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Vice-Regal Patronage — Governor General, Dame Cindy Kiro

By News

The Tuwhare Trust has had the priv­i­lege of hav­ing Vice-Regal Patron­age since the Trust was first estab­lished in 2010. We are one of a small num­ber of organ­i­sa­tions that have this hon­our and we hold this with much respect and humil­i­ty. We are par­tic­u­lar­ly proud of hav­ing the cur­rent Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al, Dame Cindy Kiro (Nga­puhi, Ngati Hine, Ngati Kahu) as our cur­rent Patron. Dame Cindy Kiro began her five-year term as Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al of New Zealand on 21 Octo­ber 2021, aus­pi­cious­ly on Hone Tuwhare’s 99th birthday!

You can read more about Dame Cindy Kiro and our pre­vi­ous Patrons here.

Here’s a Tuwhare poem for a Dame.

Rain-maker’s song for Whina

I’ll not for­get your joints creak­ing as you climbed into
the bus at Vic­to­ria Park to bless the jour­ney.
When you broke down in the mid­dle of the Lord’s Prayer,
I thought that what you left unsaid hung more tan­gi­bly
uncer­tain above us all than some intan­gi­ble cer­tain­ty
that we would all get a com­fort­able berth in the
here­after.

Saint Christo­pher in the rain at night, just before Manga­mu­ka
Gorge. Peo­ple wear­ing Saint Christo­pher badges get­ting
off the bus and help­ing to put an over­turned vehi­cle right
side up. No one hurt. I fin­ger the cheap badge you gave me
of the saint. Will it be, alright ?

A cou­ple of days lat­er in bright sun­shine, we hit the road
leav­ing Te Hapua behind. And all the way south – to the
head of the fish,’ I picked up some hard truths embed­ded in
your hilar­i­ous speech­es on the maraes:

No more lol­lies !We been suck­ing the pake­ha lol­ly
for one hun­dred and fifty years.
Look at what’s hap­pened. Look at what we got left.
Only two mil­lion acres. Yes, that’s right. Two mil­lion
acres out of six­ty six mil­lion acres.

Think of that. Good gra­cious, if we let them take what
is left we will all become tau­rekare­ka. Do we want that ?

So you lis­ten, now. This is a Sacred March. We are
march­ing because we want to hold on to what is left.
You must under­stand this. And you must think of your
Tupunas. They are march­ing beside you. Move over, and
make room. We are not going to Welling­ton for noth­ing.
And don’t be mis­tak­en: Kare tenei hikoi oku, he hikoi
noa – aha ranei – ki te miri-miri i nga paoro o Te Roringi.

E, kui ! What a way to bring the ‘House’ down. You could not
have lobbed a sweet­er grenade. I’m all eared-in to you
baby .… Kia ora tonu koe.

Welcoming the Kaka Point Community to the Tuwhare Crib

By News

The Tuwhare Trust opened the crib to the Kaka Point Com­mu­ni­ty this last week­end as a fundrais­er for the local Rom­a­ha­pa School. We wel­comed manuhiri through­out the day who came to have a look through the ful­ly restored Tuwhare crib, learn about our restora­tion jour­ney and hang out with us on the back lawn, eat, drink and share sto­ries about Hone Tuwhare and his life in Kaka Point. A beau­ti­ful kau­pa­pa on a stun­ning Kaka Point day and an ear­ly hari huri tau for Hone on his 102nd birth­day today, Octo­ber 21. Arohanui.

 

We farewell our friend, Selwyn Muru.

By News
The Hone Tuwhare Trust has been deeply sad­dened by the pass­ing of Sel­wyn Muru and offer our love to the whanau and these words of love to our friend.
Sel­wyn had an enor­mous empa­thy for peo­ple of all walks of life and in all human sit­u­a­tions. Joy and anguish, love and hate, tears and laugh­ter. He had a per­son­al­i­ty with­out reserve and led a life sam­pled in all its para­dox­es. In a 1984 inter­view with Kate­ri­na Mataira, Sel­wyn expressed that “art should cov­er the whole spec­trum of human expe­ri­ence. It should reflect at one extreme the pain and anguish of peo­ple and pur­sue every mood they feel right through to their capac­i­ty for fun and friv­o­li­ty”. He was an artist in all ways, his res­o­nant voice was tuned to waia­ta, whaiko­rero and dra­mat­ic per­for­mance. Musi­cal instru­ments were explored with com­fort­able aban­don, and he com­posed songs, plays and poet­ry. But it was his cre­ative tal­ent in the visu­al arts where he made his strongest state­ments about life. Hone Tuwhare and Sel­wyn Muru were con­tem­po­raries, mates, north­ern rela­tions, hoa aro­ha. One of Selwyn’s well known and loved works is his waharoa in Aotea Square in Tama­ki Makau­rau, which fea­tures one of Hone’s well known and loved Haiku poems. Tuwhare’s Haiku was both a trib­ute to his friend Sel­wyn and a ref­er­ence to the Horotiu awa that once ran through the mid­dle of the city.
Trav­el well e Muru­paen­ga. Your work pro­voked tears and laugh­ter, you are a con­tin­u­ing source of inspi­ra­tion and your con­tri­bu­tion to the world is a taon­ga for us all. Laugh again e hoa.  Aro­hanui, The Hone Tuwhare Trust.

 

The Tuwhare Trust would like to thank our supporters, partners and friends.

Friend

Do you remember
that wild stretch of land
with the lone tree guard­ing the point
from the sharp-tongued sea?

The fort we built out of branches
wrenched from the tree
is dead wood now.
The air that was thick with the whirr of 
toe­toe spear suc­cumbs at last to the grey gul­l’s wheel.

Oys­ter-stud­ded roots 
of the man­grove yield no fin­er feast
of sil­ver-bel­lied eels, and sea-snails
cooked in a rusty can.

Allow me to mend the bro­ken ends
of shared days: 
but I want­ed to say
that the tree we climbed
that gave food and drink 
to youth­ful dreams, is no more.
Pursed to the lips her fine-edged
leaves made whis­tle — now stamp
no silken trac­ery on the cracked
clay floor.

Friend,
in this drear
dream­less time I clasp
your hand if only to reassure
that all our jew­elled fan­tasies were
real and wore splen­did rags.

Per­haps the tree 
will strike fresh roots again:
give sooth­ing shade to a hurt and 
trou­bled world.