{"id":888,"date":"2026-03-15T09:23:35","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T20:23:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/taor-ncpacs\/?p=888"},"modified":"2026-04-01T03:57:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T14:57:57","slug":"following-the-trail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/taor-ncpacs\/following-the-trail\/","title":{"rendered":"Following the Trail of the Pakakohi and Parihaka Prisoners: Without the stories, the land stays silent"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In the late 1800s, hundreds of Taranaki men were taken from their homelands and imprisoned without trial in the deep south. Yet that history remains largely invisible, as Te \u0100whina-Pounamu-Waikaramihi found when she retraced the footsteps of those sent to \u014ctepoti (Dunedin).<\/em><\/p>\n

In August, under a warm winter sun, my class set out on a h\u012bkoi through \u014ctepoti, Dunedin. We were university students in the Indigenous Approaches to Peacemaking and Reconciliation option paper in the Peace and Conflict Studies programme, and this wasn\u2019t your average field trip. We were retracing the footsteps of the Pakakohi and Parihaka prisoners who were brought here in the late 1800s \u2014 t\u0101ne M\u0101ori taken from their homelands in Taranaki and forced into hard labour in the deep south.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Before our haereka, we learned about the history of the Pakakohi and Parihaka prisoners in class. Through w\u0101naka-style discussions, our class cohort \u2013 comprising largely international students \u2013 was introduced to the dark and often hidden histories of the city we were studying in. For me, this wasn\u2019t entirely new; I had first encountered these stories through oral histories shared by wh\u0101nau and K\u0101i Tahu iwi members committed to bringing this painful past into the light. Growing up on Te Ika-\u0101-M\u0101ui (the North Island), the realities of the Pakakohi and Parihaka prisoners were never taught to me at school. But once I learned them, they became part of a much larger narrative: one of land theft, mistreatment, and colonisation \u2013 themes so often ignored in our country\u2019s telling of its own history. Without the dedication of those who continue to hold and share these stories, these important histories would remain unseen too easily.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

As a K\u0101i Tahu descendant, walking this whenua with the k\u014drero of my t\u016bpuna echoing in my mind was both deeply moving and unsettling.<\/p>\n

In 1869, around 74 Pakakohi men were captured in South Taranaki after conflicts around the P\u0101tea area. They were held without trial and transported all the way to Dunedin, where they built roads and worked in the harbour and other parts of the city under brutal conditions.<\/p>\n

A decade later came the Parihaka prisoners \u2014 men arrested not for violence, but for acts of protest inspired by Te Whiti o Rongomai and Tohu K\u0101kahi, who called for peaceful resistance against land confiscations. Their \u201ccrimes\u201d were ploughing confiscated land and putting up fences as acts of nonviolent protest.<\/p>\n

After the invasion of Parihaka on November 5, 1881, hundreds more t\u0101ne M\u0101ori were taken south to Otago and other parts of Te Waipounamu.<\/p>\n

Here in Dunedin, both groups endured backbreaking labour, harsh imprisonment, and most likely mistreatment. Some never made it home and were buried in unmarked graves. And yet, the records say they sang waiata as they worked, holding on to their dignity and mana even in captivity.<\/p>\n

Eventually, most of these t\u0101ne were released and returned to Taranaki, but their time in \u014ctepoti remains a poignant reminder of both colonial injustice and M\u0101ori resilience.<\/p>\n

Our h\u012bkoi took us to the Rongo monument and cave at Andersons Bay, M\u0101ori Road, the Northern Cemetery, and finally the Southern Cemetery.<\/p>\n

What struck me most was how invisible the history is. These sites sit quietly in the city, but unless you already know their stories, you\u2019d never guess the trauma buried here.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

At the caves, for example, men were once imprisoned in pitch-black, freezing conditions. Today, they\u2019re unmarked and inaccessible, and the absence of signage or narrative denies the public an opportunity to confront this colonial violence.<\/p>\n

