Nick Tupara, Ngāti Oneone representative speaks to The New Zealand Herald about the removal of the statue of Captain Cook from Kaiti Hill above Gisborne.
As statues representing colonial and racist figures are toppled worldwide historians urge Kiwis to reflect on the place of those in their own backyards.
This week the statue of 17th century slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol was pulled down by Black Lives Matter protesters, following a rally against the death of African American George Floyd and racial injustice.
In Aotearoa/New Zealand hundreds of statues depicting colonial history are scattered across the country with little or no balance with Māori history, along with streets and places even named after slave traders who never set foot here, and city grids in the shape of the Union Jack in mainly Māori towns conquered by British forces.
In Doubtless Bay, a plaque was once installed near a marae to honour French explorer Jean-François-Marie de Surville. The problem was, nobody asked mana whenua Ngāti Kahu.
After drifting into the area on the tail end of a cyclone in the late 1700s, Ngāti Kahu helped nurse De Surville's sick crewmen back to health.
But he took offence at a perceived slight and retaliated, ransacking the papakainga, burning their nikau whare and kidnapping a rangatira who was never seen again.
So when a descendant stumbled across the plaque one day a few decades ago, the hapū decided "no way are we keeping that here", iwi leader and Māori studies Professor Margaret Mutu said.
"Our tūpuna had asked and asked for an apology about the kidnapping, but we never got one. Then a plaque was installed to honour him, without even asking us."
It is not the only plaque or statue installed without their consideration, and Ngāti Kahu is far from alone.
'Crook Cook'
In Gisborne in 1969 a statue depicting Captain James Cook was installed on Titirangi to commemorate 200 years since he and his crew arrived in Tūranganui-a-Kiwa.
Titirangi is a maunga sacred to Ngāti Oneone, and the site chosen overlooked the spot where Māori and Pākehā first encountered each other, and where Cook's crew killed nine iwi members following a misunderstanding, including rangatira Te Maro.
"[The statue] was incredibly insulting, and opposed right from the beginning by iwi," says Ngāti Oneone spokesman and artist Nick Tupara.
Nick Tupara of Ngāti Oneone said the iwi had always opposed the statue, which stood atop their sacred maunga Titirangi. Photo / Alan Gibson
In the decades since, protests and petitions to have it removed ensued.
Anger often boiled over into action, with the statue repeatedly vandalised and covered in graffiti.
But it was not until last year, for the 250th commemorations of Cook's arrival in the country, that it was removed.
Today new sculptures stand in its place, produced by Tupara - one of his tupuna Te Maro, and "Crook Cook" is about to be erected in the grounds of Tairāwhiti Museum.
Rather than it being pulled down in dramatic fashion, as has been seen overseas, Tupara said it was good to see the community come to a consensus over a two-year consultation period, even if it had taken nearly 50 years for Māori to be listened to.
"Not everybody was happy, many wanted the statue completely destroyed, but we were keen to continue a cordial relationship.
"It started conversations about our true history. Half the population is Māori here, but there was almost no imagery to reflect that.
"Cook had also only ever been depicted as this heroic figure, and selectively taught about in the curriculum, editing out things like the diseases and abuse and killings his crew brought through the Pacific. His connections with slavery are also rarely discussed."
The statue of Captain Cook when it once stood atop Titirangi, Gisborne. Photo / Alan Gibson
For a time, change in the community, made up roughly of 50 per cent Māori and Pākehā, seemed to be brewing, with the city also opting to change the name of Poverty Bay to dual name Tūranganui-a-Kiwa/Poverty Bay.
But in recent weeks the Gisborne District Council once again come under fire after failing to consult iwi over its decision to install two new Endeavour replica models in the town centre.
Protests today, led by youth, took place, as the council under pressure reversed its decision.
"A lot of people are pretty disappointed," Tupara said.
"It really ran counter to everything we've just been through, like no lessons have been learned."
Mutu says lack of consultation is a large part of the ongoing hurt caused.
"It is a white supremacy thing," Mutu said.
"It is the same attitude that was brought to the 250th commemorations, this belief that they discovered the country, and so they should determine the history."
Nick Tupara's new sculpture depicting tūpuna Te Maro. Photo / File
The place of such colonial statues in Aotearoa today were up to hapū in the areas they stood, Mutu said.
