NGĀI TAHU ARCHIVE TEAM - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Kaupapa Atawhai Manager for the Department
David Higgins is often asked what the Cultural Mapping project is all about. "It's about gathering all that knowledge, and those traditions and histories of our people across the whole rohe that we weren't able to collect and collate during the prosecution of the claim."
Born in 1951, to Marama Leonard and Thomas Higgins, David was raised at Moeraki by his mother and grandparents. David and his two siblings, Kerry and John, "were real pā kids", and life growing up at the kāik was idyllic. The children learnt how to roll meat, dig graves, put up fences, kill sheep, bob for eels, and would gather kaimoana "to order" for their grandparents. If staying at the hall, they would often sleep on beds made of hay.
David's grandparents were Rāwiri Mamaru Renata (Leonard) and Vivian Tipene Hampstead, and his tipuna were Rāwiri Te Mamaru, the respected chief and tohunga who spent much of his life in Moeraki and Kākaunui, and Teo Pita Tipa. David's great-grandfather, Wiremu (Boho) Tipene Hampstead, was the first of seventeen students to enrol at Moeraki School on its opening day in 1890. David attended Moeraki and Palmerston primary schools, and Waitaki Boys' High in Ōamaru.
The family ran a fishing business and had been involved in the New Zealand fishing industry since the early days of whaling and sealing. Six generations fished from Ōnekakara Bay at Moeraki. As the oldest grandson, it was expected that David would continue in the family business. "My brother John joined me and we ended up with boats all over the place." They caught crayfish, hāpuka (groper) and blue cod, and they ran boats from Moeraki and Port Chalmers.
Although deeply involved with his hapū, prior to the Te Māori exhibition "the only tribal connection we ever had with Ngāi Tahu was the Trust Board annual report we received once a year from Sid Ashton." David reflects that the Te Māori exhibition - that toured the United States from 1984 to 1986, before returning in 1987 for a New Zealand tour - was "a catalyst for our tribal rejuvenation and a source of pride for our iwi. Pride when those taoka went to San Francisco, pride in bringing them back to New Zealand, and pride in showing them off at Ōtepoti and Ōtautahi. It built up an amazing tribal rejuvenation right at the time of the Waitangi Tribunal hearings."
Te Kerēme (the Ngāi Tahu Claim) started for David growing up at Moeraki. "Some of the families carried the mamae of the Claim for generations, and our family was one of them. I grew up knowing about it, however it took some time to understand the details of Te Kerēme." In 1983 David was elected as the Arowhenua representative on the Ngaitahu Maori Trust Board, and went to Christchurch with some trepidation. "I was frightened out of my wits actually, until I met Tipene, Rik Tau, Kuao Langsbury and cousin Bill [Solomon]. In time I relaxed." David remained the Arowhenua representative until 1995.
His brother John continued to run the whānau fishing business, and David devoted his time to the work of the Trust Board. Te Kerēme was the first large historical claim to be heard under the 1985 Waitangi Tribunal legislation and, as the claim gathered pace, David became responsible for gathering historical evidence relating to Ngāi Tahu fisheries. "Each of the Trust Board members had a role to play in the Claim. But I was given the role and the task of managing the collation of traditional evidence for the Fisheries Claim, particularly the Sea Fisheries Claim."
David quickly discovered that whakapapa was integral in gaining the trust of other Ngāi Tahu fishing families.
"Gratefully, every fishing family knew my grandfather. It was a very small network of elders who were fishermen in their own right, and they were all cousins. All up and down the coast, from cousin John Solomon from Kaikoura to Boydie Russell and Matenga Tairoa from Ōtākou, and Jimmy Bragg, Alfie Ryan, and Uncle Mick Fowler in Awarua, who all knew each other really well. It was easy to go to them and say, 'I‘m Davey Leonard's moko, I doing research for the Trust Board and I am seeking this information that I can present to the Waitangi Tribunal', and out came all the [fishing] marks books. Out came all the evidence. I don't think anyone else would have been able to do it at that time. It was the blood connections and strong whakapapa relationships that allowed me access to those old guys who have now unfortunately all passed away."
