Historiography in Te Puna

It’s popular right now for historians to emphasise the “story” aspect of history.  Neat, straightforward, direct.  Everyone has a story.  Historians who are serious about their profession know, however, that every story has a story.  This is one.

Title page of Keepers of the Faith

A somewhat battered copy of the book compiled to commemorate the centennial of St Joseph’s Church, Hatu Hohepa, in Te Puna, titled  Keepers of the Faith, has come to the Te Puna Archive. [1]  Its provenance is reasonably clear: it was initially acquired by the Te Puna Community Library, had apparently sustained water damage, in which state was withdrawn from the library’s holdings and came into the possession of the Gravits (Peter Gravit was for a time a member of the Community Library Committee).

Peter and Jen Rolleston authored the book.  Peter died in 2007, [2] but Jen is still very much with us, and was very willing to talk about the way this very local history was brought together.  As a direct consequence of the work she, Ellen Nicholas and Peter did to research the Pirirākau Claim: WAI 227, Peter Farrelly of the Parish Council approached them on behalf of the Church Centennial Committee for a publication to support the celebrations attendant on the little wooden church’s one hundredth anniversary.  The first service there was held on 1 January 1900.

Compared to the work required to support WAI 227, this job seemed, and was, Jen says, relatively straightforward.  It took between six and nine months to write; photographs were readily available, and the community it described were all people known to each other, or whose memory was still well alive among them.  Most people came forward with their recollections of the church and its place in the Te Puna landscape.

Jen Rolleston

Compared to the gaps and contradictions that had to be resolved for the raupatu claim, Jen told me, getting material for the St Joseph’s book was far easier.  “People had papers, photos and bits and pieces about the church in all sorts of places – for instance, [co-builder with Werahiko Borell] Hone Bidois’s papers were put together in a box held in the Tuhakaraina homestead.”  Hone was the grand-uncle of Martin Tuhakaraina, Chairman of the Centennial Committee. 

Despite these advantages, writing a local history is not always easy.  Jen called it “interesting” when I asked her if it was fun to do.  Peter, who, she said, “Put his heart and soul into the WAI 227 claim”, was a serious historian whose work entailed deep analysis and careful assessment of the evidence.  “It’s hard for us to really understand how things were then,” Jen muses.  “We think we know but we don’t really.”  Nevertheless, the experience gained by the team from the raupatu claim – Peter doing the narrative, Jen and Ellen ferreting out the information needed to fill the gaps – has clearly shaped Keeping the Faith.  It’s a book that, quite deliberately, has almost no conflict.  But it does have a clear historical arc, situating the story of St Joseph’s into a wider context, and balancing the secular forces of history with a moving account of a miracle, set out in an (ahistorical) Appendix.

A careful reader of this local history can, however, detect the threads of tension through the stories.  This is one of the great skills of good local historians: to let past voices speak so that people can, later, make their own minds up.  This short book, citing primary sources, oral accounts and memoirs, is foundational for deeper, more scholarly explorations of the way spirituality and institutional religion contend with and complement each other. [3]  It also offers very practical insights into the life and work of missionary fathers: the St Joseph’s complement were mostly from Holland, speaking te reo with a noticeable Duch accent, authoritative, hands-on and pragmatic.  The Convent school, which ran from 1958 until 1980, was staffed by the Sisters of St Joseph of Cluny in Ireland, [4] another missionary order. Furthermore, the function of evangelism itself is illustrated: once the Church determined that there were no new converts to be gained, the priests were withdrawn and the school was closed. The Little Sisters of Carmel, under the chaplaincy of the combative Father Jordan, lived in it as a retreat for the next decade, until “the effects of a Priest shortage had a direct and dramatic impact upon the Parish”.[5] The response to this crisis came directly from the devout within the Te Puna Catholic community. The book includes an account from the Guardian of the Sacred Sacrament, Rosina Borell.

I am happy to confirm that – quite aside from the rough dealings that resulted in the return of St Joseph’s bell to that church [6] - another conflict reported in Keeping the Faith [7] has also been resolved.  Father Jordan’s cottage, controversially located, in 1982, “squarely in front of the Church, almost completely obscuring [it] from the road frontage”, was at some stage moved to another position, behind the church, and in the background of this photo.

St Joseph’s site, looking southeast

Although Jen cannot remember when, exactly, her book was thus rendered out-of-date, we agree that the cottage’s removal was probably tactfully managed by the Centennial Committee to make way for the welcoming waharoa that bears the plaque and blessings made in the new millennium, January 2000.

References

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[1] Kindly deposited as part of the Gravit Collection, 7 March 2024.

