I've been told I don't look like I'm from Taranaki
that I don't have that Taranaki look about me
Read MoreTe Aro Pa
I visit Te Aro Pā, or what remains of it anyway. I sit there on the concrete floor and think about what is, and what was, and what will be, listening to the screeching high-pitched whining of construction machinery. I sit there on the concrete floor and watch the sliding door open, and close.
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Ko Te Aro te marae
Ask the posts of your whare tūpuna
about fibres intertwined
Before your birth you were
whakapapa, etched on our faces
Read MoreHow do you move something that's no longer there?
Cuz, where are we from again?
Te Aro Pā
I thought Te Aro Pā doesn’t exist anymore.
Ew, you don’t exist.
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A new Pukeahu
You know what kind of park I would have built there? I wouldn’t build a national war memorial park, I would build a national Parihaka memorial park. I would build a park to remember the Parihaka prisoners, with bricks to make, ploughs to push and fences to rebuild.
Read MoreKeep watching the fence
When I was at primary school everyone got the vacuum cleaner hose or the wooden spoon at home. At school it was the strap. Or a ruler. Sometimes the whole class lined up one after the other like a twisted conga line. Violent nuns.
Read MoreWhy practising Pākehā law as a Māori is even harder than it sounds
I couldn’t work for that firm
because they represented another iwi.
I got told if I wanted to work for them
I would have to keep my whakapapa quiet.
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Get out of the way
Our whānau were pushed out of Te Aro Pā. Our homes became their city.
So? Let it go. It’s not like you even go to Te Aro much. What do you even do there to show you’re from there?
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Sharing our stories
Tour details
Location: Northwest from Te Aro park almost to Wakefield Street, (the old shoreline), and east to just beyond Taranaki Street. And north across the harbour to Matiu/Somes Island, then Petone, Avalon and Stokes Valley. Heading over the Haywards to Parihaka and other parts of Taranaki. And south. Really really south. To the island of Ripapa. BYO steamship and shackles.
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