The question of how to remember Taranaki's history

Thursday, 4 February 2021

Hamish Crimp and Ivan Bruce of Heritage Taranaki would like to see a discussion take place about how to remember the region’s armed conflicts.

Thirty years after the colonial soldier that sat atop New Plymouth’s “New Zealand Wars” memorial was smashed in protest, calls are being made for new ways to remember the history of the conflicts.

But there are differing cultural philosophies on whether that involves a new memorial on top of Pūkākā or some other form of education that brings the story of Taranaki’s history to the present.

The smashing of the soldier was a radical protest at the time, but the fact the broken trooper has not been restored to the plinth even after three decades points to a continued uncertainty on how to remember Taranaki’s war years.

Educationalist Damon Ritai, of Te Ātiawa and Ngāti Te Whiti, said a single monument was a miniscule part of the bigger picture, which is about Taranaki being able to tell its entire story.

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Educationalist Damon Ritai says the issue of how to remember the Taranaki wars is greater than a single monument.

“It’s bigger than a monument. It’s about opening hearts and minds and understanding how we became who we are now,” he said

“But we’ve certainly been having conversations around telling our stories that talk about our ancestors and what they went through and the oral traditions that come with that and how we can ensure that our generation moves forward with the togetherness and kotahitanga.”

Work is already underway to uphold this, Ritai said, referencing the development of Te Whare Hononga (the house that binds) at Taranaki Cathedral Church of St Mary, at the base of Pūkākā, where kōrero will be shared in the community space once it opens.

Discussions are also happening around the redevelopment of historical site Te Kohia Pā, in Brixton, which NPDC bought for $715,000 in 2016.

Options are being canvassed, including creating a visitor information and education facility to talk about the Taranaki wars in both a regional and national setting.

Ritai, who is the Ngāti Te Whiti hapū cultural advisor for the St Mary’s project, said the much wider focus was on educating people on Taranaki’s story and creating understanding.

“It’s how as a region are we going to be able to reconcile and heal what has taken place in the past in order to be able to move forward together.”

The marble soldier atop the New Zealand Wars memorial, pictured in the background, was pulled from the monument on Waitangi Day in 1991.

That is exactly what Hamish Crimp, a Heritage Taranaki volunteer, also wants to achieve. For him, a monument could be one thing that helps people move along that path with a shared understanding.

A descendent of soldiers who fought on the European side in the Taranaki wars, he is keen for a community conversation on how to memorialise those Māori who battled government forces in the armed conflicts, which began in 1860 at Te Kohia Pā.

“I often wander up Marsland Hill (Pūkākā) and you just feel like there’s something that’s needed to commemorate those Māori who fought and lost their lives for what was really an unjust situation that they found themselves in,” he said.

Some Māori are commemorated on the memorial’s stone plinth. They are collectively termed “loyal Māori” on the memorial, meaning they fought with the Europeans against other Māori.

Crimp believes an entirely new monument erected at Pūkākā – the former pa site in the middle of the city that was for years known as Marsland Hill and where imperial regiments stationed in Taranaki were barracked – would serve as a tangible reminder of the pain and suffering of the past and potentially open a healing dialogue.

If that’s not possible he would like to see an interpretation of the history of the Taranaki conflicts available onsite.

Currently, a sign at the hill’s entrance mentions a stone soldier was pulled from the top of the war memorial but doesn’t go into the background issues that influenced the political activism, Crimp said.

“What really needs to happen is a lot more interpretation around that signage and particularly examining the role of Māori and the unjust nature of land confiscation.”

The sculpture has not been returned to his plinth since being smashed off in 1991.

Unveiled in 1909, the memorial was one of many erected across the province in the decades following the land wars, primarily telling the European side of the brutal conflicts.

But 82 years later, in the early hours of Waitangi Day in 1991, members of the Waitangi Action Alliance of Taranaki pulled the life-sized statue of the trooper down from the top of the monument.

In its place they erected a sign: “In Remembrance of the Māori people who suffered in the military campaigns – honour the Treaty of Waitangi.”

The torso of the militia trooper that was smashed in protest 30 years ago.

They later told media they had smashed the soldier because the monument, which they labelled a symbol of oppression, was a glorification of dishonesty, greed and murder.

Today, what remains of the stone soldier is in temperature controlled storage in the care of the New Plymouth District Council (NPDC).

Now more than 150 years since the wars ended, Heritage Taranaki chair Ivan Bruce said Māori are still highly underrepresented in war monuments.

In respect of that, the matter of the Pūkākā memorial, publicly-owned and listed as a Category A heritage item, comes up a lot within the organisation.

“The issue with that particular monument is the language is not particularly inclusive and as a result of it, it became a target,” he said.

Bruce doesn’t think there is any appetite to remove what remains and says the only real option is to look to erect something all-encompassing in the area.

“There’s certainly space and there are a number of other monuments on it too, so it’s not like having another would be unseemly.”

Any memorial, whatever form it took, would need to be the result of a discussion with iwi, the New Plymouth District Council, and the community, he said.

“Things can be rethought, and reimagined and relooked at,” Bruce said, pointing out a current exhibition at New Plymouth’s Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Tai Moana Tai Tangata.

The show exhibits the super-sized sculptures of artist Brett Graham, of Ngāti Koroki-Kahukura and Tainui, and considers colonisation through the lens of tangata whenua.

Iwi Te Ātiawa and Ngāti Te Whiti hapū, whose areas of interest include Pūkākā, declined the opportunity to comment on the matter.

NPDC principal adviser strategic projects Kelvin Day said the council had been in talks with the Ministry for Culture and Heritage, which normally cares for war memorials, about the future of the Pūkākā monument.

“While we have no specific plans at this stage we’re open to feedback and ideas,” Day said in an emailed statement.

“It’s important that any ideas are discussed and decided with iwi/hapū, as it’s a site of major cultural significance.”