I was privileged to offer a Tikanga Māori blessing for the opening of the new hospice shop on the corner of Te Rahu and Cambridge Roads.
Tom Roa, left, with Hospice Waikato acting chief executive Susan Hassall, and regional retail manager Terese Bidlake at the opening of the new store.
I explained to those gathered that the karakia I would recite were ancient, pre-European, and that they are recited at such events as that opening principally to acknowledge that we are merely human, that there are unseen higher powers than us, and that we use such karakia, with the help of those higher powers, to assert a clearing of a pathway in our environs for us as mere human beings to conduct our business safely, with integrity, unencumbered by anything untoward that might prevent or obstruct our endeavours which in the Hospice case are full of good and honest intention.
I also shared with those gathered a history of that very space according to my mana whenua, Ngāti Apakura background.
Close by on the banks of the Mangaohoi Stream in the early eighteen hundreds stood Kaipaki Pā.
A battle for those lands was waged there between Ngāti Apakura against Ngāti Hauā and Ngāti Koroki-Kahukra. Following that battle peace was made between the Ariki of Ngāti Apakura, Te Wherowhero, and of Ngāti Hauā, Tarapīpipi Te Waharoa, also known as Wiremu Tamehana, with the wedding of Tarapīpipi’s daughter to Te Wherewhero’s grandson.
This peace-making was critical to the acceptance by Te Wherowhero of Tarapīpipi’s offer to support the call of rangatira throughout Maoridom for Te Wherowhero to be Māori King.
Later at Ngāruawāhia, Tarapīpipi placed the Māori Bible on Te Wherowhero’s head, installing him as the first Māori King.
The notion of a Māori King was borne from more than 20 years of consultation amongst the rangatira of Māoridom who searched for one amongst them who would be equal in status to Queen Victoria, and as such be able to speak on their behalf, a King to a Queen. The call was for him to hold fast to the land, to stop intertribal fighting, to maintain mana Māori Motuhake, Māori autonomy, and to unite the people.
Last week Maoridom celebrated Te Koroneihana, the Coronation, of Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII, his 18th year as Māori King. On August 21 2006, as the descendant of Kiingi Pootatau Te Wherowhero, he too was crowned by the descendant of Tarapīpipi,, Anaru Tamehana, with the very bible used to install Te Wherowhero as Māori King.
Kiingi Tuheitia has called for us to unite, a call that has resounded amongst Māori and other-than-Māori, a call which attracted tens of thousands to various gatherings throughout Aotearoa-New Zealand, in particular last week at Ngāruawāhia.
The celebration of the opening of the Hospice Shop using Tikanga Māori in concert with Western Protocols is symbolic of the promise in Te Tiriti o Waitangi,
The Treaty of Waitangi, where the potential in our working together can realise the aspirations of all those who come into spaces like the Hospice Shop with integrity, honest intent, and a notion of service.
Paimārire (goodness through Peace).
