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A guide to Rangiriri Pā says he doesn’t know what was behind the attack on two headstones in the Early Settlers Cemetery.
Te Runanga o Ngāti Naho chair Brad Totorewa found the smashed headstones in the historic north Waikato battleground on Monday.
He says while police are still investigating, the headstones cannot be saved.
“We went to clean up the graves yesterday and they sit up here at our house in Rangiriri. They’re unrepairable, one’s smashed into about 30 pieces and the other one’s split in two. They’re quite old stones,” he says.
Mr Totorewa says he doesn’t know if there’s a connection between the attack and the 160th commemoration of the battle next week – but settler families and Maori are now intertwined by marriage, so all grave sites should be respected.
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