Te Uma urupa

A Maori cemetery in an ancestral area called Te Uma on the western outskirts of Motueka. Part of land that was finally returned to the local iwi Ngati Rarua after over 150 years of injustices by Europeans. This view is looking towards Nelson and the driveway the bus came up. The extra on the stone explains the place.
The bus trip today was with the Nelson Historical Society who had organised local Maori historians John and Hilary Mitchell and Ngati Rarua  Iwi Trust  chairman Ropata Taylor to explain to us how their ancestral lands were taken from them, how they fought to get them back and what they are now doing to retain those lands.
It is a long and complicated story which can be read in books written by the Mitchells.This story should be told more widely as it is much misunderstood by most people in Motueka.Today people just see an enterprise that is doing well and think that is how it has always been but they couldn't be more wrong.
We were welcomed on to the local marae Te Awhina with the usual powhiri and then given lunch. We also looked through the little church on the site built in 1896 called Te Ahurewa.
The second extra shows the bell from the Whakarewa School which was set up by Europeans to educate Maori but which used the children as cheap labour. The institution later became an Anglican Orphanage. The moneys from which were never given back to the Maori Tenths owners. Finally in the 1980's Maori for a whole raft of reasons were able to fight back and regain those lands. They are spread out in the background all around the urupa.
It was good to be told our history in person by those whose ancestors  had suffered from it. Reading about it is never the same as hearing the stories of the people.