Te Ara ō Rakimārie: The Pathway of Peaceful Living

Abstract

This paper traces the peacebuilding efforts of Anne Te Maihāora Dodds (Waitaha) in her North Otago community over the last twenty-five years.

Ancestral Footsteps: Te Heke ki Korotuaheka

“…16, No. 1, 2023, ISSN 1178-6035 (Te Maihāroa, R, 2013). He was a staunch advocate of tino rakatirataka (Māori sovereignty), writing to the New Zealand Government and the Queen of England to reinforce that foreign settlers should only be permitted to live on legally purchased land.…”

“…In December 2012, a group of whānau and friends set out to follow in the ancestral footsteps of our pōua, Te Maihāroa, and his Waitaha people by undertaking a commemorative hīkoi. We walked to acknowledge and honour one-hundred and thirty-five years since Te Maihāroa led his people on Te heke ki Te Ao Mārama (the migration to Te Ao Mārama), commonly known today as Ōmarama (Te Maihāroa, 2019Maihāroa, , 2017. The contemporary hīkoi was named Te heke ki Ōmaramataka (migration of lingering memories), which traced the 1877 heke from the Waitaki river mouth into the hinterland of Ōmarama.…”

“…The contemporary hīkoi was named Te heke ki Ōmaramataka (migration of lingering memories), which traced the 1877 heke from the Waitaki river mouth into the hinterland of Ōmarama. As part of the author's doctoral thesis, whānau were invited to record their experiences on Te heke Ōmaramataka in whānau journals, forming the basis of thesis research and a journal article, Retracing Ancestral Footsteps (Te Maihāroa, 2017. This event was also the subject of a YouTube documentary, Te Heke 2012: Waitaki Mouth to Omarama, created by a whānau member Bronwyn Judge (2012).…”

“…Using the same data collection process, the author invited whānau members to keep a personal journal of their hīkoi experiences while trekking Te heke ki Korotuaheka over five days in 2016. This hīkoi traced the ancestral footprints of Te Maihāroa and his people when they were evicted from Ōmarama and returned to the journals (Te Maihāroa, 2019). A kaupapa Māori methodology was adopted as the most culturally appropriate approach to the rakahau (research).…”

“…The research participants comprised of four kaumātua and two pakeke, five were wāhine (women) and one tane (male). Three participants provided whānau journals for both the 2012 and 2016 heke and academic publications based on the doctoral research (Te Maihāroa, K., 2017Maihāroa, K., , 2022. The whānau journals were transcribed and then returned to the participants to check for accuracy.…”