Exhibition Tino Rangatiratanga2 - 1970sprotestphotos

Exhibition: Tino Rangatiratanga

‘Toitu te kupu, toitu te mana, toitu te whenua’

I have a special association to this word Toitu—it links us directly to one of our tupuna, Tinirau.He left us the challenge: Toitu te kupu; toitu te mana; toitu te whenua. His words carry a deep understanding—a call to hold fast to our culture, for without our language; without the land;without the spirit of being tangata whenua; our essence would be diminished.’ (Tariana Turia MP, speech to Toitu Maori Leadership Summit, 10 July 2012.)

Photographs

Members of the Storm Troopers, an Ōtara gang, keep to their side of the line during one of the first major protests of the 1970s to take place on the treaty grounds at Waitangi on 6 February 1972. The Waitangi Tribunal was set up in 1975 to remedy breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi.

JOHN M MILLER

Tame Iti on the steps of Parliament in November 1972 as part of Ngā Tamatoa’s Māori tent embassy. Tāme had been arrested in March that year for trespass in Parliament grounds when he set up a tent to serve as an embassy for Māori.

JOHN M MILLER

The Māori language petition is delivered to Parliament on 14 September 1972, asking for active recognition of te reo Māori. Ngā Tamatoa and Te Reo Māori Society, along with Te Huinga Rangatahi (the New Zealand Māori Students’ Association), gathered 30,000 signatures from across Aotearoa and delivered it to Parliament with the support of many kaumātua.

STUFF LIMITED

Māori Language Week in 1973 culminated in three hours of pōwhiri, whaikōrero, waiata and discussion in the Victoria University Union Hall. Many distinguished Māori elders and religious leaders were present.

KEITH STEWART

Members of Te Reo Māori Society perform a waiata in Parliament’s Māori Affairs committee room during Māori Language week in September 1973. The Society presented a letter to the Minister of Education calling for bi-lingual schooling throughout New Zealand for all New Zealanders, Māori and Pākehā. From left, Rāwiri Rangitauira, John McCaffery, Peter McLean, Robert Pouwhare, unidentified, Hēmi Pōtatau, Rangi Nicholson, Teri McIntyre, Whaimutu Dewes, Alice Coromandel, Piahana Tamahori.

KEITH STEWART

The Māori Land March reaches Porirua from Te Hāpua in the far North in October 1975 with Whina Cooper (centre front row of march), leading. A memorial of rights signed by 60,000 people was prepared and presented to Prime Minister Bill Rowling at Parliament, asking that all statutes that could alienate land be repealed and remaining tribal land be invested in Māori in perpetuity.

HILARY WATSON

Protestors with banner ‘Return Takaparawhā to Ngāti Whātua Bastion Point Not For Sale’ during their 506-day Bastion Point (Takaparawhā) occupation in 1977-78 to win back their ancestral land. Over time, through negotiations and a successful treaty claim, Bastion Point was returned to Ngāti Whātua.

GIL HANLY

Eva Rickard leads the occupation of Raglan Golf Course in February 1978, with 250 members of the Tainui-a-Whiro tribe and their allies. The government had taken the land from Māori during the Second World War to use as a military airfield and later made it a public golf course. The land was returned to its Māori owners in 1987.

JOHN M MILLER

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