Talks start on Cook statues

Council agrees to consult iwi over planned contentious replicas of Endeavour

About 200 people protested in Gisborne yesterday over plans to install two replica models of the Endeavour in the city’s main street. The protest, led by local youth but attracting people of all ages and a range of backgrounds, came as people around the world call for statues linked to slavery and colonialism to be toppled.

The campaign to remove statues has been spurred on by the Black Lives Matter movement that has gathered momentum and led to protests around the world after the death at police hands of George Floyd in Minneapolis last month.

Gisborne District Council had failed to consult iwi over its decision to install the two replicas after other replicas were removed years ago. It announced after yesterday’s protest that it had agreed to consultations.

“A lot of people are pretty disappointed,” Nga¯ti Oneone spokesman and artist Nick Tupara said of the council’s original decision.

Gisborne has also been divided over the presence of statues of Captain James Cook.

A statue of Cook stands at a beachside reserve and from time to time is sprayed with graffiti. Last year it was spray painted with the words “Thief Pakeha”.

Gisborne’s original statue depicting Cook was installed on Titirangi in Gisborne in 1969 to commemorate 200 years since Cook’s arrival in Tu¯ranganui-a-Kiwa.

Titirangi is a maunga sacred to Nga¯ti Oneone, and the site chosen overlooked the spot where Ma¯ori and Pa¯keha¯ first encountered each other, and where Cook’s crew killed nine iwi members after a misunderstanding. The dead included rangatira Te Maro.

“[The statue] was incredibly insulting, and opposed from the beginning by iwi,” says Tupara.

In the decades since, protests and petitions to have it removed ensued.

Anger often boiled over into action, and the statue — later revealed to actually depict an Italian admiral — was repeatedly vandalised and covered in graffiti.

But it was not until last year, for the 250th commemorations of Cook’s arrival, that it was removed.

Today new sculptures stand in its place, produced by Tupara. One is of his tupuna Te Maro and “Crook Cook” is about to be erected in the grounds of Taira¯whiti Museum.

Tupara said it was good to see the community come to a consensus over a two-year consultation period, even if it had taken nearly 50 years for Ma¯ori to be listened to.

“Not everybody was happy, many wanted the statue completely destroyed, but we were keen to continue a cordial relationship.

“It started conversations about our true history. Half the population is Ma¯ori here, but there was almost no imagery to reflect that.

“Cook had also only ever been depicted as this heroic figure, and selectively taught about, editing out things like the diseases and abuse and killings his crew brought through the Pacific. His connections with slavery are also rarely discussed.”