1863: Do We Need A 3rd Rangiriri Pa?
April 27, 2022
By AHNZ
The first Rangiriri Pa was the second great stand of the retreating side in the Waikato War. This earth fortress of South Auckland was put to siege on 20 November 1863 but surrendered the very next morning.
In all fairness, there’s another side to the surrender that has been creeping into the revisionist history books and over the new official informatoin panels. It’s that the Maoris waving their white flags didn’t really mean to surrender Rangiriri at all despite being out-gunned and out-manned and surely shocked at being bombarded from river boats too!¹ The idea is that when the Maori defenders realised the misunderstanding that they had surrendered they just sort of said, ‘sure, what the hell’ and went along with it. This is, of course, ridiculous, but I repeat it in fairness to our current mainsteam history writers.
The third Rangiriri Pa, amazingly enough, also lasted only two days. I visited it on the official opening day, 23 April, 2022, but as quickly as 25 April it was declared closed and “heaps and heaps of cars” had to be turned away. Ngati Naho Chairman Brad Totorewa has offered no explaination. It’s as if Rangiriri Pas are historically destined to be 2 day affairs only and cursed with misunderstandings when it comes to being open to visitors!
“The Rangiriri Historical and Cultural Heartland Project received $2.97 million from the government to rebuild the battle trenches and, in time, to open an education centre. It will be officially opened on Saturday by the Māori King, Tūheitia Potatau Te Wherowhero VII.” – Iwi ready to unveil project that tells story of key Land Wars battle, RNZ
Brad told RNZ that Rangiriri 3 is going to be like the huge tourist venture Hobbiton except better. (Barefoot people living in earthworks…I can see the comparison.) Following the Maori King’s 1863 Oath of Betral, the Crown Colony of New Zealand set out to eject the rebels from where they could make good their threats to strike at Auckland. According to Brad, “The word eject is exactly the same as annihilate. We weren’t supposed to be here today telling our story, but we are.” Here’s tirbal chairperson who has either never owned a DVD player or else thinks they’re a single use object!
‘You see individual graves and each and every single one of those individual graves belongs to British soldiers and then you see this one mass grave and in that mass grave lies the bodies of our ancestors and to me that is a sign of inequality, racism and all that type of stuff that still exists today,” says Brad Totorewa’s son, Te Oko. But when I look at that Maori mass grave right there within the same cemetary as everyone else I feel impressed by the respect an enemy had to include everyone in the same shared grounds. On my first visit, years ago now, I remember being deeply struck by that willingness to include even the enemy in the same graveyard.² Now this guy thinks its racist as if the unknown Maori dead could have all been named with individual headstones. They didn’t get issued with ID cards at the start of the rebellion, you know?
One thing I like about the 2022 government funded Rangiriri Pa recreation is how it’s an easy distance from the 2017 government funded Rangiriri Pa recreation. Rangiriri 2 is full of grassy rabbit-infested artificial hills with a big sign that reads, “This is the scene of the 1863 Battle of Rangiriri the first major conflict of the Waikato Invasion by British forces. They symbolic reinterpretation of the paa was completed in 2017 as part of the Waikato Expressway Rangiriri Section landscape works.” It was a National 5.0 project officially opened on 15 December 2015 by Transport Minister Simon Bridges and, despite Bridges being a Maori, has remained open unlike Rangiriri landscapes before or since.
Rangiriri 2 was part of a concession to Ngati Naho who, “believed fatal crashes common on State Highway 1 were linked to the taniwha.” The Expressway had to be re-routed at great expense. “A swamp-dwelling taniwha has halted work on part of the Waikato expressway near Meremere after iwi pointed out its presence. Transit New Zealand has ordered a stop to work on 100m of the highway project until a meeting can be held with the north Waikato hapu Ngati Naho.” Ref. Taniwha halts work on highway, NZ Herald (2002.)
As we now know, Ngati Naho and/or their taniwha did not rest content with Rangiriri 2. Within only 5 years it was time for Rangiriri 3 thanks to Labour 6.0 for money-printing $3,000,000 for Ngati Naho.
Rangiriri the Third
In my Anarchist History point of view Rangiriri 3 has been a terrible idea. The superficial reasons are bad enough. Aesthetically, at least right now, it looks like someone has baked a giant loaf of bread in a skate park and the crust has risen up like some Roald Dahl plotline involving giants and fruit. Rangiriri was part of what the first Maori King called ‘the fire in the fern’ so where are the ferns? I saw potted plants being trundled away in golf carts when they ought to belong to the pa to keep it from looking like Tatooine.
Rather than the touch of mother earth that Hobbits and Waikato Rebels liked to dwell in, Rangiriri 3 is made out of a government’s ransom in wire mesh, shotcrete, and spray-on grass. The result is unnatural and doesn’t last.
