The final day of the WORD Christchurch Festival 2025 kicked off at The Piano with a waiata led by Roimata Smail, her ukulele and “Madonna mic”. The author of the enormously popular primer on Aotearoa’s founding document, Understanding Te Tiriti: A Handbook of Basic Facts About Te Tiriti o Waitangi, promised the audience something different from the typical book overview and author Q&A. Those dedicated enough to begin their Sunday morning at a literary festival were treated to an hour-long workshop on Te Tiriti — a condensed version of the one she delivers to schools, businesses and community groups across the country.
Roimata Smail
Smail acknowledged that Te Tiriti can be intimidating, especially for those of her generation (she is forty-five) who were taught this history in only vague terms, if at all. She wrote Understanding Te Tiriti “from a place of empathy” and delivered this workshop in the same manner. She invited us all to take three deep breaths before launching into a highly engaging, interactive and good-humoured (there was much laughter from the audience) exploration of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, the traumatic history that followed for Māori, and how we can best honour the agreement today.
The workshop expanded considerably on what Smail affectionately called her “little green book”, which outlined only the ‘basic facts’ over fewer than 30 pages. For instance, she delivered detailed accounts of three treaty settlement accounts and applauded the audience for following along. “Congratulations”, said Smail with characteristic encouragement, “you are now part of a small number of Kiwis who have read part of a treaty settlements law.”
Smail also took excellent advantage of the live format to explain the impact of post-Te Tiriti land confiscation on Māori through audience participation. We were asked to imagine our seats were quarter-acre sections that, following Māori custom, we owned collectively as the “Hapū of The Piano”. To illustrate the process through which Māori lost their land over the generations, at each stage of that history, different sections of the audience were instructed to fold their arms to signify their seat’s acquisition by the Crown. By the end, only seven audience members remained in possession of their traditional land. She encouraged us to imagine what it would feel like to experience these changes, compounding over generations, and stressed that these effects continue to be felt today — a fact acknowledged by the Crown in various official apologies.
“Te Tiriti for Beginners” was not just a history class. In the final phase of her workshop, Smail turned to the increasingly contentious matter of the Treaty principles. These, she explained, represent a “watering down” of what Māori agreed to in 1840 (since they are an effort to reconcile the Māori text they signed with the more limited English version they did not) that has been watered down yet further by the popular ‘3Ps’ of Partnership, Participation and Protection. Instead, Smail offered the audience a more faithful and expansive rubric for remembering the principles: “TPK”, or Tino rangatiratanga (sovereignty), Kāwanatanga (governorship) and Partnership.
Smail highlighted several examples of Māori-led initiatives that have successfully embodied these principles and show the path forward for Aotearoa (one of these, the Wānanga educational programme, received a loud “whoop” from the audience). She stressed that such initiatives were not privileging Māori to the exclusion of others, but were ‘models of excellence’ that benefited Māori and non-Māori alike.
The workshop concluded with a final note of encouragement. Smail hoped that, equipped with the ‘basic facts’, we would no longer be scared to learn more about Te Tiriti. Judging by the audience’s laughter, applause and enthusiastic participation throughout, she surely succeeded in that aim.
Daniel
Hapori, Tūranga
Photos
View photos from the Te Tiriti for Beginners event
More about Te Tiriti o Waitangi
Read Roimata's book Understanding Te Tiriti
Her next book is Understanding Hauora: A handbook of basic facts about Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the health system
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- Explore the BWB Treaty of Waitangi Collection
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More about Roimata
Roimata Smail (Ngāti Maniapoto, Tainui, England, Scotland, Ireland) is a lawyer specialising for two decades in Te Tiriti o Waitangi.She has built a legal practice around the pursuit of equity for Māori with an approach that is forward looking, positive and pragmatic.
She represented lead claimants in the Waitangi Tribunal inquiry that led to the watershed Hauora Report and the establishment of Te Aka Whai Ora, the Māori Health Authority.
Other work includes acting on claims about Māori in prison, pēpi and children removed by Oranga Tamariki and the Crown response to Covid-19 as well as representing the first iwi to receive an offer of Customary Marine Title from the Crown.
From a family of teachers, Roimata has a passion for education, running workshops on Te Tiriti (treatytraining.com) and creating an online resource for schools on Te Tiriti, New Zealand History, te Reo Māori and financial literacy (waiako.com).
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