Tāme Iti: A man of Mana

There's been an awareness change around Tāme. He can talk to us here, and we don't feel terrorised or threatened.

This was one of the comments from Delaney Davidson when he sat down with Tāme Iti as part of WORD Christchurch 2026. 

My first impressions of Iti were very much formed by the media. I was in school, and he was on the news, making headlines for shooting the flag, protesting the purchase of Māori land around the country, baring his buttocks, and being generally 'disrespectful' to the police and politicians. After a few years, when journalists and police started calling him 'a terrorist' and a danger to society on the 6 o'clock news, that was the message I ate up my meat and three veg, and I didn't question it. A couple of decades later, it's now 2026. We all know the power of a well-chosen word, and its ability to convey positive or negative connotations, and in this time of 'fake news' and 'disinformation' we're increasingly conscious of the need to critically evaluate information that we come across. I'm quite a bit older now and - I like to think! - a little bit smarter, and I've realised that maybe the 'unbiased journalism' I'd grown up with was actually a bit less neutral than it claimed.

Mana

Iti's had a busy life - growing up as a whāngai child on a farm, standing against apartheid, planning and participating in countless actions in support of the Māori language, Māori rights, and Māori identity, and so much more in between. Many of these experiences, along with what he's learnt from them, have been shared in his memoir Mana, opens a new window, a look back at several decades of activism, art, and self-discovery. He shares his personal views and memories of those experiences, what they meant to him and his community, and the thoughts and reasoning that drove them.

This event wasn't about just rehashing these stories - the audience was encouraged to read the book themselves to get to know Iti and learn more about him - but rather about adding to the stories he's told, and thinking about bigger overarching themes.  It was a really engaging session - a kōrero between two guys who know each other well, opens a new window and are comfortable covering big topics like institutionalised racism, land confiscation, and the meaning behind big Māori concepts - but coming out of the session I was trying to work out what I could say about it.

Would I focus on his experiences with institutional racism when learning about interior decorating? Should I talk about planning for the land marches, or his friendships with well-known New Zealanders? Or do I try and convey what mana motuhake means to him? Being in control of where you're going, and making decisions and working together as a whānau or community to work towards that goal.

And then I thought about the audience I was there with - a sold-out audience at The Piano, of people of all ages, cultures, and style of dress, with even more people watching the live stream from home. And I realised that without this awareness change I don't think this event would have happened. Or, if it did, it would likely have drawn a much smaller, much less visibly different audience, and probably would have had quite a different vibe.

Back in the late 20th century and the early 2000s news stories from the major news networks were the main way many people were aware of Tāme Iti, and if those stories portrayed him negatively or as a trouble-maker, there were no alternative portrayals to help balance out that view.  More recently, Iti's been increasingly known for his activism through art, changing and expanding the way people think about him.

Is the act of shooting a flag is threatening, or a piece of performance art? What about assembling a group of people to do haka on a particular piece of land? 

It depends on who's telling the story, and this was our chance to hear more from the man himself. Watching the audience stream out the audience streaming out - some animated, some thoughtful, some deep in discussion - I wasn't the only one leaving with lots of thoughts, observations, and new knowledge to process, and a burning desire to immediately go back and re-listen to the audiobook of Mana, opens a new window knowing what I know now about Tāme Iti, the man from Ruatoki.