About 4000 people identified as Waitaha ki Te Waipounamu/ South Island in the last census and the Waitaha Taiwhenua o Waitaki Trust board aims to reach everyone who traces their whakapapa (genealogy) to Rākaihautū or Rakihōuia and supports the kaupapa (principle or policy) of Waitaha.
Waitaha Taiwhenua o Waitaki Trust board deputy tumuaki (chair) Sammy Te Maiharoa-Bell said the "relaunch" of a new database is about place and a sense of belonging.
"We’re going to do our very best to bring the people of Waitaha together.
"We would absolutely love anyone who is Waitaha to sign up. It means a huge amount to us that they’re trusting us to be able to even put their name forward, so we can stand together and have that place of belonging," she said.
Mrs Te Maiharoa-Bell grew up in Glenavy and her whānau "have always been in the Waitaki". They include her aunt, Waitaki Trust Board tumuaki Anne Te Maiharoa-Dodds, 92. Mrs Te Maiharoa-Bell said Waitaha had always had good and long-serving connections in the community and the database was a tool to strengthen their collective voice.
"For years and years, Waitaha has been working on a claim to the Crown.
"We were not getting very far, and so there was a strategic look at, OK, what have we tried, and what has worked and what hasn’t worked, and so we’re really trying now to flip our mindset on things and go in with a positive mindset.
"We’ve had many small groups working hard to have the voices heard and our identity recognised, but it’s been small groups working on this in different places and it’s very hard to do it with a small group."
Waitaha was not accepted as being separate to Ngāi Tahu by the Crown, despite it not being a hapū (subtribe) of Ngāi Tahu, in effect, leading to all three claims presented by Waitaha to date being deemed invalid by the Crown.
Descended from prophet and tōhuka Te Maihāroa, who led his people on Te Heke (the migration) in 1877 from Temuka to Ōmārama to protest ancestral land sales and "confiscation", Waitaha were still fighting for recognition, Mrs Te Maiharoa-Bell said.
"It was the Crown’s agenda to try and get everybody wrapped up in a piece of legislation and they were trying to get these settlements done as quick as they could across Aotearoa.
"Of course, if you look at it from their perspective, how neat and tidy would that be if you can wrap everything up into one iwi.
"So you could see why they did it and I understand that. However, it had such a huge impact on Waitaha. We are a unique iwi with our own values; we have different tikaka [customs, habits, values] and different kawa [protocols and etiquette] to the other iwi in the South Island," Mrs Te Maiharoa-Bell said.
So the idea to reconnect the iwi was born with the database.
"What we’ve done as Waitaha Taiwhenua o Waitaki is we’ve always kept the ahi kā [fire burning] in the Waitaki and we’ve always maintained a voice for Waitaha," she said.
"We were the first people to Waipounamu, our names are all over the whenua and we’ve been a people of peace and kaitiaki [guardians] for this time."
She said there was a lot to be proud about being Waitaha, despite some not having felt safe to do so.
"We’ve definitely seen that people are worried about making that statement, so we’re trying to create that safe space," Mrs Te Maiharoa-Bell said.
"It’ll take quite a bit of time and a lot of whānaukataka [kinship] to get people to that space, but we’re in it for the long haul as our tipuna [ancestors] have been as well," she said.
Mrs Te Maiharoa-Bell said that despite historically strong relationships with the community and the Waitaki District Council, "things had been a bit trickier" in the past couple of years but Waitaha had regular connections with the community.
"However, we still have community members regularly that come to us as Waitaha and ask for our whakaaro [thoughts, ideas] or ask for our blessing on things or want to know the real mātauraka [Māori knowledge] of the Waitaki region," she said.
"We’re not out here for the politics, we’re out here to continue being who we are and who we always have been — luckily, the community members still know that," she said.
Waitaha had never stopped being a "voice of of peace and kōtahitaka [unity, collective action, solidarity] and kaitiakitaka [guardianship and protection] and it had been "cool" that the support had "gone really wide", Mrs Te Maiharoa-Bell said.
"We have got huge support from the Waitaki region and some really longtime supporters down there, and people who whakapapa to Waitaha are all over New Zealand, Australia and Canada."
Mrs Te Maiharoa-Bell said the trust had applied for community funding to support initiatives such as "different wānaka [forums], whanaukataka [relationship building], but also connecting in with Waitaha tikaka and kawa".
She said Waitaha had always been heavily involved in the marae and naturally worked with other iwi in the South Island — "we are really open to working with the iwi as well".
For more about Waitaha whakapapa and registration: https://waitahawaitaki.com/
