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1/My grandmother spoke of the pain as a child due to pākehā segregating the Tokaanu hot springs, our tribe's wāhi tapū. Segregation began in 1900 & continued into 30's & 40's. Binney wrote the "barbed wire fence...a fortress of racial prejudice" (Pic, Tokaanu children, Aunty Hui)
2/ During the Hirangi 1995 Waitangi hearings witnesses testified to the mass desecration of wahi tapu during the Tokaanu Hydro Damn and Turangi township development, our rangatira were always ignored. In 1964 bulldozers destroyed homes with elderly Māori still occupying.
3/ In 2006 my aunty Ringakapo Payne wrote a letter to the Crown initiating process for the return of Mount Tongariro & wāhi tapū. At Tokaanu her & sisters would discuss matters over cups of tea & caramel cake during hui at Pūhaorangi wharepuni.
4/ "In our history the high priest Ngātoroirangi on his ascent of Maunga Tongariro nearly perished. Fearing for his life, Ngātoroirangi called out to his sisters, Te Pupu & Te Hoata, who came from Hawaiki in the form of fire under the earth."
5/"Lifting their heads above the earth's surface in search of their brother, the sisters left behind geysers, hot pools, and volcanoes throughout the Bay of Plenty."
6/In a 1874 report to the Premier on “Hot Springs District of the North Island” Hon. W. Fox identified the tourist potential in “a very largely developed group of active and quiescent springs” at Tokaanu complaining about the communal system of Natives (Pic 1907 MLC hui Tokaanu)
7/ My Nanan reflected on hardship during the depression however they never lost their communal system. Mass land confiscations left 10% of land use for Māori in Tokaanu. They utilized large garden plots, everything was shared, equally distributed & always with a sense of humor!
8/Uncle John( Hoani Takakopiri Asher) worked on the Tūwharetoa trust board dealing with the Crown & submissions to the Waitangi tribunals. Asher is a Jewish name thru his Maori Jewish father Atirau.He petitioned the return of the Tokaanu hot springs during the late 80's early 90'
9/Uncle John( Hoani Takakopiri Asher) (pictured aged 11 1934). In 2017 the Crown returned our hot springs acknowledging 150 years of racial injustice & theft. Although there is still mamae, it's the memory of cups of tea & caramel cakes at our uncles & aunties that endures.
