On Historic Maunga-Kiekie.

It is proposed by the leaders of the Maori people in the Auckland country that the great gathering of the tribes in the early part of 1940, as part of the nation's Centennial celebrations and pageants, shall be held in the beautiful domain of Maunga-Kiekie, otherwise Campbell Park or Cornwall Park. This shrine of history, culminating in the pointed hill where Sir John Campbell lies buried, is a particularly appropriate place for the rendezvous, for it is the centre of the whariki, as the Maoris symbolically call the Tamaki isthmus. The whariki is the domestic sleeping mat. It was the castle and citadel of the closely-populated Tamaki country centuries ago. On its entrenched summit lived Kiwi-Tamaki, the last great chieftain of the ancient Waiohua.

It is a pathetic thought that the descendants of the warriors, Ngati-Whatua, who conquered Kiwi and his people, now own only a miserable few acres, the little flat at Orakei, hemmed in between a new pakeha suburb of Auckland and the city's sewer. Ruin in every sense has fallen on Ngati-Whatua but the leaders of the Maori cause in Auckland bravely cherish hope that the people will be reinstated in possession of sufficient land for a living; and the proposed gathering of tribes on the sacred ground of the Tainui stock will serve to preserve and restore pride in the old tradition and culture.