and there by to raise the price. They then said to the (Maori) people, if you wish to swim you will have to pay a price to enter !³⁵

Kaumatua Hutana McCaskill, who had lived most of his life at Tui Pa, Te Aroha, told the Tribunal how he felt about the springs:

In the past our people used the springs for a number of reasons. The cold spring was used for drinking water and the hot springs for bathing and healing. The healing properties of the springs was known throughout Aotearoa.

I believe the springs were gifted to the Crown. However, there were conditions attached to its use as continuing to allow Maori people free access to the springs. I understand, the springs were transferred to the control of the local body and the conditions of the gifting were forgotten.

It saddens me how the spiritual beauty and power of the springs has been destroyed. For example, I believe the tapping of the Mokena Hou geyser has diminished its wairua.

We had many springs, but today lots of them are described as ‘diminished’ or ‘toxic’.

Hutana McCaskill also suggested that the use of Pakeha names, such as Wyborn Swimming Pools, is an ‘erosion of our identity’. He concluded, ‘I believe that the Domain was gifted to the Crown by Mokena Hou for the benefit of the people’.³⁶

Mapuna Turner told the Waitangi Tribunal:

The contributions that have been made to the Te Aroha Township by Maori are many. You [the Tribunal] visited the Domain yesterday, everyone remains under the impression that this was a gift by Mokena Hou to the Crown.

Te Aroha Domain was not gifted according to Uncle Keepa. He reiterated always that it was taken. The information was handed down from his father and grandfather.

I will never forget Uncle Keepa talking about the ‘confiscation’ of the Te Aroha Domain.³⁷

Mapuna Turner contrasted oral tradition of the taking of the hot springs with the statement in the Te Aroha Domain management plan:

The Government of the day wisely determined that the land in which the hot springs were situated should be made a public reserve, and an area of 20 acres was set apart and brought within the provisions of the Public Domains Act on December 1882.³⁸

35.Document J18, pp 4-5

36.Document J19, p 3

37.Document J20, pp 8-9

38.New Zealand Mines Record, 16 March 1900 (Stokes, p 247)