War stories:
NZ Wars: Stories Of Tainui is a documentary created and presented by journalist Mihinaarangi Forbes which explores the 1863 Waikato invasion, detailing how the Crown set out to conquer M ori land. Sarah Nealon reports.
A look at one of New Zealand’s defining conflicts.
Imagine being a child hiding in a trench, putting gunpowder into muskets before passing the weapons to adults who would use them to fire at the enemy.
While you go about your tasks, the terrifying sounds of battle rage above you and the risk of serious injury, or worse, is real.
It’s a frightening thought but this happened in the 19th century when M ori fought against colonial troops.
Such conflict was at places like Ruapekapeka in the mid-1840s and Waikato in the 1860s.
The former was the subject of an RNZ 2017 documentary, NZ Wars: The Stories Of Ruapekapeka and now the next chapter of the local history series heads south for NZ Wars: Stories Of Tainui. (Another offering in the series is 2019’s NZ Wars: Stories Of Waitara.)
Presented by journalist Mihinaarangi Forbes (Ngaati Paoa /Ngaati Maniapoto), the latest
Above: Mihingaarangi Forbes and Dr Vincent O’Malley
programme looks at what happened when thousands of imperial troops invaded Waikato in 1863 and war broke out.
“They (the British) were fighting families,” says Forbes.
“Children and women were in the trenches. They (M ori) didn’t have an army so they (the British) literally invaded families.
“Everyone had to fight. Everyone had a job to do whether you were cooking the food, whether you were sewing the clothes or filling up the gunpowder.
“These are stories that have been recorded since Ruapekapeka. Children and women (were) in the trenches. Can you imagine how traumatic it is? We’re starting now as a people to talk about generational trauma.”
When the Crown invaded Waikato in 1863, it was 23 years after the
Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi) was signed. The European settler population had dramatically increased from a couple of thousand in 1840 to in excess of 50,000.
Governor Grey was Queen Victoria’s representative in New Zealand while Kiingi Taawhiao, the second M ori king, headed the Kiingitanga.
Grey wanted to conquer M ori land in Waikato and control the all-important Waikato river. He was prepared to use force to achieve those aims. At stake was more than 400,000 hectares of land.
NZ Wars: Stories Of Tainui focuses on three pivotal encounters in Waikato – Rangiriri, Rangiaaowhi and Ooraakau.
The documentary includes insights from historian Dr Vincent O’Malley and iwi historians Rahui Papa, Brad Totorewa, Tom Roa, Mamae Takerei and Kawhia Muraahi. In addition, there are archive photographs, art work and re-enactments.
“So it’s the British campaign to basically eliminate the Kiingitanga because the Kiingitanga had been set up (in the 1850s) to respond to land sales and shonky deals and the pressure from governors and land agents,” says Forbes.
The documentary touches on some heartbreaking stories about M ori who were killed in the campaign.
Forbes is unsure exactly how many M ori died.
“I don’t know the numbers and Vincent O’Malley says that we will probably never know,” she says, “because there were reasons for under-estimating them and reasons for over-estimating them.
“It was all a whole kind of juggle of mana. So if it was a pretty bad fight and everyone died, sometimes they would pretend fewer people died so that they didn’t give away the fact that they had lost so many of them because there was a fight to be fought in a month down the road at the next round.”
NZ Wars: Stories Of Tainui, which is pitched as a bicultural retelling, isn’t the first documentary to cover the Waikato invasion.
In the late 90s, a series called The New Zealand Wars was fronted by historian James Bellich. When asked how the new documentary compares to The New Zealand Wars, Forbes says: “His stories were fantastic at the time. I mean they blew people’s minds. In the 90s very few people would have heard of the Waikato war and some of the intricacies of it.
“I think he did an amazing job with the resources that he had ...
“The difference is, I have relationships because I’m M ori. So I just go straight to the Kiingitanga. And our whole (film) crew is M ori.
“So, yeah, our producer is from Waikato-Tainui too. And we make a purpose of having connections all through (from) the production manger to the co-ordinators.
“They are literally working on a documentary which is about their own story.”
“Children and women were in the trenches. They (M ori) didn’t have an army so they (the British) literally invaded families.”
– Mihingaarangi Forbes