‘We did not sign a treaty … we did not surrender!’ Contesting the Consensus Politics of the Treaty of Waitangi in Aotearoa New Zealand

Abstract

On a hot January day in 2005, six Treaty of Waitangi Tribunal members wearing sun hats sat on a wooden dray drawn by large carthorses. They were carried slowly down a dirt road, past upturned burning cars and smoke, passing the outlines of bodies in white chalk, and through a ring of fire to cross the ‘confiscation line’ into Tūhoe land. This confiscation line was the boundary made by the British Crown to designate Māori lands taken by the Crown in 1866.1 At the line the tribunal members were met by Māori warriors on horseback, their horses painted blood red, circling around the cart.2 The group had travelled to Tūhoe lands in Te Urewera region of Aotearoa New Zealand’s North Island for a week of hearings into Treaty of Waitangi claims. Television cameras were there for this nationally significant meeting. A pōwhiri, or ceremonial welcome, at Rūatoki was organized for the tribunal members at the meeting house on the marae (meeting ground). Once at the meeting ground the tribunal members were confronted by the wero, the traditionally aggressive Māori challenge of the visitor at the beginning of a ceremony, and the most spectacular part of any pōwhiri.3 But the wero had been blended with a dramatic replay of the past, accompanied by the confusion of smoke, loud chanting and turning horses. The Tūhoe re-enacted the 1860s ‘scorched earth’ policy of the settler government and the raupatu, the confiscation of their lands.