The Governor General today visited Mangungu, 175 years after his predecessor Captain William Hobson came to the Wesleyan Mission Station to collect signatories on the Treaty of Waitangi.
Waatea news editor Adam Gifford was at the Mission station on the banks of the Hokianga.
" The Governor Generals arrival in the Hokianga was accompanied by lightning and thunder. Mangungu has been a place where Maori and Pakeha have met for almost 200 years. Today Sir Jerry Mataparae, came to see the place where almost 70 rangatira, more than anywhere else in the country, put their tohu on Te Tiriti O Waitangi. As about 100 people waited on the rainswept hillside for him to arrive speakers talked about the continued importance of Te Wakapumautanga the 1835 Declaration of Independence and of the Treaty. A picture of Tamati Waka Nene looked down on the original table on which the treaty was signed. Kaumatua Rudy Taylor says it was also the table where Aperahama Taonui laid his korowai and when the union jack was laid over it said ' they do not come here to be with us they come to take over'. And then the Maori governor general arrived by helicopter " says Adam Gifford.
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