CHAPTER 19 TE AROHA MOUNTAIN, THE HOT SPRINGS, AND THE TOWNSHIP
19.1INTRODUCTION
The Wai 663 claim was lodged by Tanengapuia Mokena and Mapuna Turner on behalf of Ngati Rahiri Tumutumu of the Te Aroha district.1 These claimants support the broader issues of the Wai 100 claim of the HMTB but have specific grievances concerning Te Aroha. The Crown purchase of the Te Aroha block in 1878, the proclamation of the Te Aroha gold-field in 1880, and the choice of Te Aroha as a township serving the goldfield have already been reviewed in chapter 11. This chapter focuses on concerns about Te Aroha mountain and the hot springs, and land losses in the township of Te Aroha, which was part of the Omahu native reserve (see fig 78).
19.2 TE AROHA MOUNTAIN
Taimoana Turoa described Te Aroha mountain as greatly revered by the Marutuahu people who refer to it as “Te Tatau ki Hauraki whanui’”. He translated this as the ‘portal or doorway to Hauraki widespread’. Te Aroha embodies the prow of a canoe with its stern at Moehau, at the northern end of Coromandel Peninsula. (Others have reversed this image, placing the stern at Te Aroha.) The name ‘Te Aroha, meaning love, yearning, or compassion, is a shortened version of a name which appears in Tainui, Te Arawa, and Mataatua traditions as ‘Te Aroha-ki-tai, Te Aroha-a-uta. The Mataatua version relates that the ancestor, Rahiri, took this canoe from Whakatane to its resting place at Takou in the far north. In old age, he returned south with some of his people, naming features of the land on his way. He ascended Te Aroha mountain, where he viewed the Bay of Plenty and the volcanic island Whakaari (White Island) offshore. He exclaimed, ‘Te Aroha ki tai, Te Aroha a uta’, an expression of his yearning for his coastal homeland (tai) and its inland territories (uta). Rahiri returned to Whakatane but some of his people remained at Te Aroha and became the ancestors of Ngati Rahiri.2 Other versions of this story have different ancestors naming Te Aroha but the meaning is the same, an expression of yearning for home.
1.Claim 1.26(b)
2.Taimoana Turoa, Te Takoto o te Whenua o Hauraki: Hauraki Landmarks (Auckland: Reed, 2000), pp 152-153