[2] See Elisha Rolleston’s essay for Te Mahi Rangahau, https://temahirangahau.wordpress.com/2022/05/01/peter-rolleston/ also published on the Tauranga Historical Society blog, 7 June 2022, https://taurangahistorical.blogspot.com/2022/06/peter-rolleston-1949-2007.html

[3] See, for instance, Cameron, G B: That you might stand here on the roof of the clouds.” The development of Pirirakau theology from encounter to the end of conflict, 1839-1881, Master of Theology thesis, University of Otago, 2015

[4] http://sjc.ie/

[5] Rolleston, P and J: Keeping the Faith, p.55, quoting Rosina Borell

[6] Ibid, p.36

[7] Ibid, pp.48-49

The Life of the Mind at Brain Watkins Hall

Any historical researcher must at some stage ponder when what might be loosely called ‘stuff’ becomes, in a more dignified term, ‘the stuff of history.’ The Tauranga Historical Society Committee conferred on the subject during a recent tidy-up, when the first Register of those who made bookings for meetings at its, relatively modern, Hall in the grounds of Brain Watkins House came to light.

This unassuming notebook, it was agreed, was not to be discarded – its listings provided a unique outline of how a new building closely adjacent to one of Tauranga’s oldest houses was incorporated  into the activities of a few, apparently disparate, groups. In due course, we wondered, the activities of those groups might possibly come to be of historical interest? Thus, we also agreed, the first Register is arguably the stuff, as well as something of an accident, of history. Justifiably, therefore, the subject of a THS blog.

The Hall Register, dated “Nov 1998” on its back cover, came into use on 1 February 1999. Under the supervision of Sue Ferguson, then the live-in caretaker of Brain Watkins House, the door was opened and the lights turned on for the Tauranga UFO Information Group. This group seems still to be active in Tauranga – in 2020 its meetings were being held monthly at the Senior Citizens Club [1] – but for the first decade of the new millennium their monthly gatherings were regularly noted in the Hall Register.

Other early adopters of the new venue were the Tauranga Embroiderers Guild, who left a nice comment about the excellent light [2] and the fee, and the Tauranga Hearing Association Social Club  who got together to consider a wide-ranging series of practical topics – the Road Code, the Citizens Advice Bureau, stroke rehabilitation and other therapies, Search and Rescue; in May 2000 a happy overlap delivered a talk from Harvey Cooke of the UFO Information Group … the list, fascinating to anyone researching the history of deaf culture, goes on ….

As well as the establishment of a venue for the Historical Society’s own meetings, much appreciated after many years of ‘camping’ in a variety of rented or borrowed rooms [3], the Hall became an early base for Tauranga’s Aviation History Society, eventually to become the Bay of Plenty Classic Aircraft Trust [4]. It is good to know that their ambitions for a museum of aviation came true.

The Hall’s simplicity and serene garden location seems to have been attractive to several religious groups.  The first such to use the Hall was Unity on the Mount, which had become an approved organisation for the purpose of the Marriage Act 1955 on 21 June 1999 [5]. Two months later, on Sunday 5 September, Mr George Watson organized two hours of worship, the first of many weekly gatherings that came to an end in September 2004. A Catherine Ruby Watson was among the list of marriage celebrants published in the Gazette of 26 April 2001 [6]. (The Hall Register does not reveal that any of the bookings actually involved a marriage ceremony.)  In August 2000 Unity on the Mount’s Sunday services were complemented by the Thursday meetings of the Sri Sathya Sai Group of Tauranga [7]. When Unity stopped using the Hall, their Sunday slot was filled from October 2004 by the Society of Friends, aka Quakers, an arrangement that continues to this day.

Tauranga Historical Society’s Annual General Meeting in April 1995
Tauranga Historical Society Collection

In the middle of the decade Hall bookings spread out across a wider range of organisations – the Soroptimists had met there over the latter part of 2001, then went elsewhere, but two years later were back and soon joined by Tauranga branches of the University of the Third Age, the NZ Association of Medical Herbalists, the Herb Society, an association of kinesiologists, one of homeopathic therapists, and the Theosophical Society. The Yoga Centre, another present-day user, makes an appearance in the records for in July and August 2009. But it seems that over the next summer months – the first Register ends in January 2010 – only the Quakers were using the Hall.

What does this small body of information amount to? Might I hope that some researcher of the future, seeking evidence of ‘alternative’ social networks in Tauranga at the turn of the twenty-first century, would find this list as intriguing as I do? Based on the example of the Hearing Association and the UFO Information Group, there was at the very least an exchange of ideas, a distinctive life of the mind, among those who came and went from the Hall. The Register is not evidence of overlapping membership, of course. That is something for my researcher of the future to explore. What is evident, especially in 2004, is that, among themselves, word got around. (This was after the World Wide Web [8] but before Facebook [9].)

