Tangi, large or small are exemplars of tikanga Māori at its deepest and most potent. At the heart of this huimate is the principle of manaakitanga. Manaakitanga is often understood as hospitality, generosity and caring. The principle manifests in acts of kindness and support whatever the circumstance.
The people of Waikato Tainui have worked tirelessly in their demonstration of manaakitanga. The paepae has sat for hours in pōwhiri, honouring those who came to pay their respects from all over the world, from the Pacific to Ukraine.
Hundreds have kept the marae clean and ready for each new wave of manuhiri. The army came to show their support and helped the haukainga feed some 15,000 people in just one day.
Manaakitanga is about being generous and caring. Most importantly, manaakitanga upholds the mana of others.
It is a principle that requires us to show consideration for the needs of the people around us, to offer to those people whatever they need to keep them well.
That manaakitanga was evident at the huimate this week. David Seymour was welcomed at the marae, despite Seymour’s spurning of the Kononeihana two weeks earlier and despite his party’s attacks on Māori aspirations for a mana to mana relationship with the Crown.
Seymour was addressed by Tātere McLeod from the paepae and welcomed to his very first visit to Turangawaewae. It was noted "with bitter sadness" that Seymour had missed the opportunity to have a conversation with Kiingi Tuheitia when he was alive.
Nonetheless, he was welcomed to the "cauldron of Māori debate" created by a 166-year-old movement "in response to some terrible challenging and heinous times experienced by the people not only of this tribe but around the country."
It will not have eluded Seymour that the Kingitanga political movement of kotahitanga arose in the 19th century in response to the Crown’s denial of its obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi/ Te Tiriti o Waitangi.
The Crown did not respect the Tiriti right of rangatiratanga they had signed up to just two decades earlier. Because of this Crown failure, iwi unified to defend their land from covetous settler encroachment and to protect their rangatiratanga, people and wellbeing.
The colonial government responded with the military invasion of the Waikato and elsewhere in Aotearoa. We are all still paying for the deaths and the land confiscations from that time, whānau Māori and whānau Pākehā alike.
Fast forward to today and, well. We would hope that things would be different 166 years later.
Instead, iwi Māori are again defending ourselves from the Crown’s denial of its obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi/ Te Tiriti o Waitangi. This denial is led by David Seymour, who received such a gracious welcome from the Kingitanga.
The Treaty Principles Bill is a legislative, rather than miliary, attempt to eliminate Māori political authority from the governance of Aotearoa.
But the intent of the action remains the same — to redefine the Treaty agreement in favour of the Crown so that only the Crown has the power to make decisions for iwi Māori.
At some point this abusive cycle of Crown harassment in the face of Māori progress will come to an end. Māori institutional strength was not then, and is not now, defeatable.
If this year’s call for unification of iwi Māori led by Kiingi Tuheitia Potatau Te Wherowhero VII was not sufficient, this week’s demonstration of the kotahitanga of Māori, supported by iwi, hapū, whanau and organisations should give the Crown cause to consider its honour.
Ngā rau tīpare o te iwi, ngā huia kaimanawa o te tangata, tau mai rā. Nō reira, ko te hunga mate ki te hunga mate, ko te hunga ora ki te hunga ora, tēnā anō tatou katoa.
■Metiria Stanton-Turei is a senior law lecturer at the University of Otago and a former Green Party MP and co-leader.
