Yet Pakeha have not always cared to remember them in anything approaching a robust manner, engaging at different times either in elaborate myth-making that painted the wars as chivalrous and noble or, when that was no longer tenable, actively choosing to ignore them altogether.

More recently there are signs of a greater willingness to face up to the bitter and bloody realities of these conflicts. For many Maori, that is not before time.

If a turning point in Pakeha remembrance could be identified, then perhaps it might be the petition organised by students from Otorohanga College that led to a national day of commemoration for the New Zealand Wars: Ra Maumahara.

In 2014, students from the school, some as young as 15, visited nearby Orakau and Rangiaowhia.

The group was led by kaumatua who were descendants of the survivors. At each site, they recounted what took place during the invasions and the ongoing impact on hapu and iwi.

These stories had a profound effect on the students and their teachers, not least because the events in question took place in the Waikato, where they lived. Yet very few Pakeha seemed to know anything about them.

These silences weighed heavily on the young people.

They responded by starting a petition which called on the government to officially acknowledge the New Zealand Wars in a national day of commemoration and also to introduce local histories and studies of these conflicts into the school curriculum.

The petition, signed by more than 12,000 people and presented to Parliament in December 2015, attracted a groundswell of support from others who were also troubled by these silences.

In August 2016, the government announced that a national day of commemoration would be established (although not as a statutory holiday).

The first Ra Maumahara was hosted by Te Tai Tokerau iwi at Kororareka in March 2018.

But the government's willingness to acknowledge the wars did not extend to the school curriculum. Continue reading

The Anglican Bishop of Waiapu, the Right Reverend Andrew Hedge, said the church was complicit in handing over land given in trust by Maori.

He was speaking at a commemorative service held in St George's Church which sat on the scene of the battle fought on April 29, 1864.

The service began with a bell being tolled 60 times to commemorate the 60 Maori and Pakeha who lost their lives in the battle.

Hedge said the history would be revisited at the church's General Synod beginning this week.

The Synod would be asked to formally recognise how its predecessors were complicit in yielding land that had been held in trust and which now could not be recovered.

Hedge said the Synod was being asked that the church stands alongside the hapu in their endeavours for reconciliation.

Speaking prior to the service, local historian Buddy Mikaere said:

"On Sunday we will be remembering that battle but, more importantly, it's remembering it's that battle that's the birth of the city (Tauranga) as we know it.

After that battle, we had another battle at Te Ranga (Pyes Pa) and, after that, the Maori who fought at Te Ranga and Pukehinahina had their land confiscated.

"It's on that confiscated land that Tauranga is now built.

So we commemorate it because of that and what it meant to Maori people. It was the start of a real hard time for them."

Mikaere said Maori acts of kindness during those battles also deserved recognition.

"Of all the battles in New Zealand, Pukehinahina is up there because of the acts of chivalry and the way the Maori side behaved.

"People remember the humanity ... Maori crept around at night to give wounded soldiers water."

Source

• nzherald.co.nz
• nzherald.co.nz
• Image: nzherald.co.nz

They died during a skirmish that took place on Moutua Island in the Whanganui river.

The Society of Mary's archivist, Elizabeth Charlton visited the memorial this month and noted that as a result of a recent refurbishment Br Euloge's name can now be clearly seen.

"Older mentions of the memorial noted that Br Euloge's name could only just been seen," she said.

The white marble statue of a weeping woman, a personification of grief, stands in Moutoa Gardens/Pakaitore in the city of Whanganui.

The memorial was erected by the European citizens to commemorate the kupapa who fell in the engagement on Moutoa Island. About 50 Pai Marire also perished.

It is unclear how Br Euloge met his death.

In May 1864, a party of Pai Marire supporters from the upper Whanganui River were heading down the river to attack Whanganui town.

Their path was blocked at Moutoa, by the party of kupapa led by two chiefs from Putiki, near the river mouth. The encounter lasted not much more than 30 minutes.

An account of the engagement, a 100th-anniversary publication, relates that Br Euloge was wounded in the head by a member of the Pai Marire party and died some hours later.

