Breaking in the New Year - a climb up Te Aroha

My New Year's treat to myself (my wife would hardly call it that) was to climb up Mt Te Aroha, the highest peak (952 metres) in the Kaimai Range which dominates the Hauraki Plains, topped further by a 125 metre TV transmitter tower. For me it was a return 'home' overlooking the Plains which shaped my psyche in my first five years - and later two years in Paeroa.

Some photos of the walk, the view and surrounding Te Aroha township are below, but once again, just scratching a little under the surface of dominant (European Pākehā) history, we find ‘the truth’ is not always what’s displayed publicly.

At the base of the mountain, in the township of Te Aroha, lies the thermal springs and spa, a depleted geyser, and beautiful looking Edwardian-style gardens and buildings.

Despite public plaques and the Te Aroha Museum saying the springs on the slopes of the mountain were ‘generously gifted’ by Rangatira Te Mokena Hou, a summary of findings by the Waitangi Tribunal in the Hauraki report notes the following (page xl of the Executive Summary):

Despite some oral traditions to the contrary, the Ngati Rahiri Tumutumu rangatira Te Mokena Hou and his whanau did not, in legal terms, ‘give’ to the Crown the hot springs reserve in section 16 of the Te Aroha purchase (while retaining sections 15 and 17 where the township was built). Rather, Crown control of the springs was asserted through the Te Aroha purchase, the proclamation of the Te Aroha goldfield in 1880, and the Public Domains Act 1881, under which the reserve was gazetted. We accept therefore that another Ngati Rahiri Tumutumu oral tradition that the springs were ‘taken’ by the Crown has some validity. In general, we find that the Crown has failed to protect the traditional values and kaitiakitanga of the tribe in Te Aroha mountain and hot springs. [further details in the report]

Regarding the naming of the mountain, in Te Arawa tradition, their ancestor Kahumatamomoe after traveling to Te Tai Tokerau and back again (naming many places along the way), “Before returning to Rotorua, he climbed the highest point on the Kaimai Range, naming it Te Muri-aroha-o-Kahu, te aroha-tai, te aroha-uta (the love of Kahu for those on the coasts and those on the land) for his relatives living inland at Rotorua and Taupō, and those near the sea in the far north and the Coromandel.” (see (‘Te Arawa Stories’)

However, the Te Ara – Encyclopaedia of New Zealand website notes that in the tradition of another iwi (Tainui), it was named Te Aroha-o-Kahu by the Tainui ancestress Kahupekapeka, who climbed the mountain after the death of her husband.

There are more and deeper stories to be told about ‘Te Aroha’, and it’s meaning and significance to Māori, on both sides of the Kaimai divide.

 

 

And the town clock still chimes the hours and every quarter hour. Listen in the video below.