September 24, 2019
Cook crimes tarnish commemoration for iwi
The chief executive of far north iwi Ngāti Kahu says Tuia 250 organisers would have saved themselves international embarrassment if they had consulted with mana whenua rather than scheduling the replica of the Endeavour to call in to Mangonui.
Anahera Herbert-Graves says the now vetoed invitation had come from a Pākehā Doubtless Bay promotion group, and it was not cleared with the rūnanga or the three marae who hold mana over the area.
Even though the commemoration have been expanded beyond Cook's 1769 arrival in Aotearoa to encompass Māori and Polynesian voyaging traditions, she believes the focus is still too much on the British navigator – despite the evidence of harm found in his own diaries and those of his passengers.
"Everywhere he went in the Pacific he and his crew committed atrocities. While he may have not pulled the trigger on some of the guns that killed people, he hardly went a week without killing someone, even here in New Zealand. While he may have not been involved in some of the raping and thieving, he was the captain of his ship, and in those days the captain of the ship was the judge, jury, executioner, and sovereign, so the buck stopped with him," Ms Herbert-Graves says.
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