History comes alive through pou project

A plan to put Hamilton on the historical map has been launched by a local group and it’s an initiative that could draw in as many as half a million visitors a year when it’s completed.

The Nga Mana Toopu O Kirikiriroa group has launched the project, which over the next decade - hopefully sooner - will see 18 historic sites from Te Rapa in the north to the Hamilton Gardens area in the south marked with pou.

The old pa site at Kirikiriroa, on the Waikato riverbank near what is the central city area, is the first to be captured in this way.

A commemorative pou has been erected there already, and others are destined for the Miropiko Pa on River Road and on a site above the Cobham Bridge by the end of this year.

Project manager Wiremu Puke says the 18 sites will eventually be linked through an information booklet and map and there is obviously the potential for guided tours involving Waikato Maori telling their tribal history.

It’s anticipated that the sites, dotted all along the Waikato riverbank, will attract culture and history enthusiasts from around the world during their journey through Aotearoa New Zealand, as well as locals.

The erection of the commemorative pou at Kirikiriroa is especially appropriate as this July will mark the 140th anniversary of its evacuation during the Land Wars era of the 1860s.

The old pa at Kirikiriroa
now appropriately
recognised with a pou

While the pou stands alone at Kirikiriroa currently, it’s planned to capture the significance of the pa site through the use of interpretive panels and lighting in future.

In fact an entire palisaded fence will be erected along the cliff-face at that location, where European and Maori met for the first time in the 1830s.

Wiremu says the pou project has flowed from the development of the first private resource management plan in New Zealand, developed for what was then the New Zealand Dairy Company - now Fonterra - for its Te Rapa factory site in 2001. At that time, an ancient pa site named Mangaharakeke was commemorated with the erection of a 10 metre-high pou niu and five carved palisades.

Since then 18 sites of importance to local iwi have been identified and the Hamilton City Council has shown a commitment to recognising these through the pou project.

Wiremu says that there are commercial opportunities for local businesses, with the sponsorship of more pou for other sites or interpretative panels.

“We’d like to get the entire trail completed in less than 10 years and hopefully some of the local businesses will see the benefit of having a visitor attraction like this in the Hamilton area.

“The proposed historical trail has the same potential.

“We have had a lot of positive feedback about this project and the fact that it is a step in acknowledging and cementing our history in a respectful manner,” the ethnographic researcher says.

The next step is to get the entire project finished so that Waikato Maori can not only rest in the knowledge that their past is being adequately recognised, but also that it will provide the platform for expanding the economic base for their people, through tourism.