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From issue: August 2000

The Legacy of Parihaka

by Jenny Bornholdt

A small Taranaki settlement is one of the country's most important historical and cultural sites.

Located half way between Mount Taranaki and the Tasman Sea, Parihaka is a small settlement with perhaps a few dozen residents. Nestled quietly in an undulating landscape, beneath frequently lush orchestrations of clouds, this unassuming village is a site of immense historical and cultural importance.

A watercolour painted in 1882 by William Fox, titled "Pariaka. Te Whiti's Pah 1882 Taranaki". Alexander Turnbull Library*

The events that took place in and around Parihaka late in the nineteenth century have long been legendary. As artist Tony Fornison inscribed on one of his artworks, Taranaki, your past goes way back. We need to look back to the Taranaki land wars of the 1860s to understand the origins of Parihaka, a town which was founded during those traumatic times of land confiscation and dispossession. By the 1870s it had become the largest Maori village in the country. Then in 1881 it was the scene of one of the most lamentable infringements of civil rights ever witnessed in this country.

A scene in Parihaka in the 1880s. Photo: Alexander Turnbull Library*

The event that has dominated the history of Parihaka is the invasion of the settlement on 5 November 1881 by 1,500 militia and armed members of the constabulary. This invasion was the result of a stand-off between the colonial government - with its land-usurping agencies - and the Maori people from many different tribes who were living at the settlement. As historian Hazel Riseborough writes: "Parihaka had become a haven for the dispossessed and disillusioned from the length and breadth of the coast, and as far away as North Auckland, the King Country, Wairarapa and the Chatham Islands."

Armed constabulary awaiting the order to advance on Parihaka, 5 November 1881. Photo: Alexander Turnbull Library*

The inhabitants of Parihaka were led by two figures, Te Whiti O Rongomai (of Taranaki and Te Atiawa descent) and Tohu Kakahi (of Taranaki and Ngati Ruanui descent). Both men were committed to non-violence, drawing on ancestral Maori as well as Christian teachings. The leadership the two offered was both spiritual and political. While the colonial interests sought to portray them as fanatics, both men believed in the possibility of a bi-cultural New Zealand, so long as Maori ownership of their lands was respected.

In 1879, European encroachments on Maori land which had been confiscated in the 1860s but not previously occupied by Europeans threatened the Parihaka settlement. Te Whiti ordered his followers to go out and plough the fields that were being confiscated. Of Te Whiti, historian Hazel Riseborough writes: "He acted calmly and with restraint in the face of what government ministers often described privately as deliberate goading ... All he wanted was to be allowed to remain at peace on his ancestral land." The year 1879 became known in the annals of Parihaka history as "the year of the plough". When arrested, the men put up no resistance, following Te Whiti's instructions: "Go, put your hands to the plough, look not back. If any come with guns and swords, be not afraid. If they smite you, smite not in return. If they rend you, be not discouraged - another will take up the good work."

The following year, another phase in the non-violent campaign began. This time, men from Parihaka - "that headquarters of fanaticism and disaffection", as the Native Minister John Bryce called it - erected fences across land and roads, ignoring surveyors, road-builders and constabulary. Further arrests were made and legislation was passed in Parliament enabling the Government to hold the protesters without trial. By September 1880, around 150 fencers had been shipped from Taranaki to the South Island, where they were put to work building roads around Otago Harbour and elsewhere. Many of them never returned. Meanwhile, the Taranaki settlers continued to survey the land, breaking down fences on a daily basis only to find them rebuilt a matter of hours later.

Parihaka in the years immediately after the invasion of 1881. Photo: Alexander Turnbull Library*

On the morning of 5 November 1881, the invasion force entered Parihaka. More than 2,000 villagers sat quietly on the marae as a group of singing children greeted the army. The Riot Act was read and one hour later Te Whiti and Tohu were arrested and led away. The village itself was demolished in the following months, crops were destroyed and livestock killed. People from other tribal regions were also forced to leave the province.

It wasn't until March 1883 that Tohu and Te Whiti were allowed to return. Between that time and the deaths of the two leaders in 1907, Parihaka was rebuilt. Amongst elaborate European-styled buildings, there were a bank and a number of modern shops including a butchery and a bakery. However, there was insufficient surrounding land to enable the settlement to become fully self supporting.

Te Whiti and Tohu were acutely interested in technological developments in the European world and introduced a number of these to Parihaka. In 1902 O. T. J. Alpers observed "a system of water-supply and the installation of electric light [which] has brought Te Whiti's pa in line with the most advanced ideas of municipal improvement".

The settlement diminished in size after the deaths of Tohu and Te Whiti, but in the past three decades it has consolidated and continues to grow in both the number of its permanent residents and the extraordinary number of visitors to the pa - among them trade unionists, artists, writers, historians and others.

What exactly is the legacy of Parihaka?

The suffering caused by the confiscation of tribal lands, the 1881 invasion, and the imprisonment of Parihaka men (some were held for up to eighteen years, without trial), remains a painful legacy for the community. Land claims are still unresolved.

The monument to Te Whiti at Parihaka. Photo: Clayton Tume

The settlement of Parihaka today. Photo: Clayton Tume

The spiritual legacy is one of living in harmony with the land and humanity. It is also a legacy of nonviolent resistance and a belief in the peaceful and respectful co-existence of Maori and Pakeha. These issues are explored in many artworks that have been created in recent decades by this country's foremost artists. These include important series of works by painters such as Ralph Hotere, Selwyn Muru, Tony Fomison and Colin McCahon. Plays by Harry Dansey, Mervyn Thompson and Brian Potiki have brought the events and personalities back to life. Poets as various as Hone Tuwhare, James K. Baxter, W. H. Oliver and Elizabeth Smither have been inspired by Parihaka. In the field of music, figures as diverse as classical composer Anthony Ritchie and singer Tim Finn have drawn inspiration from the place and its history. Seminal history books including Dick Scott's 1975 classic, Ask That Mountain,and Hazel Riseborough's Days of Darkness, 1989, continue to introduce new generations to the Parihaka story.

So the vast legacy of this small settlement - a cluster of frail buildings in an unforgiving landscape - continues to grow. As Te Whiti himself said: "Those who are bent by the wind shall rise again when the wind softens." The exhibition at the City Gallery, Wellington, will add another important chapter to this history, introducing some new voices to a line that leads back to the originating figures of Te Whiti O Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi.

Jenny Bornholdt is a poet and free-lance writer based in Wellington.