David interviewed nearly a hundred Māori commercial fishermen over the course throughout Te Kerēme, and sees a direct connection between the generosity with which they shared their knowledge and the kaupapa of the Cultural Mapping Project: "Most of those guys who gave me information all knew what the Claim was about. They were very aware of it. There was no indication from any of them who gave me material evidence that they were looking for personal gain."
While awaiting the publication of the Ngāi Tahu Sea Fisheries report, David supported Tipene O'Regan as a co-negotiator in the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Claims Settlement Act. He played a leading role in managing Ngāi Tahu Fisheries in its early years, and his efforts as the Executive Chairman of Ngāi Tahu Fisheries Limited resulted in Ngāi Tahu establishing a substantial financial base prior to the eventual settlement of the claims with the Crown.
David also went onto serve two terms as the Te Rūnanga o Moeraki representative on Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu.
In 2000 David was appointed the Kaupapa Atawhai Manager for the Canterbury Conservancy of the Department of Conservation, and during this tenure he assisted in establishing Kā Huru Manu. Indeed, he was one of the first people to provide material to map the Ngāi Tahu historical footprint throughout the South Island High Country to support Papatipu Rūnaka representatives in the Tenure Review programme. He then took a leading role in advocating for other Papatipu Rūnaka to participate in the Cultural Mapping Project.
Over many years of work David has learned about the history and traditions of the iwi, and as the Upoko of Moeraki Marae has "the responsibility to ensure that future generations have the information we weren't privy to during the prosecution of the Claim."
More than anything else, he wants to see the information gathered by the iwi to be available and accessible to all Kāi Tahu whānui. "The more information that's available to them about who they are, where they come from, and what the traditional practices of our people are all about, the better."
David Higgins resides at his home kāika of Moeraki where he is the Upoko of his local marae. David grew up at Moeraki where his mother, Marama, was a well-known primary school teacher who taught many of the local Māori and Pākehā children. The whānau have been involved in the New Zealand fishing industry since the early days of whaling and sealing, and David worked as a commercial fisherman out of Moeraki.
David's involvement in tribal matters began when he became the Arowhenua Board member on the Ngaitahu Maori Trust Board, where he spent 13 years as the Arowhenua representative. David was part of the Trust Board when it lodged the Ngāi Tahu Claim with the Waitangi Tribunal in 1986. During the proceedings of the Ngāi Tahu Claim, David was largely responsible for gathering and presenting much of the fisheries evidence that was presented to the Tribunal.
In 2000 David was appointed as the Kaupapa Atawhai Manager for the Canterbury Conservancy of the Department of Conservation. During this tenure he assisted in establishing the Ngāi Tahu Cultural Mapping Project, and was one of the first people to provide material to map the Ngāi Tahu historical footprint throughout the South Island High Country.
Spiritually, culturally and practically Ot ākou kaum ātua Edward Ellison is a man of the land, kaitiaki of ancestral land passed down from the prominent southern Mā ori chiefs Matenga Taiaroa and Karetai.
Edward's father George, a fisherman, took over the family farm when he was about 10 years old and he and his brothers did a lot of the farm work, mustering, shearing and raising calves. "The farm is like a sanctuary to me," he says, a retreat from the front lines of treaty negotiations and resource management work. Juggling farm work around a constant schedule of meetings, he finds working with stock physically rewarding, giving him time to process his thoughts and keep his feet firmly on the ground.
Renowned for his diplomacy and a cool head, Edward Ellison played a key role as a treaty negotiator in Ngāi Tahu's successful claim against the Crown for breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi.
Few people would have a broader understanding of Ngāi Tahu's connection to the land, environment and resources of Te Waipounamu. Operating a sheep and beef farm overlooking Otago Harbour, Edward's primary focus has always been to look after the land passed down from his great-grandmother Nāni Weller, grand-daughter of Te Matenga Taiaroa.
