mahutu, of Waikato; and Mr Tukukino, of Thames. The people agreed that a board of trustees should be set up, comprised of representatives from each of the four main Hauraki tribes, the Arawa, and the Tainui people. Mr Tukukino said that Judge Cull would now make a report to the chief judge at Rotorua before a decision was made. The hearing was a most interesting background, as the Hauraki elders only a few years ago, informed the Arawa people of their chief’s burial on the mountain, a fact unknown to the Arawa Trust Board until they checked with Arawa elders. A few years ago, Mr Tukukino, then a member of the Coromandel Forest Park Advisory Committee, personally informed the

Arawa Trust Board of Tama Te Kapua’s burial on the mountain. He was concerned about plans to put a walking track on the edge of the reserve and felt that more formal reserving was necessary to protect the sacred ground. Until they checked with Arawa elders the trust members had been unaware that the chief was buried on the mountain. Apparently Tama Te Papua, who captained the Arawa canoe in the Great Migration, did not leave his people in good standing. At present, Mount Moehau is vested in the Ngati Tamatera people of the Paeroa area through their ancestry. The mountain is of great importance to the Hauraki people as the figurative prow of the Ngati Hei and Ngati Huarere which ends at Te Aroha. The original Arawa application to the court sought to have the succession orders cancelled and replaced by ownership in favour of Tama Te Kapua, a burial ground being reserved for common use and benefit of the Arawa and vested in the trust. Some time ago, Arawa elders made an aerial survey of the mountain after plans for a pilgrimage by about 60 Arawa people were dropped because ol the rugged access to the burial ground.