Saturday, December 8, 2018

Waikato Times letter of the week #87

From the edition of Saturday 8 December. As always, spelling, punctuation, grammar and logic are exactly as printed in the Waikato Times.

This one concerns the Waitaha people, who according to Barry Brailsford were here before the Maori. Michael King demolished Brailsford’s first book about this in Metro in 1995 (and later in his 2003 Penguin History of New Zealand). Soon after, Bob Harvey, then Waitakere mayor, made me spend two hours in Brailsford’s company being harangued about the Waitaha and the evils of Michael King. Until then I had considered Bob a friend.
History teaching backed
Pou brings wars to school yard. Guest speaker Sir Harawira Gardiner status – “a fundamental building block of any civilised society is an understanding of its history.” For 150 years, the New Zealand wars had “Danced in the Shadows” of mainstream learning”.
If we are to teach New Zealand history, be it war history, or general history, then it is our responsibility to start at the beginning, not halfway as mentioned. Go back to when man first set foot on New Zealand soils. The real tangata whenua of New Zealand, the Kahupungapunga/Patupaiarehe/Waitaha peoples.
What became of them, and why are these people and their history being deliberately suppressed even today. “Who are we to deny them their rights to be heard, and to be remembered”.
Many of their descendents are still living here today.
G B Burling, Wahi

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