SOUTH CANTERBURY

CREDIT: CHRISTINE WHYBREW HERITAGE NEW ZEALAND POUHERE TAONGA

Te Kāmaka o Arowhenua listed as Wāhi Tūpuna

Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga staff, members of the Rātana Church, a Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association delegate, and the MP for Te Tai Tonga joined with the Arowhenua hapori to celebrate.

At the highway turnoff to Arowhenua, south of Temuka, stands a unique limestone archway built in the waharoa style. Over 4 metres high and 8 metres wide, Te Arowhenua stands on the corner of the Arowhenua Māori Reserve, on a reservation land block that was gifted and reserved for a model pā and meeting house in 1939. The consecrated Oamaru limestone block Kāmaka was constructed in 1934 to commemorate three strands of identity for the Waitaha-KātiHuirapa hapū of Arowhenua. Thought to be the only limestone rock archway of its kind in Aotearoa New Zealand, it honours the memory of the rangitira Te Hipa Te Maihāroa (ca 1800-85).

Te Maihāroa led Waitaha and Kāti Huirapa through decades of intense colonial pressures, upheaval and land loss in the second half of the 18th century. He is remembered as an inspirational leader, famously conducting a heke of over 100 people to Te Ao Marama (Omarama) and then to Korotuaheka after an unsuccessful effort to escape the effects of rampant colonisation.

The Kāmaka also honours the transformative leader Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana (18731939), who founded a Māori ministry for religious and secular advancement of Maōri causes. He visited Arowhenua, bringing the Rātana faith in the early 1930s. A roll of honour inscribed onto the Kāmaka also commemorates hapū soldiers who did not return from the First World War. A plaque for fallen soldiers from the Second World War was later added to the Kāmaka.

The foundation stone for the Kāmaka was laid on 13 December 1934 by Eruera Tirikātene, MP for Southern Māori, on behalf of Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana, who was ill at the time. A year later, on 14 November 1935, Rātana himself unveiled the completed Kāmaka. Over 80 years later, this special gathering brought descendants and representatives together to celebrate the steps taken to recognise this Wāhi Tūpuna and its entry onto the Rārangi Kōrero. Opened by Rātana Āpotoro, James Seymour, the plaque was unveiled by Gwen Anglem-Bower and Anne Te Maiharoa Dodd. A number of speakers addressed the gathering, including representatives from Arowhenua and Waihao, Te Tai Tonga, Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Maori Heritage Council, Te Hipa te Maiharoa and the Returned and Services Association. The event concluded with a shared picnic lunch.

Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga is proud to celebrate this unique maumahara and acknowledge the hapori who have given decades of care and attention to the Kāmaka ensuring it is still here to enjoy. n Writers: Huia Pacey, Francesca Bradley & David Watt