July 27, 2016
Anthropologist looks to Tupuna Awa
A soon to be published book on the Waikato River should give readers an insight into what Maori are asking for when they make claims to waterways.
Tupuna Awa: People and Politics of the Waikato River, is by anthropologist Marama Leigh Muru-Lanning, a senior research fellow at the University of Auckland’s James Henare Maori Research Centre.
She says the idea of a river as an ancestor was first put into words by Tainui leader Princess Te Puea, and provided the spiritual and ideological basis for a claim when everything else had been taken from the iwi.
Growing up in Ngaruawahia she took the awa for granted, but when she was doing doctoral studies in Canada she saw how Mohawk friends viewed the St Lawrence River, leading her to change her thesis topic.
"From being overseas in Canada and seeing the politics around that river I suddenly saw through different eyes the real significance of the river in New Zealand, the Waikato River, our tupuna awa. I had never really been aware of the politics of our river, I left that to the chiefs in the tribe," Dr Muru-Lanning says.
Tupuna Awa will be published by Auckland University Press in September.
MARAMA LEIGH MURU – LANNING INTERVIEW
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