The bill returning one of New Zealand’s most historic sites passed in December and descendants of Ng\u0101puhi and Ng\u0101ti R\u0113hia gathered on Saturday to celebrate the return.<\/p>\n
Te R\u016bnanga o Ng\u0101ti R\u0113hia chair Kipa Munro told M\u0101puna the p\u0101 was primarily a site for hap\u016b to gather and discuss issues pertaining to the whole iwi. In later years it was a fortress of Ng\u0101ti R\u0113hia.<\/p>\n
“Throughout our region, Te Whare Tapu o Ng\u0101puhi, there were w\u0101nanga sites, and so those w\u0101nanga sites would have been used for all sorts of reasons depending on what the occasion was, depending on what the issue was,” he said.<\/p>\n
The area immediately surrounding Kororipo, at Kerikeri Basin, was the first place M\u0101ori and Europeans lived side by side for an extended time and has a long association with the ancestor Hongi Hika.<\/p>\n
“It was the departing place of [Hongi Hika’s] war parties. So that was where they left from. Kororipo was strategic because it was at the top of the Te Awa o ng\u0101 Rangatira, the River of Chiefs,” Munro said.<\/p>\n
![\"Te](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/te-runanga-o-ngati-rehia-chairman-kipa-munro-DTAQBMB3MBDXHE7LCCWX5EV7UU.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Te R\u016bnanga o Ng\u0101ti R\u0113hia chairman Kipa Munro. (Source: rnz.co.nz)<\/p>\n
The p\u0101 was one of many places of cultural significance that were no longer in iwi hands. With the loss of the land, the rituals and ceremonies conducted on that land were also lost, he said.<\/p>\n
“So our whole culture was taken away, not just that piece of land. And so I can use an example of all of those types of rituals, rongo\u0101 has only just started to come back. You know, we lost many names. I think we’ve lost many names of our plants in rongo\u0101 because we’ve stopped practising those rituals that were systematically taken away from us,” Munro said.<\/p>\n
A board trustee for Ng\u0101ti R\u0113hia, Aroha Herewini, said that during negotiations for the return of Kororipo, everyone acknowledged its significance as a site of pre-British settlement and in the establishment of New Zealand. That was why she believed the return would be the catalyst for the future growth of the iwi.<\/p>\n
“There’s opportunity that can come from this and there is a lot of growth in the partnership that ng\u0101 mana whenua, ahik\u0101 and the hap\u016b and iwi of this area can have with the Crown moving forward.<\/p>\n
“Whatever that may look like, it’s never defined, but the relationship needs to be strong and there needs to be a foundation.”<\/p>\n
Herewini said Kororipo was taken from Ng\u0101puhi before the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, when missionary James Kemp claimed to have purchased it.<\/p>\n
“It all started in 1838 and there was a whole lot of debate. He purchased some whenua here and included in his tono [request] to that commission Kororipo P\u0101. And since that time, right until today, that’s been disputed because Hongi had passed before 1838 and we could see no validation for that, his tono that he was making. There was a lot of dispute that happened but it wasn’t until actually 1854 that that commission, the land commission, gave him the stamp for the p\u0101 to be in his name.”<\/p>\n
![\"Kororipo](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/kororipo-pa-with-a-panel-showing-how-it-looked-in-hongi-hika-XABRXXBCEZEN5GQEHSK2MEZMEU.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Kororipo P\u0101 with a panel showing how it looked in Hongi Hika\u2019s day. (Source: rnz.co.nz)<\/p>\n
Munro said Ng\u0101ti R\u0113hia had been trying to secure the return of Kororipo since 1993.<\/p>\n
In one of the many hui with the Crown since, the return was suggested as a mark of good faith and goodwill between the two parties, he said.<\/p>\n
“Our task as Ng\u0101ti R\u0113hia was to really secure the return of Kororipo to Ng\u0101puhi, not to Ng\u0101ti R\u0113hia. There was never in any of my k\u014drero, or our k\u014drero, the hap\u016b, that we were negotiating with the Crown for the return of Kororipo to Ng\u0101ti R\u0113hia.”<\/p>\n
Herewini would have been about six months old when the process started.<\/p>\n
“Our tamariki at school are now singing about Kororipo P\u0101. And that k\u014drero is growing within them and it’s beautiful to see,” she said.<\/p>\n
“But as a tamaiti, I didn’t know what they were doing or the significance of this mahi really until I started to come into the fold and help out. It was really just the tail end that I had come into it.”<\/p>\n
The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including Europe\u2019s record breaking heatwave, and the race to save seven people trapped in a cave. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ng\u0101puhi and the people of Te Tai Tokerau have marked the return of the historic Kororipo P\u0101 in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":447397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[12553,4432,111,43,139,69],"class_list":["post-447396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-iwi-hapu","tag-maori-issues","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=447396"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/447396\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/447397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=447396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=447396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=447396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}