Mōkai Pātea Treaty of Waitangi negotiations get under way

Mokai Patea treaty claim negotiators Tracey Hiroa and Richard Steedman both live near Moawhango Marae. Photo / Bevan Conley

After six years of trying to find unity among the claimants, the negotiation of the Mōkai Pātea Treaty of Waitangi claim is under way.

The Crown is meeting the four negotiators every two weeks, either in Rangitīkei or Wellington.

The Mōkai Pātea rohe (area) stretches from the Desert Rd to south of Rātā and from State Highway 1 across to the Ruahine Range, negotiator Richard Steedman said. The Crown called it the Taihape Inquiry Area in respect of Treaty of Waitangi Claims.

Taihape was established in 1905 as a railway town, and named after the Otaihape Stream. Mōkai Pātea is an older name for the wider rohe.

Negotiations are at an early stage, setting ground rules. The four negotiators chosen by the Mōkai Pātea Waitangi Claims Trust (MPWCT) are Steedman, who is also the trust's strategic adviser, Rangitīkei district councillor and Mōkai Pātea services manager Tracey Hiroa, former negotiator for neighbouring iwi Ngāti Rangi Che Wilson and Tama Potaka.

Lawyer Leo Watson and programme manager Lavinia Jacobsen attend meetings with the Mōkai Pātea negotiators. The chief Crown negotiator is Katherine Gordon, and she has four or five assistants from Te Arawhiti, the Office for Māori Crown Relations.

The MPWCT received mandate to negotiate the claims in March last year, with 80 per cent in favour.

However, the Ngāti Hinemanu and Ngāti Paki groups still want to remove their three claims from the negotiation. The Ngāti Hinemanu me Ngāti Paki Heritage Trust, chaired by Jordan Winiata, wants Ngāti Hinemanu and Ngāti Paki to have equal status with three other iwi who are making claims.

The fourth, Ngāi Te Ohuake, has been reinstated years after its people were evicted from their land. After that they were known as Ngāti Hinemanu and Ngāti Paki instead.

"The issue really is that before the Treaty settlements there were always three iwi and two others. The difference here is that three kept their independence and Ngāti Hinemanu and Ngāti Paki lost theirs," Winiata said.

His people had been told they could get representation on the MPWCT through their links with other iwi and hapū, he said.

This disagreement between people of common ancestry dates back to 1897, when Winiata Te Whaaro and his people were evicted from land they farmed at Pokopoko, in what is now south of Mangaohāne Station.

Steedman remembers his grandparents, Kaa Winiata and Keepa Steedman, poring over maps of the Pokopoko land. When Te Whaaro was arrested there, five houses were burned and 10,000 sheep taken.

Winiata Marae was established near Taihape after Winiata Te Whaaro was evicted from his land in 1897. Photo / Bevan Conley

Te Whaaro and his people had to move to an area near Taihape, which became Winiata Marae.

Whatever their disagreements, Mōkai Pātea people all linked back to the legendary explorer Tamatea-Pokai-Whenua, Steedman said.

Tamatea travelled the land with mōkai [pets] and he left some behind to mark his passage. He's depicted with them in a carved pou at Oruamatua Marae at Moawhango.

Tamatea-Pokai-Whenua and his mōkai are depicted on a pou at Oruamatua Marae. Photo / Bevan Conley

His people intermarried with or conquered those who were there first and known as Ngāti Whatumamoa. Now there are probably around 12,000 Mōkai Pātea descendants, and their four iwi are recognised for census purposes.

They are Ngāti Tamakōpiri, Ngāti Whitikaupeka, Ngāti Hauiti and Ngāi Te Ohuake. Each has its own rūnanga (council).

The Mōkai Pātea claim is one of the last in New Zealand to be negotiated. The MPWCT hopes to settle it quickly, with an agreement in principle possible in 18 months.

"We don't want to be negotiating for 10 years," Steedman said.

What Mōkai Pātea people mainly want is tino rangatiratanga - self determination. European settlement wrecked their society, destroyed their economic base and scattered them far and wide, Steedman said.

They also want the return of Department of Conservation and New Zealand Defence Force Land. They cried when Ngāti Rangi gifted the HMNZS Irirangi land near Taihape back to the Crown in 2019, Steedman said.

"I suppose now it's our turn. We may end up crying again, but we are not planning to cry. We are planning to be victorious."

When the settlement is complete the four iwi, which each have their own aspirations, will have to come up with a post settlement governance entity.

"We have been discussing that for a quite a few years. We just don't know [how we will do it]," Steedman said.

He and Hiroa live at Moawhango, a village 15 minutes' drive from Taihape on the Taihape-Napier road. It was once a thriving place with its own rugby club, two churches, stores and a stagecoach stop.

Moawhango village is rich with heritage treasures. Photo / Bevan Conley

Negotiators were recently able to fly in a helicopter over some of the land they claim.

Much of it is landlocked and inaccessible from the ground.

Mōkai Pātea people haven't been waiting for their settlement to progress. They have economic opportunities, mainly through their large land trusts. Mōkai Pātea Services looks after social and cultural needs.

Much of the Mōkai Pātea rohe is hilly. "We are a mountainous people," Tracey Hiroa says. Photo / supplied

Health services are provided by Taihape Health and the iwi are in a Covid vaccination project with neighbouring Ngāti Apa. They join others in environmental work in Ngā Puna Rau o Rangitīkei.

They'd like more of their scattered people to return, and settlement could help that by providing opportunity.

"How do we get people to come back if there's nothing here for them?" Hiroa said.

Mōkai Pātea people had been looking to take control of their future for a long time, Steedman said. He can show a letter to the Government from leaders in 1892, proposing to sell a third of their land and borrow money from the Government to develop the rest into farms owned by family groups. However, the proposal came to nothing.