These were all points raised in our class during our post-haereka discussions. In contrast to these whakaaro, K\u0101i Tahu iwi members, such as Matua Edward Ellison, have spoken about the efforts to bring these men’s stories to light. There is nuance in this history, and our haereka was an attempt to walk the trail of this story \u2013 following the tracks of what is known and visible.<\/p>\n

Among our group, some suggested that perhaps the more real and raw realities of these men are kept hidden and honoured to protect and preserve their dignity. The cave they were kept in, for example, may be closed to uphold M\u0101ori concepts of mana and tapu. Given that my classmates are largely foreigners, it was beautiful to hear these considerations bouncing around during our trip. It was, however, collectively agreed that the history of the Pakakohi and Parihaka prisoners still feels tucked away with intent.<\/p>\n

At the Southern Cemetery, 18 Pakakohi men lie buried. There\u2019s a small plaque with their names, along with a mihi in te reo M\u0101ori. Reading those names aloud with my classmates gave me chills. It felt like calling out to their spirits \u2014 not just to honour them, but also to pull their memory back into the present. It was a privilege for me to translate the carved plaque and share its message with my peers.<\/p>\n

Below is an excerpt from the toka maumahara (memorial stone) at the Southern Cemetery:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Translation shared with the class on the day<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Te Reo M\u0101ori<\/th>\nTe Reo P\u0101keh\u0101<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Kei te k\u0101hui o Te Pakakohi! Kei te tini o Ruanui!<\/td>\nTo the people of Te Pakakohi! To the multitudes of Ruanui!<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Maranga tiketike! Maranga torotika!<\/td>\nRise with dignity! Rise upright!<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u0100ha ripiripia, haehaea!<\/td>\nAh! Slashed and torn apart!<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Ngau kino nei koutou i te niho tet\u0113 o te Karauna<\/td>\nBitten terribly by the sharp, cutting teeth of the Crown<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Murua te whenua, raupatuhia te tangata<\/td>\nYour land was seized, your people plundered<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Mauherehere \u0101 uta, mauherehere \u0101 tai<\/td>\nImprisoned inland, imprisoned at the coast<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Utaina ki runga waka<\/td>\nLoaded onto ships<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Tere moana whakapukepuke ki \u014ct\u0101kou<\/td>\nAcross the rough and surging seas, carried down to \u014ct\u0101kou<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
T\u0113 t\u016bpou ngarengare, t\u0113 noho taurekareka<\/td>\nForced into submitting without resistance, made to live as slaves<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Hue ha! Hue ha!<\/td>\nLet it be known! Let it be known!<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

So, why are these stories so hard to find?<\/p>\n

\u014ct\u0101kou kaum\u0101tua Edward Ellison has pointed out that takata whenua contributions \u2014 and the injustices suffered \u2014 are often pushed to the margins. Public memory still leans heavily on the settler version of \u201cpeace and progress.\u201d<\/p>\n

Over generations, this \u201cpublic memory\u201d has been preserved through school curriculum, commemorations, and local histories that centre colonial resilience while glossing over M\u0101ori resistance. Tourist brochures, museum displays, and even civic plaques often frame Dunedin\u2019s development as a triumph of industrial settlement, with little mention of the forced labour that literally built parts of the city that our community here still benefits from today. Early twentieth-century histories by P\u0101keh\u0101 scholars, widely circulated newspapers, and council records all helped entrench a narrative of peaceful progress, leaving the violence, imprisonment, and dispossession of takata whenua either footnoted or omitted entirely. This is the version many people still grow up with, because it is the easiest to access \u2013 and the least confronting.<\/p>\n

