Mana Whenua
Iwi Fundraising Tickets Available
Iwi Fundraising Tickets Available
The Splore site is part of the ancestral lands of Ngaati Whanaunga and Ngāti Paoa, two of the five iwi who form the Marutūāhu confederation. The Marutūāhu tribes are all descended from Marutūāhu, a son of Hotunui, who is said to have arrived in Aotearoa on the Tainui canoe.
Both tribes exercised influence and power for many years after European contact. Chiefs of Ngāti Paoa signed the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840 and the tribe become a significant player in the early Auckland economy. Ngaati Whanaunga chief Hāmiora Mangakāhia, was one of the leading experts on the proceedings of the Native Land Court and was elected Premier of the Kotahitanga Parliament in 1892. But through a series of bad deals and bad faith on the part of the Crown, both tribes were alienated from their assets and became impoverished.
After three decades of work in the Waitangi Tribunal process, Ngāti Paoa and Ngaati Whanaunga, as part of the Hauraki collective, finally initialled settlements with the Crown in August 2017, signalling a new era for both iwi and their people.
The farm next to the site belongs to the Royal whanau and is the largest piece of land in Aotearoa to have never been out of Māori ownership. In the park itself, there are a number archaeological sites – including the remains of three different pā – mostly around the Tāpapakanga Stream. These are off-limits to festival goers and respect for them is a condition of entry.
There is an inspiring partnership story embodied in the historic beachside homestead that is the base of operations during each Splore. It was built in 1900 by James Ashby, who lived with his family at Tāpapakanga from 1899 and formed a lifelong friendship with the local chief Tukumana Te Taniwha. It's a mark of the regard in which Ashby was held that he is represented, carrying an axe, on the two pou whenua (carved posts) at the park entrance.
Whare Tapere
In its simplest form, Whare Tapere is a collection of entertaining activities that take place next to a fire or under a notable tree.
You will be welcomed to gain a better understanding and to learn of the history, sites of significance, waka landings, art, and the importance of rāhui with guest speakers and iwi leaders. Interactive harakeke workshops will be available for you to enjoy and learn how to harvest, hear the stories of the significance of the harakeke, and make a kono or putiputi.
Mirimiri/Massage is on hand to set you up for the day with Māori rongoā available. A live graphic artist will do your portrait against our Splore backdrop. Information on the Three Waters and what it means for whānau wellness and more.
Te Tāpapakanga o Puku
Written by Russell Brown
If you have been to Splore before, you have crossed Pupurākau, the vestigial stream near the old Ashby farmhouse that serves each year as Splore HQ.
You've probably filled up from the tap there, or crossed the bridge on the way to get a coffee at Lucky Star. Perhaps you danced across in the dark. Maybe you've crossed Pupurākau a hundred times without ever knowing its story.
That hint of a stream was defined by the Native Land Court in 1870 as the boundary between the lands of Ngāti Pāoa and Ngaati Whanaunga, the two closely-linked tribes associated with the Tāpapakanga festival site. But the boundary existed in their shared kōrero long before the court drew it.
Ngāti Pāoa largely occupied the land to the north of the stream, including what is now the campgrounds, and Ngaati Whanaunga had a substantial pocket of land to the south, including the fortified pā that stretched up and across the hill behind Splore's main stage.
To a visitor in the early 19th century the line would not have been apparent – Tāpapakanga would simply have been a vibrant village that sprawled across the whole bay and up the hills. That's how it looked to the Reverend Samuel Marsden, who beheld the place on his first visit to New Zealand in 1814. Although the people who belong to this land have their own rich, deep and complex histories around it, the first look of this English newbie offers us a snapshot of how they lived.
Marsden first met the famous Ngāti Pāoa chief Te Haupā and his ship sheltered from bad weather at Ngāti Pāoa's base at Whakatīwai before proceeding to Tāpapakanga, where, according to his journal, he found "some very fat hogs and fine plantations of potatoes" and was impressed by the towering carved pou leading to the pā. They were invited by the Ngaati Whanaunga chief Piti to his end of the village and "when we arrived we met some of the finest men and women I have yet seen in New Zealand, and well dressed."
"These ... are first-hand accounts of the Ngāti Paoa and everything described is indicative of an extremely powerful and wealthy tribe; clothing, cultivation, carving," observed the historian John Elder, who edited Marsden's journals in the 1930s.
So what was the key to this impressive place? There were two, and one was waka.
"This was the place where a number of the great Hauraki waka were fashioned, pulled onto the Tāpapakanga foreshore and launched upon Tīkapa Moana (the Firth of Thames),” says Ngaati Whanaunga researcher Charles Royal. "There were a number of very significant waka where the wood was obtained in the range up behind Tāpapakanga, then brought down and carved there. The foreshore was a great place to bring waka, work on them and eventually launch them.”
"In order to do that, there would need to have been quite a significant village of people, manpower, to be able to move these things around. Strictly, Tāpapakanga refers to the main pā, however, people would have lived right around the whole bay, people living in various smaller encampments and whare. They would have retreated to the pā itself in times of conflict, but most times they would.
The other key was kūmara. The Hauraki area was famously fertile and it was Puku, a Ngaati Whanaunga chief, who unlocked the secret of growing kūmara there. "He was well-known for his ability to grow kūmara," says Ngaati Whanaunga and Ngāti Pāoa historian Tipa Compain. "He devised the particular methodology of using the stones found in the area and heaping them in a heap and using the heat they conducted to keep the kūmara tubers alive throughout the off-seasons, which maintained a source of food. He was well-known for his ability to feed people."
Tāpapakanga's full name – Te Tāpapakanga o Puku – comes from the same source. The "tāpapa" part is the word for the heaped stones. And the "kanga"? A famous curse.
"One particular year, after many years of success, the people sort of got a bit lazy and relied on this chief to supply kūmara," Tipa explains. "That year, there was a crop failure and he wasn't able to produce all the food to time with the Māori calendar. People turned up expecting all their kūmara and he didn't have any – so they cursed him, they swore at him. So Te Tāpapakanga o Puku is about that incident."
The Reverend Marsden soon moved on – but his departure itself offers one last story. In return for the great hospitality he had been shown, he hosted Tāpapakanga's chiefs "and their ladies" for dinner on his vessel. They proved to be as enthusiastic as guests as they had been as hosts and even when he had to decline their invitation to stay longer and began set sail for the Bay of Islands, they stayed.
"The chiefs and their ladies still remaining, unwilling to leave us; they had several dances on deck. At length I got the ladies into the canoes, but the chiefs showed no inclination to part and began another dance; when the ladies once more leaped out of the canoes upon deck and joined them in the dance and song, and continued till we had sailed a considerable distance, when they were compelled either to leave us or go to sea.
"When they had got into the canoes the twenty-eight natives I had on board began to sing and dance, in their turn, to amuse the chiefs and their ladies who lay upon their paddles all the time. As soon as the dance ended on deck they began again in the canoes, and continued till we could hear them no more. They then waved their hands and returned on shore."
Full of life, not wanting to go, just wanting to dance? Perhaps some things don't change at Tāpapakanga.