And Armed Constabulary actions against Maori were continuing, even during World War I. On April 2, 1916, about 60 constables (20 were armed) rode into Maungapohatu to arrest Rua Kenana. A gun battle followed, leaving two Maori dead -- "the last shots fired in the New Zealand Wars", one year after Gallipoli.
Land wars veterans were quickly forgotten. Many had come from overseas, and returned home when the fighting was over, while others became farmers, disappearing into the hinterlands as military settlers, working scratch and unbroken landscapes. Not all succeeded; many walked off their lands and returned home.
Maori veterans also withdrew to their papakainga, often facing economic and cultural ruin.
Because the veterans were few and scattered, a Land Wars veterans' association did not really develop, but some did get together in areas such as New Plymouth and Whanganui where monies were collected to build monuments to the wars.
For example, after a successful public response, a statue was erected on Marsland Hill, New Plymouth, one of the few such monuments in this country. In the 1990s, a Maori Wars Memorial was mooted by Auckland Museum, but the idea floundered because Maori were, at best, ambivalent.
Lawyer Grant Sharrock, who represents current Maori war veterans, has called for the families of Land Wars veterans to gather, on both sides, in remembrance of their ancestors who served and died on our own soil -- a new NZ Land Wars Veterans' Association?
Sharrock sees this as an act of reconciliation. The battlefield of Ohaeawai, in the Far North, bears this out. Here, a British attack on the fortified pa on July 1, 1845, left 41 soldiers dead. The Nga Puhi defenders ultimately withdrew, taking most of their casualties with them.
When the missionaries later cleared the field of the dead, Maori and pakeha were buried together in several graves.
In the 1870s, all of the dead were exhumed and reburied in a common grave alongside St Michael's Church, which now stands on the battlefield -- former antagonists lying together as an act of reconciliation.
Such reconciliation has been the constant theme urged upon us by groups like the Waitangi Tribunal, ever since the days of Justice Eddie Durie's outstanding leadership. Noted Treaty historians such as Claudia Orange have long argued that, as the claims were settled, Maori would move into a space where commemorations of past uncertain histories would be possible.
Ms Orange sees this as a "Maori renationalism" or reclaiming of the landscapes and papakainga, and their histories, within new and challenging milieu for Maori encompassing economic development and cultural regeneration, all founded on a widespread desire for national reconciliation shared by Maori and Pakeha.
A New Zealand Land Wars Day will provide great impetus in making this possible.
�Danny Keenan is a Whanganui-based Maori historian with a PhD in history. His research area of interest is political history, especially Maori and the state in the 19th century.