This account was said to be an eyewitness account was told by Arana Tinirau, chief of the Ngatiruaka. and written down by his son Paamu Tinirau.

Other accounts which say Br Euloge was shot whilst standing on the river bank, or tomahawked.

Source

• Supplied: Society of Mary Archives
• Voxy
• NZ History
• Image: Supplied Gerald Charlton

They have proposed a national day of remembrance for the New Zealand Wars.

Last year College students gathered around 12,000 signatures in support of a New Zealand Wars Day and travelled from Waikato to Wellington to present it.

Maori party press release
Sadness that it has been left to pupils of Otorohanga College to fill "a vacuum in our history curriculum" in respect of the New Zealand Land Wars of the 19th century, has been expressed by the president of the Maori Party, Rangimarie Naida Glavish.

"It is a sad reflection on my own generation of kuia and kaumatua that it has been left to enterprising rangatahi at Otorohanga College to remind us of this vacuum in the history curriculum currently in our schools," said Ms Glavish. She was referring to the petition organised by Otorohanga pupils seeking a public holiday to remember Maori and Pakeha who fell in the New Zealand Land Wars. Their petition was sparked by a visit to nearby war sites at Orakau and Rangiaowhia.

"While such a holiday may be a step too far, we certainly need to revisit the extent to which we teach our own New Zealand history in our schools. There are still too many New Zealanders, both long-established and more recent immigrants who remain unaware of how and why the Treaty of Waitangi was signed, and of events following that signing that created tensions between Maori and new settlers, ultimately leading late last century to the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal and processes for the settlement of proven grievances.

"As well, there are stories, many good, some not so good, about Maori dispersement through the motu following the first arrivals from Hawaiiki. Many of these stories gave rise to the Maori place names, given originally to commemorate events and people.

The inadequacy of attention in our curriculum to the absorbing history of our own land is a prime cause of unnecessary tensions between Maori and non-Maori. Those tensions will continue to fester until we promote fuller and deeper understanding of our own history.

"Accordingly, I will be asking our two Maori Party Members of Parliament, Hon Te Ururoa Flavell and Marama Fox, themselves both former teachers to take up, as a matter of urgency, with the Minister of Education, Hon Hekia Parata, the need to fill this unfortunate and unnecessary vacuum in our curriculum," Ms Glavish concluded.

Other soldiers found themselves in hostile, unfamiliar territory thousands of miles away from their loved ones. Should we forget such conflicts or commemorate them as important parts of our heritage and try to understand why they happened?

I'm talking of course about the New Zealand Wars, which occurred here about 150 years ago.

With all the rightful commemoration that is going on with the centenary of World War I, it's easy to forget that in the middle of the 19th century, large parts of New Zealand were battlefields.

There is a war memorial in nearly every small town in New Zealand, inscribed with the names of those who fell in the two world wars, but why is there so little public commemoration of the New Zealand Wars - arguably the single biggest conflict to shape this country?

A few years ago I was working on a historical project in Taranaki, the site of some of the major conflicts of the New Zealand Wars. I wanted to visit some battle sites.

I found myself in fields and unmarked reserves, convinced that I was lost. Only a sad old plaque, sometimes covered in scrub, at the edge of some former pa told me that I was in the right place.

The battles of the New Zealand Wars were epic and fascinating. The names of foreign conflicts like Chunuk Bair and Passchendaele ring in our ears but what do we know of Rangiriri, Orakau, Gate Pa and Okaihau, to name a few?

The careers of Bernard Freyberg and William Malone are well worth studying, but what about Hone Heke, Titokowaru, Von Tempsky, and Te Whiti? Continue reading

• Dave Armstrong is a successful and prolific New Zealand playwright, scriptwriter and newspaper columnist.

Reverend Wayne Te Kaawa, the moderator of the church's Maori synod, backs the calls made last month by the Waikato-Tainui leader Tukoroirangi Morgan.

Te Kaawa says, "This is no longer a Maori versus Pakeha issue as many New Zealanders had members of their family fighting on both sides. Today many Iwi have settled their outstanding claims with the Crown and a national day would also help the country grow in maturity by recognising its past". continue reading