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Posts Tagged ‘Tipene O’Regan’

‘Our ultimate duty’

In 1991, Tipene O’Regan stood before New Zealand’s leading historians and delivered the J. C. Beaglehole Lecture. It was a pivotal time. The dust had barely settled on the sesquicentenary of signing Te Tiriti and the government had granted the Waitangi Tribunal retrospective powers of enquiry a mere six years earlier.
Difficult questions were being asked of those who researched, wrote and taught New Zealand history; members of Tipene’s audience chief amongst them. Then, as now, these people were overwhelmingly Pākehā. And they were being variously called out for “white-washing” New Zealand history – which is to say continuing to exclude the Māori past – and cultural appropriation – which is to say “doing” Māori history.

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6th October 2021
Posted under: Pānui

Ngāi Tahu welcomes Southland aquaculture settlement

The signing of an aquaculture agreement between Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu (Te Rūnanga), Te Ohu Kaimoana, and the Government, delivers on the Crown’s settlement obligations and creates opportunities for Ngāi Tahu to undertake marine farming in Murihiku. Ngāi Tahu has been advocating for its rights in the marine aquaculture sector since the 1992 fisheries…

Strategic wetland returned to iwi ownership

Awarua rūnaka has turned the clock back on land lost to the Crown with the strategic purchase of a pivotal 404-hectare sheep and beef farm in the heart of the internationally-recognised Awarua/Waituna wetlands, widely regarded as one of the last remaining expanses of relatively unmodified wetlands left in Aotearoa.

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26th March 2021
Posted under: Pānui

Partnership to protect and conserve archival taonga celebrated

The Ngāi Tahu Archive Team and Te Rua Mahara o te Kāwanatanga Archives New Zealand have formally cemented their partnership with a celebration held at the Archives New Zealand facility in Ōtautahi today. The partnership sees the Ngāi Tahu Archive team and most of their archival collections being based and stored at the state-of-the-art, purpose-built…

6th February 2021
Posted under: Pānui

Waitangi Day commemorated at Te Rau Aroha Marae

An estimated 500 people from throughout Murihiku, Ōtākou and around Aotearoa have today commemorated Waitangi Day at Te Rau Aroha Marae in Awarua Bluff. Manuhiri – including Deputy Chief of Navy Commodore Melissa Ross (on behalf of the Governor General), Minister of Housing Hon Megan Woods, Minister of Agriculture Hon Damien O’Connor, mayors, and other…

A treasure house for future generations

On 6 December 1978, a small group of Ngāi Tahu representatives gathered in the Library Committee Room at the University of Canterbury. Ngaitahu Māori Trust Board representative for Te Ika-a-Māui and inaugural Ngaitahu Research Fellow, Tipene O’Regan, addressed the room.
“My motive in taking some steps towards this day and towards this archive are that primarily our people should have a secured and protected treasure house for future generations.”

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Battling it out in court: the litigation phase in the Ngāi Tahu Treaty settlement negotiation

In November 1994, an interim settlement had been offered to Ngāi Tahu. Negotiators took the offer back to the iwi, and it was rejected. The offer proposed that Ngāi Tahu receive freehold title to Rarotoka Island (in Foveaux Strait) but with the imposition of a marginal strip, and also receive title to Tūtaepatu Lagoon near Woodend Beach in Canterbury. Also, $10 million worth of land-banked properties were offered in exchange for a revised land bank system.

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Marae Kitchen to Tribunal Hearing – Our Settlement Journey

The death of Riki Te Mairaki Ellison (Uncle Riki) in 1984 was a watershed moment for many Ngāi Tahu. It started a torrent of Ngāi Tahu deaths, as he gathered his large ope to accompany him on his journey ki tua o te ārai. This ope included my grandmother Kui Kamo (née Whaitiri), who had been his kaikaranga at Rehua Marae in life, and would now become his kaikaranga in death. I recall Aunty Rima Bell at Tuahiwi saying the deaths would only stop when a baby joined the ope – and that appears to have been what happened. Many kaumātua at the time also stated the deaths were the first of many payments that Ngāi Tahu would be forced to make as the long journey to justice for its treaty claims neared an end.

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Uncle Charlie
A Man for his People

It is unlikely that you can have a discussion about the Ngāi Tahu Settlement without hearing stories about Charles Crofts (Ngāti Huikai, Ngāi Tūāhuriri), or as most of the iwi know him, Uncle Charlie. As Charlie tells it, it was the “luck of the draw” that he was Kaiwhakahaere of Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu at the time of settlement. However, as we speak in the home he shares with his wife Meri, eating mousetraps and sipping on tea, it becomes clear that there was more than just luck at play. Charlie is a man who was always going to do great things.

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