Te Rauparaha: Our history should be taught in schools, but it should be taught warts and all, without anyone or any group getting a free pass, be they Maori or Pakeha.

The recent vandalism of the Captain Hamilton statue in the city that bears his name will no doubt provoke vigorous debate in council chambers.

These debates will most likely discuss whether it’s appropriate to have such a monument displayed so prominently in a public place, when so many of the city’s (and country’s) residents are increasingly living in the past. Yes, that’s both Māori and Pākehā.

There’s been renewed interest in New Zealand's history lately, thanks in part to work by Stuff on the Treaty of Waitangi and a call from teachers and students to have the New Zealand Wars made a compulsory subject in schools.

Unfortunately, with that renewed interest comes the inevitable fretting about what went on and how the descendants of one ‘side’ should apologise and seek forgiveness from the descendants of the other.

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I’m of Māori descent and my iwi is Ngāti Kuia, a small tribe from the top of the South Island – Te Tau Ihu, or the prow of Māui's canoe. In the 19th Century my ancestors were invaded, conquered, and subjugated – a common story for many iwi.

However, this was not done by enemies with pale skin and red beards, it was an act of war perpetrated by foes with brown skin, who spoke the same language. Ngāti Toa, a small tribe from Kawhia, had migrated south and under the leadership of their chief, Te Rauparaha, came to carve out a new empire for themselves on either side of the Cook Strait.

All this happened about 15 years before the Treaty of Waitangi was signed. When Te Rauparaha did sign the Treaty, he did so in the belief it would cement his claim to his newly-conquered lands – and it has. That’s Ngāti Toa’s rohe now.

To my knowledge, Ngāti Toa has never apologised to Ngāti Kuia for what happened nor have they expressed much remorse for the dreadful acts of their ancestor.

Their great chief Te Rauparaha was a cannibal who once hung a captured chief upside-down, killed him and ate him . That was the way things were before Europeans like Captain Hamilton began settling these islands.

Like the good captain, Te Rauparaha has been immortalised and honoured. His name adorns Te Rauparaha Arena in Porirua, and when the All Blacks perform Ka Mate, ‘the haka’ before a match, it is the one he composed.

Yes, there are many haka; but Te Rauparaha has the honour of his being regarded as ‘the haka’, the only one most New Zealanders have heard of.

Now, I could get very upset or ‘triggered’, as my peers call it, every time Kieran Read leads the team in the haka composed by that awful murderer.

I could go down to Porirua and graffiti the side of Te Rauparaha Arena, call for his name to be erased from its walls, and if I met someone from Ngāti Toa, I could bristle and treat them contemptuously for something their relative did to my relative almost 200 years ago. But I don’t.

I don't do any of this because I’m a mature human being, who doesn’t live in the past. I have Pākehā ancestors too, and maybe even a sprinkling of Ngāti Toa, since the conquerors and the conquered often end up marrying and co-existing. I also have Irish ancestors who were thrown off their land, too, and shipped to Australia in chains – but I don’t hate the English.

Human history is full of hideous, horrible acts. For example, Māori used to eat one another, while Europeans used to tie people to stakes and burn them alive for believing a slightly different version of Christianity. Every race and nation on earth has been involved in wars, rising as the conquerors in one century and suffering as the vanquished in another.

History is important – it explains why things are the way they are. Our history should be taught in schools, but it should be taught warts and all, without anyone or any group getting a free pass, be they Māori or Pākehā.

The past doesn’t have to dictate the future. We can keep heading down the path of separatism in this country if we want, but all that is going to do is enrich a few lawyers and academics.

Alternatively, we could stop living in the past and start seeing each other as fellow humans, we could maybe even start addressing the real cause of inequality in our society, which is our present economic system.

But I won’t hold my breath. Sometimes it’s just easier to keep viewing things as black and white.