He ahikā, he kāinga tōnui: A burning fire, a flourishing society

About this research

Kapua O’Connor (Ngāti Kurī), The University of Auckland

Ahikā was a well-established tikanga that described the occupation of lands by hapū, conveyed through them being present on their land to stoke their fires. In conjunction with whakapapa connection to the land, the tikanga of ahikā conferred mana on hapū, as the following whakataukī demonstrates:

Ka wera hoki i te ahi, e mana ana anō

While the fire burns, the mana is effective

Ahikā provided the principle that in order to maintain mana, hapū needed to continuously occupy their lands. Ahiteretere described the flickering fires of hapū who had been away for any time longer than normal seasonal absence. Ahimātaotao described the rapidly cooling, or extinguished fires of hapū who had been way for a long time, measured in generations.

Our understanding of ahikā as a tikanga is relatively well-established in the literature, although there is ongoing work to address the role that colonial authorities like the Native Land Court played in distorting and misinterpreting ahikā. Another gap in the literature was hinted at by Professor Pou Temara, in his seminal article Te Ahi Kā, published in 2012. In this article, Temara reminds us that ahikā was not just a tikanga, or a metaphor to refer to occupation, it was a literal phenomena: thousands of ahikā burnt continuously throughout Aotearoa, a constant companion of occupation. “Ko te ahikā te kaiwhakamahana i te kiri me te ngākau”, ahikā takes charge of warming the skin and the heart, he stated. This PhD this will use both Temara’s work and a small number of other scholar’s work as a foundation to explore the following question:

How can exploring ahikā as a literal phenomena rekindle our appreciation of ahikā as a tikanga?