Te Puni Urupa

Amongst the hum of Petone's light industry lies a tiny oasis of history, a graveyard for many prominent Maori whanau and memorial to a famous ancestor. Te Puni Street, and Te Puni Urupa are named for the 19th century Paramount Chief of Atiawa who was a signatory to the Treaty of Waitangi and negotiated much of the development and settlement of Hutt Valley.

Next door, the entire beachfront block is taken up with New Zealand's primary postal centre, also named Te Puni, which shut for good in 2015. Tenants have moved in to the massive complex and other small manufacturing, service and importing businesses survive nearby, the biggest employer being the New Zealand Racing Board on Jackson Street.

The deceased in the Urupa sleep on. Still used for burial of some high ranking Atiawa, the Urupa provides a slim snapshot of the process of change for this Iwi, etched on the graves buried here from the nineteenth century until today. When NZ Places visited here, a swarm of seabirds protectively circled the site, a senior seagull keeping watch on a shipping container pulpit in the east. The entrance gate creaked and asked to be opened firmly and gently, or not at all. The tap and bottled water remind the visitor to follow Maori Protocol and wash off the wairua (spirit) of the deceased when leaving. A strange peace pervades this rugby pitch sized home of the dead, most of the prevailing winds somewhat blocked by neighbouring buildings. Here is a place to see and understand the Maori respect for the ancestor, isolated in an industrial world.