Youth from the Maripi Tuatini leadership programme look down over the lower Whangaehu Valley from a prominent pā site.
Youth from the Maripi Tuatini leadership programme look down over the lower Whangaehu Valley from a prominent pā site.
Iwi organisation Te Rūnanga o Ngā Wairiki - Ngāti Apa has secured $249,999 in government funding for its “Pou Kōrero: Speaking For Our Ancestors” initiative.
Group chief executive Grant Huwyler said it was a simple project.
“We’ve started researching and trying to recapture what we call our mātauranga - our traditional knowledge base,” he said.
“That really began in the 1990s, if you think about Treaty settlements and all of that sort of thing, so it’s been a long-term strategy to capture information.
“We are at a phase now where it’s more the act of restoration.”
That involved recreating that knowledge in a way that worked in the present day, Huwyler said.
Pou Kōrero would establish a group of rangitahi (youth) to be “expert holders in korero for specific sites”.
“Dotted around our tribal area are some sites that are probably of more general interest than others, so it’s about finding them and promoting them,” he said.
“We’ve started 3D modelling of certain high-profile sites in the rohe [territory] and getting graphics done to try and restore an understanding of what those sites would have looked like in our prehistory.
“The project even covers things like the creation of waiata - songs - that talk about that site and its history, right through to modern dance, which has been used in our iwi as a way of young people expressing themselves.”
Sites include the Manuriro pā site at the top of Ruatangata Road, Parewanui, and Tawhirihoe - a site on the Rangitīkei River where Te Tiriti o Waitangi was signed.
The money comes courtesy of the Te Pūnaha Hihiko: Vision Mātauranga Capability Fund, which is administered by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE).
It is designed to strengthen capability, capacity, skills and networks between Māori and the science and innovation system.
A lot of hard work by a small group of people had gone into forming the research team, Huwyler said.
Grant Huwyler says the project has ongoing since the 1990s. Photo / Bevan Conley
“It’s really rewarding to be able to receive these grants, deliver these projects, and see where they take us.
“A big thing for us that’s sitting in the background is the protection of our remaining archaeology. When you think about the 2004 floods, a lot of that archaeology was no longer visible on the surface anymore, it was all filled up with silt.”
Some parts of the country struggled more than others when it came to retaining and protecting their heritage, and the Rangitīkei district was one of them, Huwyler said.
“We see ourselves having a particular role to do that, especially for our iwi obviously, but not in isolation to the rest of the community.
“Heritage as a whole needs some attention here, bearing in mind most of our [iwi’s] rohe is in Rangitīkei.”
He said the iwi had been blessed with strong leadership, and that had helped with the Pou Korero project.
“There’s Pahia [Turia], who has been involved for a long time, Adrain Rurawhe played a key role throughout our settlement process and he’s now down in Parliament, and we’ve always had Aunty Tari [Tariana Turia] in the background as an inspirational figure.
“If you go back in our history, it’s people like T.W. Ratana and many other, lesser-known figures.”
Maripi Tuatini, an iwi-funded initiative, was preparing the next generation of leaders, he said.
“That’s about getting people immersed in their Nga Wairiki Ngati Apa identities and history.