It comes to this: even if these groups’ commonality derived only from the circumstance of their regular meetings at this small, simple and low-cost (then hired out at a flat rate of $20 per session) venue, I feel I have made a case, even from this short distance of time, for the historical importance of the first Register of bookings for the Tauranga Historical Society’s Hall.

References

[1] https://www.cab.org.nz/community-directory/KB00024578

[2] The writer is aware that even better light, as well as space for an expanded group of embroiderers, was eventually found at the Tauranga Rowing Club’s Clubrooms in Memorial Park, Tauranga.

[3] Such as the downstairs lounge of the Baptist Church Centre, cnr Cameron Road and 13^th Ave: https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/23916

[4]  https://register.charities.govt.nz/CharitiesRegister/Search.  See also https://www.classicflyersnz.com/aboutus.html

[5] https://gazette.govt.nz/notice/id/1999-go4540

[6] https://gazette.govt.nz/notice/id/2001-go2895

[7] This group, too, seems still to be active: https://www.sathyasai.org.nz/Tauranga

[8] “The Web began to enter everyday use in 1993-4 when websites for general use started to become available.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Wide_Web

[9] “Facebook was then opened on September 26, 2006 to everyone aged 13 and older with a valid email address.”  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Facebook

Memorial Park Fountain

Fountain, Memorial Park, Tauranga
Photograph by Allan Scott, Postcard published by Dow Productions (No. 122)
Collection of Justine Neal

All self respecting parks of any size should have a fountain or a water display of some sort and Memorial Park is no exception. Gleaming white in the summer sun with clear blue water the fountain takes pride of place along the foreshore of the park. The idea was initiated by the Tauranga Jaycees and construction of the fountain began in 1962. It was built by voluntary labour of the Tauranga’s Jaycee members, who worked 5000 hours on the project and gave up their leisure hours over 27 weekends.

The Tauranga Photo News of 2 February 1963 reported that "Before a huge crowd assembled in Memorial Park, the Mayor Mr. Mitchell, switched on the new fountain for the first time. A great asset to the park, the fountain has already attracted thousands of spectators, especially after dark when its constantly changing colours and varying patterns of play can be seen to the best advantage. An almost limitless combination of effects is provided by 12 jet formations and 8 different light changes."

In 1987 repairs were carried out on the fountain and in 2009 the fountain was upgraded with a new, more efficient lighting system. The old system, which was installed with the fountain in the 1960s, was facing a $7000 bill for repairs and maintenance, and was also costing $5000 per year to run. The new system cost $15,000 to install, but will only cost about $250 to run. It will be a better display and will make a great photo at night too.

Tauranga Photo News. 2 Feb, 1963
Tauranga City Council Weekly News bulletin. Nov 2, 2009.

Colin Maungapōhatu Bidois and Te Hokingamai o Mauao

Colin Maungapōhatu Bidois and Te Hokingamai o Mauao [1]

The Orange Folder

The yearning felt by the Nameless One for his beautiful maunga, Puwhenua, was matched in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by the iwi of Tauranga Moana as they saw Mauao taken out of their kaitiakitanga “through Crown breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi, through Crown manipulation and laws which were aimed at dismantling the social and political infrastructure of Maoridom, laws such as the New Zealand Settlement Act 1863, The Native Land Act 1873, The Waste Lands Act 1876, The Public Reserves Act 1854, The Harbour Act 1878 and other statutes.” [2]

C.M. Bidois' Grave

The words quoted are those of Colin Maungapōhatu Bidois, a kaumatua of Ngāti Ranginui whose archive of papers relating to his work for the iwi of Tauranga Moana has passed into the keeping of the Te Puna Memorial Hall Society. This blog is a very preliminary acknowledgement of his generous gift and a humble, necessarily brief, exploration of just one aspect of this remarkable man’s life – his part in the return of Mauao to the tāngata whenua. I am indebted to Wikitoria Bidois for permission to access these particular papers.

Maungapōhatu would be the first to say that he was one of many. His submission, quoted above, opens with a gracious acknowledgement of another eminent kaumatua, Kiritoha Tangitu, who had, Colin said, promoted the possibility of the return “approximately 10 years ago.”

