KEY POINTS:
The rebuilding of a palisade at Okahu Bay that dated from 1943 brought to life the ashes of Ngati Whatua o Orakei history over the weekend.
The project is a joint effort by artist Fiona Jack, the iwi and a TVNZ documentary arts show taking NZ artists to communities to create art.
During World War II a 100m palisade was put up around the papakainga, the home of Ngati Whatua o Orakei. The tribe had gone from controlling the Tamaki isthmus in 1840 to being squeezed by urban encroachment and Crown-sanctioned land loss on to the last remaining block of their tribal land, at Okahu Bay.
Ngati Whatua heritage manager Ngarimu Blair said that made the tribe one of the most landless in the country.
"We were seeing the total wave of the Crown's desire for our land washing over us."
The 2m manuka, kanuka and totara fence was put up to hold on to a way of life and maintain some privacy.
"Our whare tupuna [meeting house] used to be down on the park.
"You can imagine trying to conduct a tangi and all the traffic on Tamaki Drive and pedestrians having a look."
Kaumatua Grant Hawke remembers the palisade timbers burning with the "torching" of the marae, Te Puru o Tamaki, as the National Government used the Public Works Act to confiscate the land, demolish homes and evict about 100 hapu members in the early 1950s.
He believes the original fence going up was more about shielding the "eyesore" from those who complained to the council about living conditions, which included tin shacks and no running water. But families lived like that because the council wouldn't extend wastewater facilities to the pa, he said.
But living behind the fence in that community also made for some of the richest times of his life.
Fiona Jack said the project was about exploring ideas about land ownership, and Auckland's history lent itself to that.
"It's such a dense urban city and we have this conflicted, dark but amazing history, it's amazing to bring it to life."