"Some will want them taken down, others will be happy with them remaining provided there is balance and education. But all will want to sit down and have a hui about them."
Tāmaki Makaurau
In Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland statues that have caused controversy include the "Zealandia" sculpture on Wakefield St, celebrating the "brave Pākehā soldiers in the Land Wars and the friendly Māoris".
In 2018 it was targeted by anti-colonial activists who attached an axe to the sculpture's head, claiming the war memorial was an "ode to the violent and brutal occupation of Māori lands".
Another is of Governor Sir George Grey in Albert Park, which pays little homage to troubled relations with Ngāti Whatua, and broader policies in Taranaki, his invasion of Waikato, and the massive confiscation (raupatu) of Māori land which followed.
"The confiscations, in particular, caused decades of bitterness and deep division," his history, according to the Ministry of Culture and Heritage, reads.
But Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei Trust deputy chair Ngarimu Blair said they were not advocating for removing statues, rather a better "balance" of history.
In 2017 calls went out to remove the statue in Ōtāhuhu of Colonel Marmaduke Nixon, who led troops in attacks against Waikato Māori during the New Zealand Wars.
The Nixon Monument memorial to Colonel Marmaduke George Nixon in Ōtāhuhu. Photo / Supplied
In February 1864 he took 1500 colonial troops into the village of Rangiaōwhia, where elderly men, women and children were living, leaving 12 people dead.
Nixon was shot and his troops set alight a building where the last defenders had gathered, said to be the town's church. He died about three months later, in May.
Shane Te Pou started a petition to remove the statue, and it culminated in the descendants of Nixon and his victims entering dialogue over how to appropriately commemorate the history.
Te Pou said he was not now calling for all such statues to be removed, rather for the shared history, and missing tangata whenua narratives, to be included.
"I absolutely understand the frustration that sees these statues toppled.
"But I'd say to the leaders of Aoteaora, we have the opportunity to have that discussion before that happens."
Auckland Council Manager Treaty Settlements John Hutton said new signage would be installed at the Ōtāhuhu memorial later this year.
Not as bad?
Pākehā historian Scott Hamilton said New Zealand had a "strong tendency to define itself as 'not as bad' as other countries" when it came to race relations.
"But there are profound connections to things like the Confederate South," Hamilton said.
Most newspapers at the time of the Civil War were running pro-Confederate material.
The United States film Birth of a Nation was a "massive hit in New Zealand", and there was an "incredible fascination" with the Ku Klux Klan, Hamilton said.
There was also segregation similar to parts of the US in places right into the 1950s.
In 1959 Rongomanu Bennett, a Māori psychiatrist, was refused a beer in the Papakura Tavern.
He began a campaign and made headlines around the world, including in the New York Times which called Papakura "the Little Rock of New Zealand", after the Arkansas city where African Americans were fighting segregation.
Along with statues and plaques, "symbolic warfare" extended to mainly Māori towns conquered during the New Zealand Wars now bearing street names like von Tempsky, named after colonial soldier Gustavus Ferdinand von Tempsky, and even Ngāruawahia's centre streetscape being laid out in the shape of the union jack.
Picton, originally Waitohi, was renamed in 1850 after Sir Thomas Picton, a British Army general and hero of the Battle of Waterloo, but also a notorious slave trader and "Tyrant of Trinidad", a moniker he gained for his brutal regime while serving as a governor on the island. He never set foot in Picton.
Hamilton said rather than get defensive when these histories are challenged, Pākehā could try to identify with other, less divisive, parts of their history.
"Pākehā can try and fight this losing battle defending Cook or the legitimacy of the Waikato War, or they can look to other parts of their history, which might include the many Irish and Scottish migrants who sympathised with and even fought alongside Māori against the British, or supplied ammunition and weapons to Te Kooti, or those who themselves were brought to New Zealand as slaves or in forced labour."
Conversations encouraged
A spokesman for Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Minister of Culture and Heritage, said discussions around such monuments were for iwi and local councils, and decisions that should be made by individual communities.
"It's important we commemorate our past and the Government has recognised the comparative lack of monuments to prominent Māori."
This included funding the statue of Dame Whina Cooper, unveiled this year, and Te Arawiti has funding available to support similar projects.
"Memorials are one way to recognise our past, but a wider history and education programme will be the most effective way to redress any lack of balance in the telling of our national story," the spokesman said.
