were entrusted with the transmission of esoteric knowledge for the maintenance of traditional Ngati Hinerangi society from one generation to another. It is the provider of rongoa Maori or medicines and herbal remedies for ailments and to protect life. It is the provider of sanctuary and security...⁶¹

Waiora Nuku, of Ngāi Tamarāwaho, who lived at Taumata, gave us a vivid description of the range of resources she and her family harvested from the ngāhere. Besides their bush gardens, they hunted wild pigs and kererū, climbed for kareo and miro berries, and the hearts of whanake and kiekie, collected pikopiko as well as harore (bush mushrooms), and used their own rongoā (medicine) such as mamaku.⁶²

Rivers and streams provided ecologically and culturally critical connections between the ecosystems of forest and sea. The majority of New Zealand’s freshwater fish spend part of their lifecycle in salt water. Inanga (whitebait) and tuna (eels), the most significant traditional foods for Tauranga Māori, rely on healthy and relatively stable ecosystems in and alongside rivers, at sea, and on the shore, to where many such species travel to spawn.

For Tauranga Māori, rivers were also vital transport routes as well as sources of food and other resources.⁶³ Some Tauranga hapū are very closely associated with key waterways. Ngāti Kāhu, Ngāti Pango, and Ngāti Rangi are kaitiaki of the Wairoa River, and are sometimes known collectively as ‘the Wairoa hapū, while Ngāi Te Ahi and Ngāti Ruahine are closely associated with the Waimapu River.⁶⁴ Ngāti Motai and Ngāti Mahana gathered eels, freshwater crayfish, trout, and watercress from the waterways of the Kaimai, often travelling along the rivers and streams through to Tauranga Moana.⁶⁵ For all these hapū, their rivers are ‘the passage way, carriage way, food and spiritual source of our people past, present and future’.⁶⁶ Particularly important rivers, such as the Wairoa, were awa tupuna, and recited as a key element that identified a person as belonging to that river when addressing others. The taniwha (spirits) that lived in these rivers were also their kaitiaki, and watched over the people who belonged there - for example, preventing them from drowning.⁶⁷

7.3.4 Conclusions

Many claimant witnesses testified that their ancestral lands, kāinga, forests, waterways, and fisheries were, and remain, taonga. These elements combined to form their ancestral landscape - their tūrangawaewae, or place to stand - which defined and embodied their cultural

61. Document S43, pp 3–4

62. Waiora Nuku, brief of evidence, undated (doc F21), pp 3–5

63. See for example Rachael Willan, ‘Wairoa River Report’ (commissioned research report, Wellington: Waitangi Tribunal, 1996) (doc A33), pp 7–10.

64. Document U37, p 3; doc R23; doc A28, p 10; doc A76, pp 5, 16–17; doc G26, p 6; doc U1, p 8; doc U33, p 34

65. James Timothy Clair, brief of evidence, 25 September 2006 (doc S8), p 10

66. Unidentified Ngāti Kāhu (doc D1, p 19)

67. Document A37(b), pp 67–68