He was drawn into Ngāi Tahu's efforts to research its Treaty of Waitangi claim against the Crown in the 1980s. "It looked like it would be a very special opportunity so we started attending hui around the motu about the claim to get a sense of what was happening elsewhere around the island. The big change for me was identifying as Ngāi Tahu. Before then I identified as Ōtākou tūturu."
Born in Hokitika on 26 th June 1939, James Mason Russell, known as Jimmy, was raised at the Tāpuwai kāika on the north bank of the pounamu river, Arahura. His parents were Metapere Wikitoria Rakaia Meihana (Kāti Waewae) and Patrick Phillip John Russell (Ngāi Tūāhuriri) and his taua and pöua were Rititia Kataura Irikaroa Tainui and Tehiwera Opene Meihana.
James Mason Russell was born at the Tāpuwai kāika on the north bank of the Arahura River. A member of the Ngaitahu Maori Trust Board when the Ngāi Tahu Claim was lodged with the Waitangi Tribunal, Jimmy retired from his work on the ferries to help with the Claim. "I envisaged that the Claim was going to be a major part of our history, and I wanted to be part of that."
Kelly was the Te Rūnanga o Waihao representative on Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu from 2003 until his death in 2007. Between 1998 and 2002, he was also employed by Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu as a kaiārahi (guide) for the Ngāi Tahu Customary Fisheries Unit. Following the unit's disestablishment in 2002, he continued to support the kaupapa of mahinga kai. With his knowledge of customary fishing, natural resources and local traditions, people often looked to him for advice and support on everything from traditional eel catching to the importance of conserving wetlands. He ultimately became an environmental consultant and adviser to the University of Otago's Zoology Department.
Kelly passed away at his home on 15 March 2007, just one day before his sixtieth birthday. He is buried in the small urupā at Waihao Marae, between the Waihao and Waitaki rivers that he treasured so dearly.
Kelvin Timothy Armstrong Davis Te Maire, known as Kelly Davis, was a passionate advocate for the protection of Ngāi Tahu customary rights, mahinga kai, and the area in and around his beloved Waihao River.
Born at Waimate on 16 March 1947, Kelly grew up beside the Centennial Memorial Hall at Morven. He was a great-grandson of Rawiri Te Maire, the influential nineteenth-century Ngāi Tahu rangatira who was an invaluable source of Ngāi Tahu histories, traditions and place names, particularly of the inland areas of Te Waipounamu. Henare Te Maire, Kelly's father, had managed to retain his family's land despite the dispossession of land held by many other Ngāi Tahu in the area. In 1939, while stationed in Papakura with the Māori Battalion, Henare met Mary MacCaskill of Thames. The two married in 1940, and had four children: Henare, Kelly, Pauline and Maku.
Much of Kelly's childhood was spent at the creek on the family's property, or at the nearby Waihao River. He often roamed the Wainono, Waihao and Waimate areas with his father and other kaumātua. In evidence presented to the Waitangi Tribunal, he spoke of his ‘taua and pōua taking whitebait by the bucketful on their bikes, and feeding local families and friends with whitebait'. Kelly loved fishing, and regularly took his border collie, Ginger, to the river with him. Once there, he would set his rod and go to sleep; his dog would wake him whenever there was a fish biting at the hook. At home, Kelly and his siblings helped their father with the commercial potato field behind the family whare, and often lent a hand with picking-up in the shearing shed.
Kelly attended Morven Primary School and then Waimate High School, completing his education in 1963. A popular student and skilled sportsman, he played both cricket and rugby, representing the South Canterbury Schoolboys rugby team as a halfback. After leaving school, he joined the Royal New Zealand Navy, working variously as a stoker, diver and marksman. His marksmanship was exemplary, and his brother, Maku (Moak), remembers when Kelly ‘got me to step out two hundred metres one day with a bottle, a Coke bottle, and just as I was about to put it on the fencepost he shot it out of my hand!'
