I recently watched a television screening about the Battle of Gate Pa.
The presenter began by saying 'Before the battle this was a peaceful land”.
Pre-colonisation, this was not a peaceful land. Intertribal warfare was raging.
Tauranga was being invaded by tribes from the north. Pa were fortified for protection from their rampaging neighbours.

Watching those depicting 19th Century warriors on the battlefield, I wondered of their thoughts of those they portrayed.

Having arisen from their latex innersprung mattresses, had a hot shower and coffee, flicked off a text, they climbed into their 4WD with automatic transmission for the journey to the ‘battleground'.

At the end of the day, those pseudo-warriors returned to their warm comfortable lives.
The next day they are back at work on their building sites/office desk/truck-cab with the safety net of a social welfare system to catch them if they fall.

They are hunter-gatherers if they choose to, not because they need to be.
These are all benefits of the Western World, which Maori today have gained courtesy of their European ancestors.

Do they really look back to a time of savage, tribal war, cannibalism and slavery, and believe it was paradise?

Was colonisation so bad?

Would they really want to turn the clock back? I doubt it.

R Bishop, Pyes Pa.