In 2001 Te Kōkiringa Taumata I New Zealand Planning Institute were given a gift by the people of Ngāi Tamarawaho.
In 2001 planners were still coming to grips with a brand-new RMA and were in the early stages of understanding how to genuinely engage with Tangata Whenua. That year the Bay of Plenty Branch were preparing to host the annual NZPI conference at the Baycourt Community & Art Centre in Central Tauranga, with the committee chaired by Christine Ralph. Christine fondly remembers the important friendship she had with Keni Piahana (Ngāti Ruahine) and Ngāi Tamarawaho. This relationship with Keni and Ngāi Tamarawaho was the genesis of the Institute being gifted a mauri, a taonga that is passed between the current and future hosts of our annual conference. It is a critical part of the opening of conference every year.
Back in 2001 Christine and (committee member) Vaughn Payne were working for Beca and were heavily involved in a number of motorway projects in the Bay area, including the consenting of the Route K arterial (now Takitimu Drive) that runs through the Kopurereua Valley. The Kopurereua Valley is part of Ngāi Tamarawaho’s rohe and it’s receiving waters are of particular significance to the iwi. Colonisation had led to the land being confiscated and the river had been re-aligned, with the Kopurereua Stream drained when the area was converted to farmland. In building the new motorway there was work to do that went far beyond the physical construction.
Tauranga District Council purchased the land to make way for the arterial and part of the new consenting process meant that Council began working more closely with Ngāi Tamarawaho to ensure that the historical and cultural values of the area were preserved. Vaughn remembers this work; “Building the Waikareau Expressway was in itself a special project and somewhat before it’s time. The project involved a significant restoration strategy to return the stream, with the notion of restoring the watercourse back to its original meandering form”. Tauranga City Council and Ngāi Tamarawaho worked together to execute this plan.
Christine recalls the sheer volume of roading projects that were happening in and around Tauranga at that time; “There were almost more public works projects going on in one area than you could comprehend. The Council had been consulting and partnering with Ngai Tamarawaho over many other projects including the planning and construction of Route P at the northern end of the Takitimu Drive.”
Christine was working with Ngāi Tamarawaho and four other hapū in the region. She remembers feeling that iwi and hapū were not ready or trained to respond to the new resource management system, particularly when it came to asking for recourse to mitigate effects arising from land acquisition under the Public Works Act, the disturbance of sites of cultural significance, and the wider impact of these projects on their rohe.
The committee wanted to involve Tangata Whenua in the 2001 NZPI conference, starting with Ngāi Tamarawaho whose rohe also includes the central part of Tauranga where the conference was due to take place. Christine had seen that the young people from the hapū she was working with were learning about the resource management process by working alongside her on many projects. She says that they were all getting used to a new RMA system together and she wanted them to not only attend conference but be involved as presenters on issues of significance to Māori.
When Keni considered how local iwi and hapū could be welcomed into the conference and create an appropriate cultural setting, he saw an opportunity to bring together the discussion about waterways in Ōtautahi and in Tauranga by creating a taonga. He began with Waikareao as a motif – drawing on idea that the Waikareao Estuary was (and is) the receiving environment from the inland catchments.
Keni explains that in Te Aue Māori pūrerehua is used to call guests into the first session and that the sounding of a pūrerehua is a form of welcome. It is swung around in the air and makes a stark whirring noise. The hosts, whether it is a marae or in this case a conference setting, then respond to the call. For the 2001 conference this kind of symbol or taonga was needed to serve two purposes. A formal welcome also gave the affirmation of a planning process that had regard for kaitiakitanga in the particular topics or projects being discussed at conference.
Keni arranged for a unique pūrerehua to be created for the 2001 NZPI conference. It was modelled from Keni’s own pūrerehua. This was appropriate because Keni is Ngāti Ruahine. His rohe sits to the west over part of the Taranaki Region but his iwi can trace back to the same whakapapa. Keni explains that Ngāti Ruahine once occupied tribal lands up inside the Taumata but moved on in the 1860’s to occupy other land elsewhere.
When asked about who carved the pūrerehua Keni says that “this is not about whakatairanga” (to elevate and promote). Instead in this process the creators wish to ‘make oneself small’. In Keni’s words “the carvers and basket weavers are secondary. The narrative is not to focus on people, that would be an individualised thing. It’s a tikanga, and the association is purely around Ngāi Tamarawaho and to focus on issues of concern to them”.
