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From issue: Autumn 2003

Knowledge and Resources Key to Preservation

by Bridgette Paton-Tapsell

Trust identity, Te Aue Davis speakes with Bridgette Paton-Tapsell about ensuring the conservation of heritage sites.

Te Aue Davis. Photo: Julia Thorne

Te Aue Davis turns down my offer to drive the three-hour distance between us to meet in her Auckland home in Mangere. She is a busy woman, and happy to do a phone interview. The 77-year-old deputy chair of the Historic Places trust's Maori Heritage Council still has not found time to read a 2002 Christmas gift, the book Whenua, Managing Your Resources by Merata Kawharu.

"Instead," she says, "I've been rushing around introducing people who need to meet with the keepers of wahi tapu, These are the kaumatua who hold the knowledge and the locations."

Right now, she is working with Toi Maori, a charitable trust fostering the development of Maori arts, assessing museology applicants for funding with Manaaki Taonga Trust and researching for writer Claudia Orange on The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography.

"I'm also the new kid on the block with Nga Whenua Rahui. They talk with Maori about putting reserves on their native forests."

Te Aue says dealing with wahi tapu is sometimes a political minefield, particularly where money is involved. "Many people, both Maori and Pakeha, would set aside a place if they knew about it without argument. The reason they don't is money."

"I can understand their feelings, especially the retired ones. Where does wahi tapu come in when they perhaps think it means their livelihood? Of the 6000 historic places that are registered, only 63 are Maori. You wouldn't go and put a house on an old cemetery - it's only fair we should honour our ancestors, black, white or in-between. I don't give a stuff if it's Maori, Indian or European heritage. We're a young country. We need to be proud of all our heritage."

Photo: Julia Thorne

Last November, the Historic Places Trust came under attack from politicians, media, landowners, and locals for registering Kopukairoa in Welcome bay, as a wahi tapu area. Despite the Trust's best efforts at communicating otherwise, fears escalated that the land could no longer be developed. Paul Holmes cranked up the heat by announcing on radio that a wahi tapu registration was "a land grab being used cunningly to disrupt, obstruct and interfere."

Te Aue says, "where Paul Holmes went wrong is he didn't do hios homework. There are places that are sacred and places that are important." She clarifies that registering places as wahi tapu does not make them tapu nor does it preclude development. She cites the example of the Mangere Stonefields. Used to heat the ground for kumara plantations, the stones are among the few remains of ancient gardens used by the first Maori who came to New Zealand.

"This is registered as a historic place. However, Manukau City Council have set it aside as a public park that people walk on. They've done a wonderful thing."

Involved with the Trust since 1984, Te Aue feels the pressure of responsibility: "I keep saying this is my last year, and things keep happening that I have to attend to." This focus for community work led to her being made an OBE in the mid 1990s.

She claims to have enough energy for all her activities by being "lazy" at home, where she enjoys gardening and eating. "I can't dig the garden any more, I need jobs where I can sit down." One of these is weaving, for which Te Aue is reputed. "I admire weaver Vicki Stark's work, it's beautiful. I can imagine how much time goes into the preparation. I haven't got that much tie, it has to be useful - like a kit that carries stuff."

"One of my favourite things t've done is researching Maori place names for the book Place Names of the Ancestors, A Maori Oral History Atlas (He Korero Purakau Mo Nga Taunahanahatanga a Nga Tupuna). For her efforts she was awarded the 1990 Commemoration medal ("I'm not sure how I merited that"). She was impressed by the foreword in the book by Sir James Henare:
"Time will not dim the memory of the special class or rangatira of the past who braved the wide expanse of ocean and land. Their sacred footprints are scattered over the surface of the land, treasured and sacred."

Te Aue says: "I love history and studied English and European history as a child, but knew nothing about New Zealand history except Te Kooti was a murderer."

New Zealand, she believes, does not compare well with England or even Australia when it comes to looking after its cultural heritage. "Both these countries set funds aside to enable people to look after their heritage.

"When I visited Bath in England, the Celts were envious that Maori still had knowledge of their sites. Our problem is knowledge of conservation. It would be wonderful if we could formalise what Dean Whiting (Maori heritage adviser for the Trust) does when he invites rangatira to watch him working." Te Aue says no such training is available in Australasia. "Dean went to Canberra to learn, but that course no longer exists."

Another setback to preserving the past is the lack of resources. "There are lots of unregistered wahi tapu sites as our people are already overloaded with work. But despite lack of money, progress continues." Te Aue says persistence helped to save one of her favourite heritage sites, Waitomo Caves.

"All heritage sites are important to me, but probably my favourite is a cave at Waitomo, which is where my iwi, Ngati Maniapoto, is from. Over the last 15 years, the locals have been able to close one of the wahi tapu caves down. We knew the stories, there were skeletal remains above the entrance to the cave and we often wondered where they came from. We got an archaeologist to come out and he found that people had actually lived there. This cave is a place of memories, so we closed off the entrance to the cave, near where the body was situated. People can still access the cave as there is another entrance away from the body."

Te Aue says Maori carry knowledge of wahi tapu in their hearts and she is optimistic about future generations continuing this tradition. "In my day, you didn't talk about culture in public. Only in our own framework, the marae were we confident". Now she says, rangatira are better educated to argue a point with the system.

Bridgette Paton-Tapsell is a writer based in Maketu in the Bay of Plenty.