This is a sketch of an imagined typical Māori kāinga (settlement) near the mouth of the current Washpool River, in southern Wairarapa, about 600 years ago. It has large communal gardens on the coastal flats, as well as dwellings protected by palisades. Māori settlements like this survived well into the late 19th century. Some Europeans regarded it as a duty to eradicate 'the principle of communism on which their social system is based'. (New Zealand Parliamentary Debates, 1870, vol. 9, p. 361)
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Artwork by Rozel Pharazyn
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