The meaning behind their name, and the deep connection that Tūhoe have with Te Urewera, can be traced back to ancient times, and more specifically, to a union between Hinepūkohurangi, the Mist Maiden (who came from Rangiroa, the lofty heavens and Rangimamao, the distant sky) and Te Maunga, the mountain. The union between this pair resulted in the creation of a son, Pōtiki, and, in the generations to follow, in the birth of the Tūhoe people. See: John H. Alexander, “Maungapohatu: An Epoch in History,” Te Ao Hou, December 1959, ➝.
Tūhoe, “Te Kawa o Te Urewera—English,” Ngāi Tūhoe, 2017, ➝.
“Ngāi Tūhoe,” New Zealand Government, 2021, ➝.
The International Living Future Institute is a non-profit organisation based in Seattle (but working globally) that seeks to promote, and work towards, the vision of a world that is ecologically healthy, socially just, and restorative. It has several initiatives designed to enact a “living future,” focused upon buildings, products, and communities.
“Healing From Within: Te Kura Whare,” International Living Future Institute, 2021, ➝.
The Living Building Challenge, created by Jason McLennan in 2006, is guided by the view that design and construction can make the world a better place. See “Living Building Challenge,” International Living Future Institute, 2021, ➝. This challenge—or invitation, as it might also be viewed—is not bound to one category, but instead operates simultaneously as a philosophy, a certification programme, a toolkit, and a means of advocacy for the advancement of regenerative architectural and building practices. Its influence is spreading throughout the world in what its founder, McLennan, describes as an architectural revolution. See TEDx Talks, “Living Buildings for a Living Future | Jason McLennan | TEDxBend,” YouTube, May 26, 2015, ➝.
Ever the Land: A People, a Place, Their Building, dir. Sarah Grohnert (2015; New Zealand: Monsoon Pictures International).
Kaitiakitanga is a principle that stands in stark contrast to westernized notions of land “management.” The late Māori elder and tohunga Hohepa Kereopa elucidated what it means to be a kaitiaki as thus: “When one considers kaitiaki, you have to consider for what purpose it is being used. If you have a pipi bed {pipi is a local crustacean}, for example, you cannot talk about kaitiaki until you know about all of concepts and life of the pipi. So you need to know how to keep the pipi safe, but you keep it safe for the pipi’s benefit and not for your’s {sic}. Because the job of kaitiaki is to keep the things of Creation safe. The return from this is the relationship you get with the thing you are protecting, and the knowledge and learning that comes from that…So if people want to exercise kaitiaki, they will first need to understand the value of all things…For us, this does not mean being in charge of things…It’s about knowing the place of things in this world, including your place in this world.” Paul Moon, Tohunga: Hohepa Kereopa (Mangawhai: David Ling, 2003), 131.
Ibid., 171.
“Healing From Within,” International Living Future Institute.
Ever the Land, dir. Grohnert.
“Healing From Within,” International Living Future Institute.
Moon, Tohunga.
Tūhoe, “Te Kawa o Te Urewera,” 8.
Judith Binney, Encircled Lands: Te Urewera, 1820–1921 (Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2016).
See: Binney, Encircled Lands; Paul Moon, When Darkness Stays: Hōhepa Kereopa and a Tūhoe Oral History (Mangawhai: David Ling, 2020); Kennedy P. Warne, Tūhoe: A Portrait of a Nation (Auckland: Penguin, 2013). Significantly, armed police raids in Te Urewera occurred as recently as 2007, and as such these types of actions are not just part of a disturbing distant past. See The Price of Peace, dir. Kim Webby (2015; New Zealand: NZ On Air and Māori Television).
“Healing From Within,” International Living Future Institute. Also note that in the legend of Māui, particularly in his guise as Māui-tikitiki-a-Taranga, work during the day was made possible by the simultaneous slowing down and diminution of the powers of the sun with the ensnaring. Any depiction of Tama-nui-te-rā has the idea that work is to be valued implicit in its depiction (author’s communication with Lloyd Carpenter).
These reparations were formalised through the Ngāi Tūhoe Deed of Settlement, initialled by Tūhoe and the Crown on March 22, 2013, and subsequently ratified and signed by the people of Tūhoe on June 4, 2013. See “Ngāi Tūhoe,” New Zealand Government. This settlement process occurred at the end of a prolonged and emotionally difficult claim consideration process which subsequently morphed into a lengthy claim settlement process. The Waitangi Tribunal (a permanent standing Commission of Inquiry within Aotearoa that works with claims made by Māori to determine where and how Crown actions may have breached the principles of New Zealand’s founding document, the Treaty of Waitangi) was the mediator that saw the settlement recommendations and monetary compensation provided to Tūhoe through the (then) Te Kāhui Whakatau/Office of Treaty Settlements (now the Office for Māori Crown Relations—Te Arawhiti).
Tūhoe, “Te Kawa o Te Urewera.”
Justine Murray, “A people build a house, and a house builds a people,” Radio New Zealand, May 21, 2017, ➝.
“Healing From Within,” International Living Future Institute; Murray, “A people build a house.”
Property Council, “2014 PCNZ Best in Category Green Building Property Award,” YouTube, June 11, 2014, ➝.
Tūhoe, “Te Kura Whare: The Approach,” Ngāi Tūhoe, 2015, ➝.
Lesley Springall, “Surviving New Zealand’s First Living Building,” ArchitectureNow, March 5, 2014, ➝.
Property Council, “2014 PCNZ Best in Category Green Building Property Award.”
The Red List is comprised of materials, chemicals, and elements which, despite often being prevalent and easy to source within mainstream construction, have been recognized as posing potentially significant risks to environmental and human health. See “About the LBC Red List,” International Living Future Institute, 2021, ➝.
Ever the Land, dir. Grohnert.
Tūhoe, “Te Kura Whare.”
Murray, “A people build a house.”
Springall, “Surviving New Zealand’s First Living Building.”
Ibid.
Tāmati Kruger, “We are not who we should be as Tūhoe people,” E-Tangata, November 18, 2017, ➝.
Ibid.
The author offers her thanks and gratitude to Ngāi Tūhoe for their support and assistance with this article, as well as the inspiration for it. She also thanks Nick Axel, Troy Therrien, and Amba Sepie for their invaluable feedback and editorial assistance, as well as her research supervisors at Lincoln University—Lloyd Carpenter, Kevin Moore, and Christopher Rosin—for their support in writing this article, and for Lloyd’s valuable insights into te ao Māori, the Māori world.
Survivance is a collaboration between the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and e-flux Architecture.