Ki a Te Popi
Ka mihi atu au ki te maunga e tu nei, he Taranaki pea. My greetings go out to the moauntain that stands there, for it is Taranaki
As a child I always felt the emotional pull of leaving places - little ghosts all scattered among the landscapes, echoes of people, including myself, having existed there once. Even today as an adult, I still find myself compelled to look back on my tracks, and even more distantly into the tracks of my family before me. Resulting out of travel and traveling itself, the work I make reflects a personal travel map, with its own language, geological, expanding and interwoven with human activity.
My own contemporary context has a road-centric perspective of New Zealand, however, historic contexts also underlie the choice of the landscapes I work with. I have been researching the life and work of my Great-Great Grandfather James Henry Pope, who traveled throughout the fledgling colony to spread his "education mission" as Chief Inspector of Native Schools. He began his work in 1879, in Taranaki two years before the invasion of Parihaka. From 1879, to his retirement in 1904, and on until his death in 1913, he traveled, met with and held on-going dialogue with people all over the country regarding Maori health and education.
Taranaki was a thorn in his side, the one place in New Zealand where he never overcame the resistance against government led initiatives. He considered the people of Taranaki "the most disadvantaged" after so many years of war with the government. However loyalties and resentment of people scattered and driven from their land meant that his three schools at Puniho, Mawhitiwhiti, near Normanby and later Pariroa, near Patea struggled to stay open.
The years of letters held in the Department of Education archives have helped me form a picture of activity in Taranaki from the perspective of government employees, community leaders and missionaries between 1879 and 1919. Being about humans, of course it's a complex issue of mixed agendas and dynamics ("There's nowt so queer as folk").I have felt moved to hold in my own hands the writing of my Great-Great Grandfather and attempt to understand his aspirations, albeit paternal. I feel the internal conflict still between appreciating the desire to help and give opportunity in a fast changing new order and the loss of a people's self determination. It is an issue that makes me continue to ask what is right. What is "aid"? What would I do given the same context?
As a descendant of someone so involved in historic New Zealand events, I haven't yet put together any visual ideas that respond openly to it. I wish to find my voice and begin to reply. I embarked in January on a journey to Taranaki, my first visit to that mountain, which resulted in a series called "Puke Ariki: Journey to the Mountain". Later, in April, I made my first visit to Parihaka to meet Te Miringa Hohaia, a leader at Parihaka, as a starting point to get to know the context of Pope's work. It was a personal pilgrimage and I want to thank Te Miringa for his generous spirit. I asked him how he shouldered the sadness of the events surrounding Parihaka he said that while it was heavy, it was the present that held his concern. The rebuilding continues.
These works document my return home that evening. What stands out for me are the new markers in the landscape, evidence of the new measures by which we see it and contextualize it and with sadness, perhaps even nostalgia, the potentiality of the land being withdrawn into shadows. I think of people being sucked away by a dark inward breath of a new wave and others desperately doing what they think is the right thing to do, to hold on, to hold out, to survive, as night falls.
Leaving Parihaka
Mawhitiwhiti, 23 June 1894
J H Pope to the Education Department
"There are schools much closer than these, for instance the Okaiawa Schools can be but a little more than a mile from Mawhitiwhiti. The real difficulty is that the Maoris do not and will not send their children to these schools. The Maoris here are a conquered race and this fact tends to make them shy and resentful, on the other hand Europeans as a rule do not wish Maori children to attend the public school, the children are too dirty they say, not untruthfully, whether as regards person or habits."
On the way to the mountain, South Taranaki
Mawhitiwhiti, 21 May 1897
The Secretary for Education from W Fox Omahuru
"From my own experience I can endorse the remarks you make, on the tendency that a long boarding school education (away from the neighbourhood of one's people) has to alienate their sympathy from him (Te Whiti)…"
Coast at Pungarehu
Mawhitiwhiti, 21 May 1897
The Secretary for Education from W Fox Omahuru
"I and my colleagues have to combat the antagonism of Te Whiti and his adherents, who use every means that they think are likely to distract the parents and children from taking an interest in the work of pakeha education. The astute perception of the leaders of this movement causes them to perceive that educating the children will originate a form, the development of which, will tend to alienate their supporters and cause their selfish combination to perish. At the same time they are fully aware that gatherings of the people have potency on the normal native mind that is almost irresistible and they do their best by poi dance and songs to make these more attractive. For a month post (in preparation for the performance to be given at the meeting, to be held at Parihaka in June, there have been almost nightly rehearsals of songs and poi dances in the pa opposite and it has consequently affected the attendances at the school."
