It’s New Zealand’s founding document, and its interpretation has long been a source of controversy and debate. The Treaty is an agreement between The Crown and Māori chiefs. But he was pardoned as recently as 2014, as part of a Treaty of Waitangi settlement between the British Crown and Ngāti Rangiwewehi, Kereopa’s tribe. Seven years after Völkner’s death, Kereopa Te Rau was found guilty of the murder and hanged, even though there was no direct evidence connecting him to the crime. Stories such as these may feel like remnants of another age, but their ramifications bleed down through the decades. And obviously, you know, you hear the story and it’s like, yeah, that just makes a fantastic song.” He did it a few more times as well, plucking out his enemies’ eyes and eating them as a sign of disrespect. It earned him the nickname ‘Kai Whatu’, which means ‘Eye Eater’. Kereopa plucked his eyes out, and made a statement saying that one eye was for The Queen and English rule, and the other was for Parliament. So to enact revenge, they kidnapped him, killed him and hung him from a willow tree outside his church and cut his head off and did all sorts of things, drinking his blood and whatnot. They were sure that Carl Völkner was a spy for the government and that area. “Kereopa was part of a guerrilla group called the Pai Mārire. He lost his entire family to this fire, to this army coming through and murdering a bunch of people, and he was extremely angry about it. Kereopa Te Rau and his family also lived in the area, and Kereopa’s family were actually locked inside a burning building by a bunch of colonial forces. He was stationed at Ōpōtiki, where he had a church and did missionary work. “It’s about a man called Kereopa Te Rau and a missionary called Carl Völkner. “This is a brutal one,” says Henry, when asked about Kai Whatu, a look of mischief flickering briefly across his face. Discomfort for the way the original colonists treated Māori, and discomfort that not enough is being done to reverse the damage today. A lot to make Pākehā (New Zealanders of European descent) feel a degree of deserved discomfort. But dig into the lyrics of Titokowaru, or Ahi Kā, or Kai Whatu, and there’s a lot going on. It’s easy to be suckered by the te reo lyrics, to view them as a tourist might, in the same way the All Blacks’ pre-game haka is known throughout the world by people who’ve probably never given much thought to the tradition’s importance in showcasing and celebrating Māori heritage and cultural identity.
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