“Concrete manufacture produces more carbon emissions than all the trucks in the world. Natural cements made with volcanic ash will absorb carbon, and last longer given its self healing properties with micro fissures. Ancient Roman technology would be greener.” – Comment to AHNZ
“The fact that these 4 m high monstrosities built out of shotcrete and sitting in the middle of a battlefield where men died…speaks of desecration and stupidity to a degree rarely seen before in this country. AND when that shotcrete cracks and begins to degrade, as all shotcrete does (because of the air entrained into the mix when applying)…then what? Will you give bits of it to the ‘millions’ of Japanese tourists who apparently are going to be leaping off tourist busses in their droves in order to see this hideous fake.” – Comment to AHNZ
“At $21,000 per metre I hope the taxpayer is getting good value” – Comment to AHNZ
Question: Hello. Herewini Waikato Maori TV Reporter. Could I zoom you tomorrow or could I get a statement emailed what your point and reason for your posting about the Rangiriri Trenches is all about?. My email is…@gmail.com. Number 021….Thank you.
The first Rangiriri Pa and the two government-funded re-makes belong to our history so of course every New Zealander is entitled to consider them. Thanks for asking for an Anarchist Libertarian point of view. Just in case you are not familiar with Voluntarist ideas the key thing is that communities can and must generate their own self-respect and energy for all that they do. Statists insist that official people, especially Central Government, can run your life and your community better than you can for yourself.
Creating the third Rangiriri earthworks was a missed opportunity for a community to directly relate to their ancestors who built the first. The great pa was not paid for by Central Government handouts but by the willpower and efforts of people who refused to have their lives directed by Central Government. We pay back their memory poorly by having The State build, not once but twice now, a Rangiriri as if the descendents today either could not or would not be able to do in peace time what their ancestors did by hand during an invasion.
I’m told the latest Labour 6.0 version of Rangiriri cost $3,000,000 which divides into $21,000 per metre. I can’t believe the Ngati Naho could not have realised better value by building their own pa in their own place by refusing anyone else’s subsidy. Instead of mechanical diggers, steel mesh, shotcrete, and spray-on grass it could have been done by labour in a much more authentic build. It would have brought that community together with one another leaving a lasting monument they could always look back on with pride as well as create a spiritual connection to 1864 that money can never buy.³ This was the missed opportunity. Hopefully, after this one deteriorates, the fourth Rangiriri Pa will honor the first and make an embarrasing sandwitch of the two government ones we have now.
Maori projects, and Maori language too, must not be paid for and run as government welfare programs. A monument to ancestors who fought and died for autonomy from Big Government should never be provided by that same government. It undermines the entire spirit of Maori independence and Anarchist tikanga to permit two successive governments to supply our memorials. Rangiriri 1 was a monument to resisting George Grey’s State but Rangiriri 2 and Rangiriri 3 show that that conqoured territory is now well and truly colonised by government because these are monuments to National 5.0 and Labour 6.0.
You only need to watch our introduction to Rangiriri 3 in the tribe’s video called Breathing Life Into The Walls to see how inauthentic and colonised is the entire project. A far cry from the besieged warriors of the origional Rangiriri, we are treated to non-Maori music, non-Maori technology, and non-Maori money on display. Who (or what?) form of life is being breathed into Rangiriri here? This entire video resembles an identical 2015 German Eurodance publicity video not something any New Zealander came up with.
In my opinion we did not need a second or third Rangiriri Pa but we certainly now do need a fourth.
Other New Zealanders will have strong feelings too, both in favour and against Rangiriri Mark III. Hope you’ll let as many people as are passionate about this history news be self expressed too and thanks again for asking for the Anarkiwi point of view.
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1 According to the information panel at the Rangiriri cemetary, “Rangiriri was superbly strategically situated and most ingeniously constructed.” I’m not so sure considering it was in firing range of 5 gunboats within shelling range that could steam right up the Waikato River! Supurb?
2 Contrary to what the Totorewas believe, bodies of their ancestors don’t lay in this mass grave at all. According to the informatoin panel beside the cemetary arch those remains have long since been removed.
3 In digging this fort today, anew, how could a Waikato Maori not feel the touch of his ghostly ancestor guiding his movements? They once did the same work in this same place. How anyone spiritually minded could pass up that opportunity for a contractor to come with his concrete ejaculation hose instead is beyond me. It’s the difference between a family home cooked meal and dialing out for White Man’s pizza.
Note: Ngati Naho Chairman Brad Totorewa is credited with Production Design for the following video promoting the attraction at Rangiriri. But did he also create the German Eurodance promo from 2015 in this video? Hopefully the taxpayer didn’t compensate too much over this or anyone in error….
Update 23 April 2023: One year on and the defenders of the latest Rangariri Pa are putting up about as much fight as the first. The works are crumbling, rusting, caving in, deteriorating. Steel mesh under the turf is showing as the thin layer of cement and turf erodes away. Can see why resource consent has not been forthcoming. It’s a scandal. Totorewa is to step down for a new leader in a few weeks and would not be attending this weekend’s anniversary open day yet hopes many fee-paying visitors will. Ref. Images posted to AHNZ by Jacobs’ pro bono building inspection and photographic report.
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