Keeping a distance, South Taranaki
Mawhitiwhiti, 21 May 1897
The Secretary for Education from W Fox Omahuru
"No natives from here (myself excepted) have had the benefits of a pakeha training and schooling, and being away from them so long, together with their fancied pakeha aggrievances had the effect of causing them to estrange themselves from me."
Gas Field Tanks, Normanby (near Mawhitiwhiti) on the way to Parihaka
Mawhitiwhiti, 12 September 1899
Te Ranui o Mahuru to the Secretary of Education
"E hoa ka nui taku pouri mo taku kupu ka tuku atu ki a koe, mo te inoi ka ore ratou e ohakaaro ki ta ratou kura e mahi tonu ana i ta ratou ohakaaro.."
Government Translation: "Oh friend I regret to say my people do not care for the school and will not agree to support it."
Road from the Coast, leaving Pungarehu
(Armed Constabulary camped in this proximity, prior to the November, 1881 invasion of Parihaka)
Mawhitiwhiti, March 29 1899
Ranui o Mahuru, Chairman to Mr Pope
"He korero ana au kia ratou kia rongomai koutou ko te kura nei he mea tono n a te inoi ki te kawanatanga ki a ohakatuuria hei kura ma tatou, na ka ohakatuuria na i tenei t-- [script?] kua tahuri koutou ki te turakina ki taku mo hio he mahi kohuru he mahi tinihanga tenei mahi ki te kawanatanga na kia rongo mai koutou ka nui taku pouri mo tenei mahi a koutou rite tonu ta koutou turaki i ta tatou kura ki te tangata e patua ana e hoa ki runga ki tenei mahi tini hanga a te inoi ki a koe te tikanga ki taku mo hio no te ritenga a parihaka te pu take o tenei mate."
Government Translation: "I spoke to them saying hearken this school is one that the people applied to the Government for us and now you have shewn that you wish to upset it (close it) I feel that this is suicidal and deceiving the Government. Now hearken you, I am very pouri at this act of yours your upsetting of our school it is like one doing bodily harm to another friend. Future action with regard to this deceitful act of the people rests with you. I know that the Parihaka view of things is at the bottom of it all."
Norfolk Pine, looking for Pariroa
Normanby, 21st November 1899
The Inspector General of Schools, Wellington,
from James Pope
"There has been estrangement between the West Coast Maoris and us for nearly forty years and this estrangement together with complications connected more particularly with land confiscations, renders it highly improbable that the present generation of children will be allowed to attend any public school, or be welcome if they attend one. The last chance for these children it seems to me to be the establishment of a Native School…Pariroa has all the marks of permanent settlement. It has a fine Meeting House of weatherboard and several neat cottages."
Gas Field, Normanby, on the way home from Parihaka
Normanby, October 1901
L M Green
"Seeing in the Hawera and Normanby Star that tenders are wanted for the removing of the Mawhitwhiti School to Pariroa, I am taking the liberty of writing and asking you if nothing can be done for the natives around this district. They are very much hurt over the removing of the Mawhitiwhiti Native School.
I appeal to you dear sir because I know how you sympathise with our race and that education for the Maoris is one of the things you have worked hard for. Therefore I feel certain that if anything can be done for our Maoris here, to make up for the loss of their school you will do it. I myself am longing to do something for them. I should like to teach the children here. To work among my own people would I am sure be delightful."
Roadside Toe Toe
Mawhitiwhiti, 10 February 1902
Karere Mahuru Te Tahua to Mr Pope
"Dear Sir, Greetings to you. Your servant has a word to say unto you on behalf of my people who are in distress owing to being landless, that the fifty of us including those outside these are upwards of one hundred. My word unto thee is that you may take the money set aside for the five acres where the late Weriweri {Mawhitwhiti} school stood, the money set aside was 50 pounds with a view to returning the said five acres to those having no land whereon to cultivate as the only option for those having no land is to plough up the roadside for the purpose of planting food for their sustenance.
That is all I have to say unto you,
Your servant"