The irony is the existence of the Pa is recorded in a 2003 report from Ngaa Mana Toopu o Kirikiriroa (NamTok) titled / Ngaa Tapuwae o Hotumauea/MAORI LANDMARKS ON RIVERSIDE RESERVES and submitted to the Parks and Gardens unit of the
Hamilton City Council.
Sadly, that report seems to be gathering dust in a filing cabinet while Mayors, councillors and staff come and Meantime,
go.
Opoia Pa is a 300-car park owned by the Hamilton City Council.
What has brought Opoia Pa into focus is the news that a developer with Council support, and with partfunding from Kainga Ora, has plans for the site.
Instead of what was once a sacred Pa site, a $200 million, 262 apartment development in one 6 storey block, and two 3 storey blocks, communal laundry, and no car parks, is on the drawing boards.
It will provide living facilities for around 600 people on a hectare of land, almost as many as live in the entire 337 property heritage designated suburb of Claudelands of over 30 hectares.
Opoia Pa, in historical terms, was occupied by Ngaati Wairere, one of 33 hapu of Waikato-Tainui, and was last occupied around the mid 1850’s.
It’s chief was Poukawa.
What is known about Poukawa was that he signed the English translation of the Treaty of Waitangi at Port Waikato on April 28, 1840, along with other chiefs.
It is the only instance where the English translation was presented.
Poukawa’s prized Patuaonewa (club) is still held by his Ngati Wairere descendants, and it is hoped that some day it would be displayed in the Waikato Museum in Hamilton.
Another important taonga was discovered at the Opoia Pa site, a carved double sided heitiki, believed to be the only on in existence.
The Opoia heitiki was toured with the famed exhibition, Te Maori, between 1984-1986 and was first displayed in New York in 1984.
The reference to the Opoia heitiki is found on page 192, image 58, in Te Maori Art published by Heinemann in 1984.
There is no question it is associated with the sacred Pa site.
It is also important in historic terms that Poukawa’s greenstone ear pendant, is registered in the British Museum records.
The pendant was presented by Poukawa to Governor Grey on December 22, 1853 and is held in the British Museum.
The presentation was made by Poukawa to remind the Governor of their treaty relationship and the fact that he had signed in good faith.
Ngaati Wairere historian Wiremu Puke went to London in 2014 to visit the British Museum and was given an opportunity to hold the pendant, he says “with awe and respect”.
“I mihi (greeted) and commented with the dead spirit of Poukawa with karakia and tangi over it to say that this descendent of Ngaati Wairere had no been forgotten”.
Wiremu’s view is that the mana of Pukawa and the Opoia Pa site need to be elevated to the recognition it deserves as a “site of national significance”.
Opoia Pa sits opposite Kirkiriroa Pa on the west bank of the Waikato RIver on what is now London Street and Bryce Street.
This was also occupied by Ngaati Wairere during the 1840’s right up to the 1860’s.
Both sites, according to Wiremu, including the Te Rapa Pa, where the Waikato Hospital sits, are of huge significance to Hamilton in terms of early Pakeha contact.