Following his stint in the Navy, Kelly worked on the hydro-electric power scheme at Twizel as a grease-wagon operator. He met Lynne Shierlaw and they married on 29 March 1975. They adopted three children: Ruha, Keita and Anahera. Kelly also fostered many children throughout his life. The family moved to Te Kohurau (Kurow), where Kelly worked as a grader driver across the Waitaki Valley. They moved again when Kelly secured a job in Ōamaru, working as a fishing and bone-carving tutor at Te Mahi o Waitaki.
By the 1980s the Centennial Memorial Hall at Morven had fallen into disrepair as many whānau had moved away from the area. Kelly returned home and became one of the instigators and a driving force behind the hall's revitalisation. A committee was established and set to work clearing the land of gorse and scrub, and cleaning up the old building which reopened as Waihao Marae in 1986. Kelly and Charles Mitchell (a freshwater scientist) conducted a survey of eels in South Island lakes and rivers, taking Lynne and the children with them as they camped out at different research spots. These projects led to subsequent leadership roles for Kelly and to his involvement in the Ngāi Tahu Claim as one of the key informants to give evidence on the history of mahinga kai in South Canterbury. He was also the original Waihao representative on Te Rūnanganui o Tahu, established by the Ngaitahu Maori Trust Board in 1990.
As a champion of Ngāi Tahu customary fishing rights, and of the restoration of mahinga kai in the Waitaki and Waihao areas, in 2004 Kelly spearheaded an initiative to establish fisheries regulations that would prohibit commercial eeling from the Waihao River, the Ahuriri arm of Lake Benmore and the Rangitata Lagoon. He was appointed as one of the original tribal representatives on the Lower Waitaki Working Party, set up to help mitigate issues related to Waitaki water use, and sat on the Mahinga Kai Tikanga o Ngāi Tahu Committee that operated throughout the 1990s. Kelly also appeared at many environmental hearings advocating for the restoration of mahinga kai in the Waitaki catchment. Speaking to New Zealand Geographic in 2001, he described the Waitaki as ‘a key fishery for Ngāti Māmoe, Waitaha and more recently Ngāi Tahu … I walked many of these makatea [trails] with my father when I was young, and they're dotted with nohoanga [camp sites]. The hunting parties collected and processed food at these sites or stayed overnight on the way to tauranga waka [food-gathering places].'
Kelly Davis was a staunch advocate for the protection of Kāi Tahu cultural values, mahinga kai and the area where he grew up - in and around his beloved Waihao River.
A great-grandson of the influential 19th Century leader Rāwiri Te Maire, Kelly grew up on his family land at Waihao where he spent most of his childhood at the creek on the family's property, or at the nearby Waihao River. He often roamed the Wainono, Waihao and Waimate areas with his father and other kaumātua.
Kelly was one of the first people to provide material for the Ngāi Tahu Cultural Mapping Project. "The one thing that GIS mapping has done for us is that it's actually given us the eyes of the bird that flies over the top. We are talking about the strength for our children to realise that we have our rights on every part of this whenua."
Kelly passed away on 15 March 2007, just one day before his sixtieth birthday. He is buried in the small urupā at Waihao Marae, between the Waihao and Waitaki rivers that he treasured so dearly.
Trevor Hapi Howse was a key researcher for the Ngaitahu Maori Trust Board during the Waitangi Tribunal hearings. His tireless research and incomparable ability to unearth files about Ngāi Tahu land, whakapapa and history, and to bring them back into the hands of the iwi, led him to be affectionately known as ‘The Weka'.
Born at Kaikōura on 24 September 1931, Trevor grew up in the South Bay public works camp. His mother was Mary Ann Te Keepa of Ngāti Kurī, the daughter of Kerehoma Keepa and Alice Norton from Kaikōura. In those days existence was hand to mouth; if ‘the tide was low you ate. If the tide wasn't low you didn't eat.'
