KEY POINTS:
Te Papa has quite a collection of flags and through their symbols and colours they tell a crucial part of the history of this nation.
The flags are Maori resistance flags, many dating from the 1850s, and they speak a powerful visual language, imbued with spirituality and layers of meaning.
The Tino Rangatiratanga flag, says Dr Huhana Smith, artist and senior curator Maori at Te Papa, is simply the latest flag in a long line of resistance flags.
While you may not know the flags at Te Papa, you probably know the Tino Rangatiratanga flag. It is black and red with a white koru design across the middle.
This is the flag flown high and proud on hikoi and at Waitangi in the Bay of Islands each Waitangi Day, where Maori protest groups and the Crown have so often clashed.
The words "tino rangatiratanga" roughly mean self-determination. The flag, emerging out of the Maori political movement of the 1970s and 1980s and the era's land marches and land occupations such as Bastion Point, has become an icon of Maori sovereignty.
Smith says that though this flag is an icon of the political movement, like the resistance flags of old, there is much more to it and it need not be seen as divisive.
The flag captures the public's attention around this time of year as Maori call for the flag to be allowed to fly on the Auckland Harbour Bridge on Waitangi Day.
Usually, the answer is no and this year Transit New Zealand again refused.
But this year also marks a significant change.
The Maori Party has become part of the National-led coalition government and Prime Minister John Key has said he has no problem with a Maori flag being flown - not just from the harbour bridge but also from Parliament.
But not this year. Key has told Maori Party co-leader Pita Sharples, who is also Minister of Maori Affairs in the coalition government, to consult with Maori to see if a consensus can be reached on which Maori flag should fly.
Smith says those who object to the Tino Rangatiratanga flag should look beyond so-called protest actions to the meaning of the flag itself. It makes an enormous difference to the way you look at a flag, she says, when you know its meaning and the Tino Rangatiratanga flag is actually a beautiful and positive symbol.
Tino rangatiratanga doesn't have to be considered at the continuum of radicalism or rebellion, she says.
There are many levels of self-determination.
"I mean, tino rangatiratanga can be defined as a Maori family determining that the unhealthy lifestyles end with this generation and we're going to be moving into healthy lifestyles. That's also a form of tino rangatiratanga."
The flag, she says, is based on Maori concepts and spirituality. The black of the flag represents Te Kore, the realm of potential being.
"Now that's a fantastic conceptual space to be in. It's all about potential and potential is usually positive, so it's that positive potential of coming into being. It could be the birth of a child, a seed blossoming into an apple tree, something like that."
The black encapsulates the notion of the long darkness from which the world emerges, representing the heavens and the male element, which is formless, floating and passive.
The white is Te Ao Marama, the realm of being and light, of coming into the world of light, the physical world.
"It symbolises purity, harmony, enlightenment, balance and air rising, so you can get this feeling that this is quite cool."
The koru shape is the unfolding of new life, where everything is reborn and continues, and the red represents Te Whei Ao, which is the realm of coming into being.
"So that's female, active, flashing, it's almost like it's yelling, it's calling, it's emergent, it's all about forest, land, gestation, spirals..."
The whole flag, says Smith, is about renewal and hope for the future.
The resistance flags she cares for at Te Papa also have such intricacies of meaning.
These flags were used through the difficult periods around the Land Wars, different flags in different tribal areas, and show what was happening in terms of the changing power base in the country.
In the 1850s and 1860s more and more settlers were coming and the pressure for land was intense.
"By the 1860s the flag becomes much more a flag of resistance and there are burnings of the Union Jack and there are flags fluttering as symbols of defiance against the Crown and they're springing up around the country."
Flags are a visual symbol, says Smith, capturing succinct messages in a simple form using fabric and colour so they can be viewed from distances.
Iwi and hapu groups would raise flags to indicate to others what their intentions were.
Especially famous as symbols of resistance are the flags of the prophet Te Kooti, founder of the Ringatu religion and resistance leader.
The hand-stitched flags represent not just resistance but Te Kooti's religious and spiritual beliefs, a mix of Old Testament stories and Maori beliefs.
The flags, Smith says, have vital stories to tell which chart our history, just as the Tino Rangatiratanga flag does.
If people were to look at the cultural context of where Maori and Pakeha have come from in this country, the symbolism would not be threatening, she thinks.
Pita Sharples thinks the right to fly a Maori flag on the harbour bridge has been a long time coming.
He thinks it has been hard for people to get their head around that this is not a divisive statement but rather is about unity.
Waitangi Day is the day the Treaty was signed, "the day, if you like, of our first immigration document inviting people from England and Europe to come and live in this country and I think that's one of the reasons why perhaps Maori's partnership in this treaty can be highlighted.
"What better way than to actually acknowledge Maori by flying their flag and seeing it as a coming together and moving forward."
Sharples likes the Tino Rangatiratanga flag but says he has an open mind and will see what flag Maori want.
And though he prefers a change of design for the country's national flag, flying the Tino Rangatiratanga is not about criticising the national one.
"The New Zealand flag is the accepted flag and it represents Maori, Pakeha and the newest Chinese and Somalian that's arrived.
"That wasn't the issue. The issue was this is a special day, a Treaty-signing day where Maori were sort of the majority and signed that treaty to allow for a minority to come into the country and live with us."
Flags stir strong passions around the world and in this country, it seems whenever the Tino Rangatiratanga flag is mentioned debate follows over whether the country's national flag represents the nation today.
Two camps emerge: those who want to change the national flag and those who do not.
Interestingly, at Waitangi, at the spot where the Treaty was signed, two flags fly.
One is the national flag which has been in use since 1902. It has the Union Jack in the top left corner and four red stars representing the southern cross.
The other flag is a flag which pre-dates the Treaty itself.
It is Te Hakituatahi o Aotearoa, otherwise known as the flag of the United Tribes of New Zealand.
In actuality it is not specifically a Maori flag but rather the first national flag of New Zealand and some say we don't need a new national flag, we just need to return to the old one.
The flag has a red cross representing the British and a blue quarter representing an island surrounded by sea.
Within the blue quarter are four stars with eight points, representing the four corners of the earth, an acknowledgement by the Maori chiefs who voted for the design of the other cultures already living here, including Maori, English, Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish. The flag was chosen in 1834 and the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1835.
When the Treaty was signed in 1840 the United Tribes flag was replaced by the Union Jack, and flag wars began almost immediately.
Hone Heke argued the United Tribes flag should fly alongside the Union Jack and Governor Hobson's refusal was one of the reasons for Heke's repeated chopping down of the flagstaff at Kororareka (Russell) in the Bay of Islands.
Art historian Hamish Keith advocates strongly for the return of the United Tribes flag as the national flag. He flies it from his house in Auckland and says someone asks him every day what the flag is.
The flag is one of the oldest sovereign flags in the world, he says, and it is the first flag of New Zealand.
"It was the New Zealand flag representing everybody that lived here ... it's the flag of independence, the independent sovereign state of New Zealand and nothing to do with any other countries at all."
The flag is clean and sharp - and uniquely ours, he says.
