September 17, 2019
Opposition cooked up from misheard history
New Zealand First MP Shane Jones says a far north iwi is confusing its history in its objections to a replica of Captain Cook's ship calling in at Mangonui.
Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Kahu chief executive Anahera Herbert-Graves says the iwi doesn't want the Endeavour in Mangonui because it was not consulted about the itinerary.
But Mr Jones says many of the objections to the Tuia 250 commemoration as mock outrage, and says rather than focusing on Cook they will celebrate of the prowess of navigators, blending the story of Cook and his Tahitian navigator Tupaea.
With Doubtless Bay central to revival of Māori seafaring through the efforts of the late Sir Hector Busby, it's a pits the rūnanga is obstructive.
"They've got some good people in there but I think Anahera and Margaret (Mutu) have always had a fictitious account of history. In actual fact it was De Surville who took Ranginui who died off the coast of Peru so it wasn't Cook, it was the French who kidnapped the tūpuna from the beach of Tokerau so they've got the wrong nation. They've confused their history," Mr Jones says.
He says much of the opposition to the Cook commemoration is coming from a tiny minority of people in Tairāwhiti, which probably lost more people to Hongi Hika than it did to Cook.
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