Ahi kā or Ahi kaa (burning fires) is a principle in

Māori culture Māori culture () is the customs, cultural practices, and beliefs of the indigenous Māori people of New Zealand. It originated from, and is still part of, Polynesians, Eastern Polynesian culture. Māori culture forms a distinctive part of Cul ...

, referring to take whenua (land rights) through visible occupation and use of land. Ahi kā is one of the traditional means to establish

mana whenua In New Zealand, tangata whenua () is a Māori term that literally means "people of the land". It can refer to either a specific group of people with historical claims to a district, or more broadly the Māori people as a whole. Etymology Accordi ...

(authority over land). Extensive continuous occupation is referred to as Aki kā roa.

History

Ahi kā is one of the major principles used to establish mana whenua, alongside other principles which include discovery/exploration (whenua kite hou), ancestral rights (take tupuna), conquest or confiscation (take raupatu) or gifting (take tuku). Ahi kā refers literally to cooking fires that are continuously tended, however over time visible fire began to symbolise continuous occupation of an area by

iwi Iwi () are the largest social units in New Zealand Māori society. In Māori roughly means "people" or "nation", and is often translated as "tribe", or "a confederation of tribes". The word is both singular and plural in the Māori language, an ...

and

hapū In Māori and New Zealand English, a ' ("subtribe", or "clan") functions as "the basic political unit within Māori society". A Māori person can belong to or have links to many hapū. Historically, each hapū had its own chief and normally opera ...

(tribes and sub-tribes). Ahi kā traditionally was shown by activities such as maintenance of eel weirs, resource gathering, physical occupation shown by

kāinga A kāinga ( Southern Māori ''kaika'' or ''kaik'') is the traditional form of village habitation of pre-European Māori in New Zealand. It was unfortified or only lightly fortified, and over time became less important to the well-defended pā. D ...

(villages), pā (forts), and urupā (cemeteries). If land was abandoned or only rarely used, it was referred to as ahi tere (an unstable flame). If an area had been completed abandoned, it was described as ahi mataotao (a cold or extinguished fire). Ahi kā can also refer to people who occupy an area, left behind to maintain continuous occupation. Traditionally, if an iwi or hapū were defeated in battle and were forced to retreat, a small number of people were often left in the hinterlands of their former lands to tend the fires of occupation. These fires were tended in order to keep the claim of continuous occupation while the group built up strength to retake their former lands. During the

Musket Wars The Musket Wars were a series of as many as 3,000 battles and raids fought throughout New Zealand (including the Chatham Islands) among Māori between 1807 and 1837, after Māori first obtained muskets and then engaged in an intertribal arms ra ...

in the 1820s, most people fled the Tāmaki Makaurau Region for safer areas of the country, such as the

Waikato Region Waikato () is a local government region of the upper North Island of New Zealand. It covers the Waikato District, Waipa District, Matamata-Piako District, South Waikato District and Hamilton City, as well as Hauraki, Coromandel Peninsula, t ...

. Many tribes such as

Te Kawerau ā Maki Te Kawerau ā Maki, Te Kawerau a Maki, or Te Kawerau-a-Maki is a Māori ''iwi'' (tribe) of the Auckland Region of New Zealand. It had 251 registered adult members as of June 2017. Auckland Council gave it land for a marae at Te Henga (Bethells Be ...

and

Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki Ngāi Tai ki Tāmaki is a Māori tribe that is based in the area around Clevedon, part of the Auckland region (''Tāmaki'' in the Māori language). It is one of the twelve members of the Hauraki Collective of tribes. The founding ancestors o ...

left small numbers of people behind to maintain ahi kā. During the

Ihumātao Ihumātao is an archeological site of historic importance in the suburb of Māngere, Auckland. Once a pā site, it stands on the Ihumātao Peninsula, at the base of Ōtuataua, part of the Auckland volcanic field. Its scoria cone reaches above ...

sale and development protests in the 2010s, the

New Zealand Government , background_color = #012169 , image = New Zealand Government wordmark.svg , image_size=250px , date_established = , country = New Zealand , leader_title = Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern , appointed = Governor-General , main_organ = , ...

and

Fletcher Construction The Fletcher Construction Company Limited is a New Zealand construction company and a subsidiary of Fletcher Building. Together with Higgins Contractors Ltd it makes up the Construction division of Fletcher Building. Fletcher Construction is wid ...

was criticised for not consulting the ahi kā of Ihumātao (i.e. the Te Ahiwaru

Waiohua Te Waiohua or Te Wai-o-Hua is a Māori iwi (tribe) confederation that thrived in the early 18th century. The iwi's rohe (tribal area) was primarily the central Tāmaki Makaurau area (the Auckland isthmus) and the Māngere peninsula, until the 17 ...

and

Ngāti Mahuta Ngāti Mahuta is a sub-tribe (or hapū) of the Waikato tribe (or iwi) of Māori in the North Island of New Zealand. The territory (rohe) of Ngāti Mahuta is the Kawhia and Huntly areas of the Waikato region. History Ngāti Mahuta is descended f ...

residents of Ihumātao Village). From the 1860s, the Native Land Court (now

Māori Land Court The Māori Land Court (Māori: Te Kōti Whenua Māori) is the specialist court of record in New Zealand that hears matters relating to Māori land. Māori Land Court history The Māori Land Court was established in 1865 as the Native Land Cou ...

) used ahi kā as a principle in settling claims between iwi, however showed a preference for claims of conquest, and allowed hereditary

inheritance Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, Title (property), titles, debts, entitlements, Privilege (law), privileges, rights, and Law of obligations, obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ ...

even in cases where people did not currently live in their ancestral lands. The

Waitangi Tribunal The Waitangi Tribunal (Māori: ''Te Rōpū Whakamana i te Tiriti o Waitangi'') is a New Zealand permanent commission of inquiry established under the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975. It is charged with investigating and making recommendations on cla ...

continues to use ahi kā as a guiding principle to establish land rights.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ahi ka Aboriginal title in New Zealand Ceremonial flames Indigenous land rights Māori culture Māori society Māori words and phrases Traditions involving fire