As we walked, I kept thinking of an essay by Tricia Toso and her colleagues, Walking with a Ghost River<\/em>, where they talk about \u201cwalking with ghosts.\u201d Toso writes within a Pacific Indigenous studies context, drawing on work grounded in Turtle Island and the Pacific Northwest. Her notion of \u201cwalking with ghosts\u201d emerges from a landscape marked by colonial extraction and displacement, where waterways carry the memory of harm. While it is not a K\u0101i Tahu or Aotearoa framework, her work resonates because it speaks to the ways Indigenous peoples everywhere remain in relationship with their lands, their ancestors, and their histories \u2013 even when those histories have been suppressed. Using her essay as a touchstone helped me see our haereka as a part of a wider Indigenous practice of listening to what the whenua is still trying to tell us. That\u2019s exactly what it felt like. The wairua was heavy, especially at the cave. You could almost hear whispers in the dark. And yet, these ghosts are hidden \u2014 maybe deliberately.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In \u014ctepoti, this history has often been hidden through silence rather than outright denial. For decades, the stories of the Pakakohi and Parihaka prisoners were absent from public memory. For some time, the cave itself was left unmarked, unnamed, and unacknowledged \u2013 a physical sight that people passed by daily without ever knowing what happened there. This kind of invisibility is a hallmark of colonial forgetting: painful events are tucked away, archives are incomplete, and uncomfortable truths are reframed as peripheral. The effect is that the ghosts remain present, but out of sight.<\/p>\n

Our class revisited that question after our trip: Should they remain hidden, or should we make their presence impossible to ignore? For me, an unhidden history would interrupt the everyday, where you cannot cross that causeway or visit the coast without encountering the full story of who laboured there, who suffered, and who resisted. This could look like interpretive signage designed with mana whenua, integrated school resources, public art installations near the cave, or annual commemorations led by local iwi \u2013 whichever they felt most appropriate. Effective storytelling would centre the voices of descendants, locate the events within their broader whakapapa, and use both digital and place-based mediums so people engage with the history of these sites. It\u2019s about making the presence of these t\u012bpuna undeniable, not by sensationalizing their pain, but by restoring their mana and amplifying their voices and their stories, kia kore ai e karo.<\/p>\n

Raukawa researcher Naomi Simmonds reminds us that walking isn\u2019t just about moving through space \u2014 it\u2019s a way of reconnecting with whakapapa and whenua. But for that reconnection to take root, the truth must be told. Without the stories, the land stays silent.<\/p>\n

This h\u012bkoi wasn\u2019t just about remembering history. It was a reminder that the past is never really past. The legacy of the Pakakohi and Parihaka prisoners still lives in the whenua, in the intergenerational mamae, and in today\u2019s struggles for justice.<\/p>\n

For me, it felt like both a walk of remembrance and a call to action. If future generations are to walk these same paths, I hope they\u2019ll do so with eyes wide open \u2014 not just to the beauty of the day, but to the truth beneath their feet.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hoki wairua atu koutou ki \u014d w\u0101 k\u0101inga; ki \u014d whenua taurikura, okioki ai.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Te \u0100whina-Pounamu-Waikaramihi is of M\u0101ori (Ng\u0101puhi, Ng\u0101ti Kahu, Ng\u0101ti Hine, Te Hikut\u016b, Te Wh\u0101nau-\u0101-Apanui, Ng\u0101ti Porou, K\u0101i Tahu, Waitaha, K\u0101ti M\u0101moe) and Austrian descent. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and Commerce majoring in Management and Pacific Islands Studies from \u014ct\u0101kou Whakaihu Waka, the University of Otago. She is currently pursuing a Master of Peace and Conflict Studies with Te Ao o Rongomaraeroa \u2014 National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies and works part-time at He Waka K\u014dtuia Trust in \u014ctepoti, Dunedin.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the late 1800s, hundreds of Taranaki men were taken from their homelands and imprisoned without trial in the deep south. Yet that history remains largely invisible, as Te \u0100whina-Pounamu-Waikaramihi […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50701,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/taor-ncpacs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/taor-ncpacs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/taor-ncpacs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/taor-ncpacs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50701"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/taor-ncpacs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/taor-ncpacs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/888\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/taor-ncpacs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/taor-ncpacs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/taor-ncpacs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}