The function of the pūrerehua is to gather - Te Kōkiringa. Since 2001 it has sounded at the opening Pōwhiri to welcome the delegates and guests to NZPI conferences. It is the role of the organising committee to arrange for a representative from the host iwi to sound the pūrerehua. Keni says the name of the bullroarer is Waikareao and that the act of making the floating sound to call people in will reinforce why they are gathering and “remind us of the purpose”.
Keni says that it’s critical that in calling guests into the conference you think about the source of the taonga and come back to your own source when you hand it over to the next conference committee. After the pūrerehua is sounded, representatives from the previous conference sound the pūrerehua in response. This has the purpose of affirming the new hosts in receiving the taonga.
Reginald Proffit (Ngāti Porou), NZPI Board member, Te ao Mori representative, and inaugural Chair of the Papa Pounamu Komiti comments on this process. “The passing of the pūrerehua allows Māori and non-Māori to come together for discussions and work within the same cultural frame.”
The pūrerehua is sacred and Tangata Whenua hand it over to the care of the new conference committee so that it can be used at the next NZPI conference. The original arrangement following the 2001 conference was for the next conference committee to hold before arrangements could be made with Tangata Whenua in the new host region for its care and storage.
The tikanga around the care of the pūrerehua has evolved over time. Originally the taonga was not to be put on public display, however as it symbolises the sharing of knowledge, Papa Pounamu representatives have agreed that it can be displayed in an area of prominence at conference where it’s role and mana is on display. At recent conferences this has been in an elevated position away from the business of conference; i.e. on a stage at the awards function and away from food and beverages. The NZPI national office in Tamaki Makaurau has served as a place to protect and store in recent years, but this may evolve with changing tikanga as the next conference hosts and Tangata Whenua put their mark on this special process.
The function of the pūrerehua is to gather - Te Kōkiringa. Taumata is in the upper catchment and at the farthest extent of Ngāi Tamarawaho’s rohe. Keni explains that bringing those two concepts together Te Kōkiringa - gathering tide (at Waikareao) and Taumata – elevated platforms or structure (located inland at the upper reaches of the catchment) leaves us with a name, Te Kōkiringa Taumata; the gathering of knowledge, expertise and experience of planners as an institute who achieve new vantage points. This name describes a process that brings about enhanced environmental values, acknowledgement and protection of heritage, and careful planning of our built environments.
Kōkiringa has a nuance (in the genealogical and hapū sense) of bringing the two people with the same types of planning issues together. The common expression or interpretation has been ‘from the mountain to the sea’. The carving on the wakahuia – the wooden treasure box that contains the pūrerehua, can be interpreted to in other ways. A local legend from Ngāi Tamarawaho is of Tauri Kura, a young woman who lived at Taumata. Her father banned her from seeing her lover so Tauri fled her home, travelling from Taumata to the Kopurereua Valley and out to the sea. This story resonates with the carved markings of the two lovers on the wakahuia itself.
In gifting a taonga to NZPI, Keni, alongside local iwi and hāpu, gifted the Institute with a new name. This name creates a relationship and NZPI were obliged from the start to work with Tangata Whenua to address these planning issues. Keni says that once the planners are cognisant of the reason for the taonga then the name is like holding out a mirror. From 2002 the board ratified what is now the Institute’s official name; Te Kōkiringa Taumata I New Zealand Planning Institute.
In 2011, a decade on from that Tauranga conference, another shift occurred. Reginald Profit led a group of Māori planners to create a place within the Institute where they could recognise themselves. A place for Māori planners to come together as planning practitioners and as Māori. Papa Pounamu was founded as a technical interest group aligned with the Special Interest Groups within Te Kōkiringa Taumata I New Zealand Planning Institute, established in 2012 at a kaitiaki in resource management forum attached to the NZPI conference in Blenheim. Papa Pounamu as a name brings together two aspects. Papa, derived from Papatuanuku, Earth Mother, recognising her as the foundation on which we stand, and the care which we must reciprocate. In this sense the shortened form, Papa, refers to, a rock outcrop on which to build, a strong foundation. Pounamu is a highly valued resource and of importance within Māoridom. Together Papa Pounamu reflects, the importance of a Māori perspective, founded in Te ao Māori, and the role of Papa Pounamu to bring this to planning in Aotearoa New Zealand.
This year (2024), representatives from Papa Pounamu and local iwi will come together to welcome all delegates to conference and formally pass on the pūrerehua to the next conference committee who will serve at kaitiaki until the next conference is declared open.