As a young child Trevor moved with his family to Tuahiwi to be closer to facilities for tuberculosis treatment in Christchurch. Mary Ann was often bedridden by the disease, which also afflicted several other members of her family. Trevor became responsible for looking after his four siblings. He recalled: ‘I had to feed the family, do the baking, ironing, washing and go to school. Largely it was about getting the two older brothers off to work, cut their lunches. There were no fridges, we didn't have electricity until the late 1940s. We were still cooking on an open fire . . . [we] had no vacuum cleaner, we had sacks on the windows. When people today say they're poor, they wouldn't bloody know what poor is.'
Trevor attended school at Tuahiwi and then Rangiora High, where he ‘was taught to shear with blades, drive horses, plough with horses and work the ground'. Following school, he worked at the Kaiapoi Freezing Works before moving north to Gisborne. He did ‘the freight run from Gisborne to Te Karaka out on the plains, and Waihirere', and then ‘did a season shearing in the Wairarapa'.
His first marriage was at a young age, and he had two sons, Michael and Brian, with Margaret Boyd. He also had a daughter, Belinda, from a separate relationship. Trevor eventually returned to Christchurch and began working at the Feltex carpet factory, working shifts to set up and thread the industrial looms. Here he met his second wife, Jean Patch, new to New Zealand and on a migrant work exchange from the United Kingdom. They were married in 1963 and had two children, Deborah and Stephen.
Trevor moved on to work as a foreman for the roading infrastructure firm Farrier Waimak. After he was made redundant, Trevor got a job working in the Woolworths warehouse in Mowbray Street; Jean had already been working for the Bishopdale branch of Woolworths for some years. He eventually worked his way up to become store manager of the distribution depot.
Trevor's curiosity about his family land interests led him to spend a large amount of time researching Māori land records. ‘I largely started turning over rocks and kicking tyres and generally became a nuisance to Pura Parata in the Māori Land Court. I started to get a general knowledge of the South Island administration of Māori lands.'
His growing reputation as a researcher led Rakiihia Tau to approach him to assist the Ngaitahu Maori Trust Board with the Ngāi Tahu Claim. Despite concerns from the family about leaving a job with long-term security and taking a job for which he had no formal qualifications or training, Trevor resigned from his position to become one of the Trust Board's first employees.
The family Holden was soon being ‘used to taxi people, gallivanting around the South Island at an unprecedented rate, constantly going somewhere, doing something'. The family home was turned into an external office. As Stephen recalls, ‘There was always paperwork. Most of Mum and Dad's bedroom was filled up with wads of paper and folders and files.' Trevor's research skills became legendary, and it was not uncommon for his opposite numbers within government to call him with queries about the Crown's own papers, which they often correctly surmised ‘had been relocated south'.
Trevor recalled the first Waitangi Tribunal hearing in 1987 as ‘bloody frightening. "All these lawyers - I had moved in a very quiet organised way through my own process but this, it just opened up a whole new thing and I thought, holy hell, what am I doing here? [They] had about thirty lawyers and the tribunal themselves. But anyway, we sort of got used to that, and took our place rightfully."
Although the pace of the hearings was often frantic, Trevor was particularly proud that, unlike the Crown, Ngāi Tahu always submitted their evidence on time.
The ability of Trevor Howse to unearth files about Ngāi Tahu land, whakapapa and history, and to bring them back into the hands of the iwi, led him to be affectionately known as "The Weka".
The vast quantity of material uncovered by Trevor became the cornerstone of the Ngāi Tahu Archive, which reflected his assertion that Ngāi Tahu people should be able to access the knowledge to ‘which they're entitled, because that information . . . belongs out with the people. "It should not be locked away in museums and all that sort of thing, academia and all those other [institutions] . . . It belongs to the people.'.
Throughout his retirement years, Trevor became actively involved in Kaupapa Taiao, and through this took a leading role in establishing the Ngāi Tahu Cultural Mapping Project. "Ultimately we will be judged by our peers at the marae. This mahi will empower our people. I have waited a long time to see this happen.