By FRANCES GRANT
Emotions can run high on Waitangi Day, the anniversary which marks the beginning of our bicultural nation in1840.
Those scenes of protest disrupting official ceremonies are familiar to us now. As each February 6 rolls round we wonder what might grab the headlines on our often troubled national day.
Before
the evening news gives us its wrap on proceedings for the first Waitangi Day of the new millennium, TV One is marking the day with a local drama centred on the Treaty, Nga Tohu: Signatures (Sunday, 5 pm).
The one-hour drama is set in a fictional New Zealand town, Onehora, and moves with ease between the present and the past to trace the history of a land claim.
Onehora is struggling but the son of a local farmer has a vision for the future - securing international investment to build an eco-tourism resort on part of his father's land.
A local Maori whanau believe the land is theirs, wrested from their ancestor, the chief Tohu, after a misunderstanding. They persuade their daughter, a lawyer, to take up their cause.
The drama is much more than the story of a legal wrangle, however. It also recreates the past, going back to the period when the Treaty was being touted round the Maori chiefs who weren't present at Waitangi.
An ambitious English pioneer wants to buy land from Tohu to build a town. The chief accepts his money as a gift and in turn gives him land, to be returned to the hapu if the town is not built.
But the settler believes he has bought the land and it is now his. From this a long line of misunderstandings begins.
Nga Tohu: Signatures is a case study and it does have a strong, educational element. It was funded by the Legal Services Board.
But it also succeeds in being a moving, well-rounded drama exploring a complex situation. The lives of present-day Maori and European characters are entwined through love and friendship.
Members of both sides don't want to jeopardise their town's chances of a more prosperous future.
George Henare, Nancy Brunning and Craig Muller put in fine performances as the leads in both periods, moving as easily from the past to present as the script.
The making of the drama reflects the partnership between Maori and pakeha the Treaty intended to establish. It was made by producer George Andrews (Manukau Films) and written by dramatists Hone Kouka and Andrew Bancroft.
