Nga Tamatoa reunion sparks nostalgia

Toro Waaka with a copy of the original Maori language petition signed by members of Nga Tamatoa

Reuniting with old members of the 1970s Maori activist group Nga Tamatoa bought back memories for founding member Toro Waaka.

"We were the catylsy that re-awakened Maori to the fact that they had their own identity and langauge and we had our own values and only we could saves ourselves from colonisation."

"But we had to be cautious, the police knew who you were, when we had meetings we had them in parks – no walls."

Waaka has a copy of the original Maori Language petition and was able to get some of the original Nga Tamatoa members to sign it.

"John Ohia, Tame Iti, Hone Harawira and his wife there are heaps of signatures, about 15 people I'd say."

In 1972 Nga Tamatoa handed over a petition of over 30,000 signatures to parliament that supported the teaching of Maori language and culture in schools, followed by three weeks of protest on parliament grounds.

"It was hard to form the roopu, sometimes our biggest opposition is our people when we were going around with the language petition it was our people trying to beat us because they thought we were causing trouble between them and their pakeha friends."

Each member was given a portfolio such as land, labour industry, education, communications and Waaka was given the social problems portfolio.

The group emerged from the grounds of Auckland University in 1969 and lobbied for Maori rights making a name for themselves as an uprising for all things Maori.

"I was just a kid from the country, but we all had these influences in our life when you see the wrong so when I got to Auckland Taura Eruera, he was really one who pulled us together in the formalisation."

"There was the odd European that supported us as well, not formally in terms of the organisation but guys like James K Baxter, he usually turned up when there was a protest to show solidarity."

"We used to support as many Maori kaupapa as we could," says Waaka "but it never really came to an end."

When the group split ways, the intention was to go back to their own areas to try and make change.

"We went up north and the others went back to their areas and we infiltrated ourselves back into our own tribes and hapu."

The reunion was held at Waikato University in September and was an opportunity to catch up with other members, and to talk about what happened in those days to the next generation.