That takes us back to another document in his papers: the well-marked and flagged pages of Roimata Minhinnick’s Report on Mauao/Mount Maunganui, WAI 540, received at the Waitangi Tribunal on 13 June 1999. [3] Colin’s interest in this document was intense. From his highlighted sections and Post-it notes the researcher can see his mind at work and the threads of argument being woven into a firm fabric to enfold him as he took his seat before the Maori Affairs Committee. Like Kiritoha, he was a Pirirakau man. He was determined to assert their agency in the confusion and collusion that followed the so-called “Pacification Hui” that followed the battle of Te Ranga. He stood the Pirirakau claim up against the convenient Crown fiction that Governor Grey’s Promise to Tauranga Iwi [4] (actually, a deal struck only with Ngai Te Rangi) had settled (pun intended) all arrangements [5] between the Crown and tāngata whenua.

But Colin was also wise enough not to pursue only narrow interests. Elsewhere in his collection I found a faded orange folder with a mysterious label in his handwriting. In order, I list the first four documents it contains.
 
First, a draft Deed of Trust of the Mauao Trust, undated but for the year (2007 [6]) and unsigned, but intended for signature by eminent representatives of Ngai Te Rangi, Ngāti Ranginui and Ngāti Pukenga as well as Colin himself as Chairman of Te Rūnanganui o Tauranga Moana. Colin has marked several elements of the draft in an evident effort to guide discussion to his salient points – phrases like, “stand possessed”, “receive and hold” “protect and preserve.” A question mark appears alongside clause 3.3, “Objects and Purposes Independent.” He endorses processes around appointment and removal of Trustees with the simple word, “Iwi.” Administrative details concerning bank accounts and use of the Common Seal are marked with arrows. Tax, remuneration and liability references are circled.

C.M. Bidois' Grave

Colin had prepared carefully for what the next document suggests was a hui to take place on 16 July. It is a handwritten list of significant dates, absences and appointments, and three heavily-scored items for lawyer Spencer Webster’s attention. Touchingly, the last entry on the page is a note to self: “Thank Rahera [probably, Rahera Ohia] for letter.”

The third item is another handwritten list, undated, but headed, “Set Adgenda [sic].” Once again we get a glimpse into the mind of a master of situations: an orderly sequence of topics for korero, attention to cost implications, a note lining Rahera and Spencer up for a rewording of a specific clause, and a firm conclusion: “then Response to MoMA [Minister of Maori Affairs].”

Most telling, perhaps, is the fourth item: a newspaper clipping dated 29/05/07 in Colin’s handwriting. The Herald had invited the chairman of the Ngāti Whātua o Orakei Trust Board to write an article it headlined, “Ngāti Whātua to move forward minus theatrics.” Colin has underlined the first sentence of the second paragraph: “Any Treaty settlement is going to involve claims and counter-claims ...” and has marked at the margins other remarks warning of the arduous and adversarial path – the hard yards – that lie ahead of the “real negotiators.”

And this, in reality, was just the beginning. There are 30 more documents in the orange folder, evidence of face-downs, stand-offs and compromise as Mauao stood tantalisingly in the shadows. But the last item, a folder in its own right, contains the introduction copy and associated speech notes and press statement for the Mauao Historic Reserve Vesting Bill. The patupaiarehe had vanished into the night and the light of legislative scrutiny shone on the return of the maunga. The Act was passed in May 2008. Even so, ten more years went by before the Mauao Historic Reserve Management Plan [7] was concluded.  Three other sets of documents, largely unexamined, detail Colin’s part in this protracted negotiation.

Researchers of the future will find much to value in this archive. Those of us who knew Maungapōhatu can feel privileged to get glimpses of his personal approach to public life. Those who will now never meet him will find a mother lode of insights and narrative on aspects of iwi development and tenacious purpose in te rohe o Tauranga Moana. Just as he wanted.

References

[1] As Chair of the Rūnanganui, Colin preferred the term “The Vesting of Title to Mauao Historic Reserve.”  See letter, 2 August 2007, to Huata Palmer, then Chairperson of the Ngaiterangi Iwi Incorporated Society.

[2] Colin Maungapohatu Bidois, Submission to the Maori Affairs Committee re Mauao Historic Reserve Vesting Bill, 27 February 2008.

[3] Roimata Minhinnick, Report Commissioned by the Waitangi Tribunal for the Tauranga claim (Wai 215), endorsed WAI 540 – A2 and WAI 215 – A49.

[4] AJHR 1867, A20.

[5] In the words of the Tauranga District Lands Act 1867: “all grants, awards, contracts or agreements”.

[6] Colin had begun the process in 2003: see email, Ngāti Ranginui Iwi to Spencer Webster, November 3 2003.

[7] https://www.tauranga.govt.nz/Portals/0/data/council/plans/files/mauao_reserve_management.pdf