It’s time Aotearoa asks itself why we celebrate Guy Fawkes, an often misunderstood historical event from the other side of the world, instead of looking to our own uncomfortable past to commemorate the lives of Taranaki Māori who suffered cruel injustices that have reverberated down the generations, argues Professor Lachy Paterson
I remember as a child, on the fifth of November, going to see the “guys” that older boys had made for a local competition. The “guys” were home-made dummies, essentially old clothes stuffed with straw that would eventually be thrown on a bonfire.
I may have had a vague notion that these were effigies of Guy Fawkes, who we later learnt had tried to blow up the English Parliament in 1605. It was much later that I learnt that the original celebration had been ordered by King James I to thank God that he, the divinely annointed sovereign, had not been blown to smithereens as he attended the opening of Parliament, and that the subsequent Bonfire Nights memorialised Protestant ascendancy over English Catholics who did not gain full political rights until the late 1820s.
As a child growing up in the 1960s, Guy Fawkes Day was an exciting time, especially as I could spend my pocket money on miniature, yet decidedly dangerous, explosives that we experimented with in the weeks leading up to the actual day. At the time it never occurred to me that it was somewhat strange that we were celebrating an event that occurred on the other side of the world three and a half centuries before.
It was a few more decades later that I found out about Parihaka, a small Māori village in Taranaki, inland from Cape Egmont, that had been destroyed by government forces on the fifth of November, in 1881.
Taranaki was arguably the region most affected by the New Zealand Wars. The story is fairly well known, with conflicts erupting in 1850s, then with the Crown in 1860 over a dodgy purchase of 600 acres of Te Āti Awa land at Waitara. After war broke out in 1863 again our Parliament passed three laws, for the governor to declare a district “in rebellion”, to confiscate the land of those living there, and for a British loan to finance the war to be paid with profits from the lands taken.
Practically the whole of the Taranaki was confiscated, from Parinihi to Waitōtara. The eight Taranaki tribes each lost all or most of their lands, even hapū that had not been involved in the fighting. Warfare continued, with colonial troops using scorched earth tactics to push Māori off their land, culminating in Tītokowaru’s war in South Taranaki in 1868-69.
With nowhere else to go Taranaki Māori continued living on their lands. There were also insufficient settlers to occupy all of Taranaki, so the government instituted a policy of “creeping confiscation”, booting Māori off an area of land, planting settlers and consolidating their hold, then moving on to a new piece of land.
This continued over the years to come. Despite vague promises of Māori reserves from government ministers, these were not forthcoming. It was in response to this ongoing colonisation that Tohu Kākahi and Te Whiti o Rongomai, spiritual leaders based at Parihaka, started to employ assertive passive resistance to disrupt Pākehā settlement of their lands.
Tītokowaru, the former warrior general, organised men to plough across settlers’ fields and fence off roads, actions that naturally infuriated the new settlers, and generated considerable paranoia about renewed warfare. As Māori ploughmen and fencers were arrested and sent as political prisoners to Dunedin and elsewhere, more took their place.
It was to deal with this Māori threat that the Native Minister, John Bryce, assembled 1600 Armed Constabulary and militia from around the country nearby the small pacifist village he described as "that headquarters of fanaticism and disaffection".
On the fifth of November, with Bryce at their head, they entered Parihaka to be met by fresh bread, and children singing. Despite the wholly peaceful response, the troops set to destroying the settlement, plundering goods, arresting or dispersing the men.
Women and girls were raped, a fact finally acknowledged by the Crown in 2017. The Parihaka prophets were arrested and held for over a year in prisons around the country without trial. When they were finally released they returned to Parihaka to reestablish their settlement, and continue their protests against the unjust confiscation of Māori lands.
So, what should we be remembering on the fifth of November? I doubt very much that anyone in New Zealand would be interested in Guy Fawkes Day if there were no fireworks.
Of course, what happened at Parihaka in 1881 is not something that should be celebrated; some no doubt would prefer it to be forgotten, or think that a Waitangi settlement wipes clear the pain.
But forgetting the past leads us to poorly understand the present. It is important instead that we remember and commemorate important events that still resonate today in our country.
How? Well, let us perhaps be guided by those whose ancestors suffered. Let’s forget Guy Fawkes and remember Parihaka on this fifth of November.
