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Download AudioA Kiingitanga spokesperson says the battle site at Ōrākau will become a marker for generations to come.
On Monday the Māori affairs select committee visited the site near Kihikihi, which has been landbanked since it was bought by the Crown in 2014.
The committee then heard submissions on a bill to vest the site in Waikato Tainui, Ngāti Maniapoto and Ngāti Raukawa.
Rahui Papa says once the bill is enacted, those iwi will sit down with other iwi whose ancestors were also at the 1864 battle, including Ngai Tūhoe, Kahungunu, Te Arawa, Ngāti Whare, and Ngāti Manawa, and have a wānanga about the best use for the whenua.
“It could include some structures. It could include virtual history and storytelling. It could include a whole host of things, and that’s why it is important to have the select committee stand on the whenua so they could feel the wairua, they could feel the mauri of those ancestors who still lie there and then come to Parawera Marae for the select committee hearing,” he says.
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