New Zealand Wars Petition Box

Introduction

This small, humble box is a powerful object in Aotearoa New Zealand’s history. It is one of four pouaka petihana (petition boxes) created to hold more than 12,000 signatures in support of a petition for a national day of commemoration for the New Zealand Land Wars.  The petition was launched by Ōtorohanga College students Waimārama Anderson and Leah Bell in 2014, after attending a school trip to sites of significance in the New Zealand Wars and hearing kaumātua recount stories about what had happened in their local community during the wars. Reflecting on this experience in our conversation at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland Museum in 2023, Leah said she thought at the time, “Why aren’t we learning about this?  It is so important and it’s right on our back door. So many of the students at our kura were descendants of people who had either fought at Ōrākau or escaped from Rangiaowhia and it felt far more relevant to us than what we were learning in our social studies class”.  With the support and encouragement of fellow students and staff, family members, kaumātua, and wider members of the community, Leah and Waimārama spent almost two years travelling around the motu (country) gathering signatures for the petition.  

Three of the four petition boxes were created by Ōtorohanga College art student Kiana Ormsby, who was 15 years old at the time.  Created using simple materials purchased from the local $2 store, Kiana attached a whāriki (woven mat) to the lid of a cardboard box and decorated it with a traditional stepped poutama pattern, which symbolizes the pursuit of knowledge and education.  “We can’t move forward without knowing our history”, explains Kiana. “It speaks to the past, present and future”. A fourth wooden box in the shape of a book was decorated by Kiana’s father, artist Daniel Ormsby. 

In late 2015, the petition papers were formally presented to Parliament in the boxes. In response to this collective effort, the government introduced an annual day of commemoration for the New Zealand Wars, known as He Rā Maumahara, in 2018. This was followed by the launch of the Aotearoa New Zealand History Curriculum in schools in 2023. 

This simple box, created in a classroom, reflects a remarkable moment of collective action led by school students in Ōtorohanga. The petition highlighted the pressing need for New Zealanders to know their local histories, particularly those relating to the New Zealand Wars, which have had multi-generational and ongoing consequences, but which have been little understood by most New Zealanders. 

Text by Lucy Mackintosh