As mentioned in my hiking post, I had been really looking forward to this section. The Whanganui River is the third longest in Aotearoa and is pretty special.
This great river flows from the mountains to the sea and in 2017, it became the world’s second natural resource to be given its own legal identity.
‘I am the River, the River is me’.
With these words, Maori iwi of the Whanganui declared an inseverable connection to their Ancestral River.
Maori say that a teardrop from the eye of the Sky Father fell at the foot of Mt Ruapehu and the river was born.
For the Whanganui iwi, this is the awa tupua, the river of sacred power.
In a story that is sadly all too familiar, when European settlers arrived in the mid 1800’s, the tribes’ traditional authority was undermined and finally extinguished by government decree.
The river became degraded. Gravel was extracted, damaging the riverbed and harming the fisheries.
The mouth of the river became an effluent drain.
Its headwaters were diverted into different catchments, depriving the upper reaches of the river of its natural flow.
This was deeply hurtful and disrespectful to Maori. The head is the most sacred part of any person, and to them, this river is a person, an Ancestor.
While the river now has legal entity status and is recovering, Maori leaders warn against a focus on its legal rights. Rather, they believe this is about the recognition of culture and cultural rights and obligations.
And an address to a long standing injustice, seeking to remedy a history of breaching the Treaty of Waitangi.
Without doubt, the Whanganui Chiefs who signed the Treaty in 1840 would have revered the river.
In the report to the Waitangi Tribunal, the river was described as the ‘central bloodline of the one heart’.
On granting this legal status to the Whanganui River, government apologised for historical wrongdoing, acknowledged that it had breached the Treaty and undermined the ability of Whanganui iwi to exercise cultural rights and responsibilities in respect of the river and compromised their physical, cultural and spiritual well-being.
Wow.
That is some statement.
And I reckon it looks a whole lot like truth, reconciliation, reparation and healing.
I am privileged beyond measure to paddle these waters, to sleep on the banks, to listen to the flow and to feel the energy and presence of this Ancestor.
This journey across Aotearoa keeps tethering me to the roots, the essence of this country and causes me to pause and reflect on the journey my own country is on.
Looking back on my very first few posts, I can see a subcutaneous level of rage, frustration and helplessness, blurring the edges of my words.
Spending time on this river, reflecting on its story, has filled me with hope and peace and a... gentleness that I haven’t felt for a really long time.
Change is possible. Perhaps hope makes it so.
After four happy, blessed days on the Whanganui River, I stood on the banks and thanked this Ancestor for my safe journey and in a ceremony undertaken by many before me, demonstrated my respect for the river by dropping a fern frond into the water and watching it gently float away.
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