Tribal friendship sealed with pou blessing

Carvers Noel McAllister and Dean Flavey (right) in front of Te Aroha pou.

Centuries of inter-tribe friendship were sealed on Saturday with the unveiling of Te Aroha carved pou in Waihi.

The Maori-owned Te Aroha dairy farm was gifted to Tuhourangi iwi from Te Arawa (Rotorua) after the volcanic eruption of Mount Tarawera on June 10, 1886.

Tikanga expert Pouroto Ngaropo said the pou recognises the connection between iwi from Hauraki and Rotorua.

"Our ancestor Tuhourangi migrated with his children, eventually to the thermal area in Rotorua. Later on, they settled near Lake Tarawera and became part of the local people."
After the eruption of 1886, Tuhourangi people were left landless.

"The survivors saw their homes, cultivation and all way of life destroyed ... They had nowhere to go," he said.

The survivors of Tuhourangi split into two branches. One is still living in Rotorua at Whakarewarewa village and the other settled in Waihi.

Two local iwi, Ngati Maru and Ngati Tamatera, offered Tuhourangi people a piece of land in Old Tauranga Rd.

The iwi from Hauraki gifted the land because of inter-marriage connections between the Rotorua and Hauraki iwi.

"Three of Tuhourangi's daughters-in-law were from here [Hauraki]," Pouroto said.

Carver and Tuhourangi descendant Dean Flavey says the pou represents an act of love.

"Te Aroha is the name of this farmland but it is also the act of love, to have received the gift of this land."

Pouroto said that stepping into Te Aroha farm was "coming back home."

Nowadays, many of the Tuhourangi people who left Rotorua are settled in Te Puke.