Historian, director and writer Cindy Diver (Kāi Tahu) said a Māori whakatauakī (proverb) underpins her play about a Kāi Tahu wahine toa, Pātahi, being performed in Central Lakes and Otago next month. 

‘Ka mua, ka muri’ means to look to the past to move forward in the future, and the play is a modern retelling of Pātahi’s story, through the eyes of a fiercely intelligent 16 year old Elizabeth Brown, hit with an unplanned pregnancy. 

For Cindy, who grew up in Alexandra, the daughter of kaumātua Francie Diver there is a personal connection, as her whanau are direct descendants of Kāi Tahu tipuna (ancestor) Pātahi.

The female descendants of Pātahi, including the Diver whanau. PHOTO: Supplied 

There are several links to Central, in the cast, crew and plot, with fellow Dunstan High School alumni Simon Anderson acting in the play, and Cindy herself also learning lines for the upcoming performances.

Her nephew Alexandra-based Connor Diver has taken all the production photography, and there are two other direct Kāi Tahu descendants in the cast; Madison Kelly and Grace Turipa.

Grace Turipa. PHOTO: Connor Diver Photography

Cindy said her aim is to make history palatable for the younger generation, making it “easily accessible” and encouraging people to learn about their own heritage.

She said the colonialised version of Pātahi’s story, the Maori princess and the whaler, portrays her as a victim but the reality was different as she was staunch, determined and fearless, coping with three journeys during her life.

Simon Anderson plays Haimona on stage. PHOTO: Connor Diver Photography

Cindy researched Kai Tahu archives in Christchurch, and at the University of Otago, working with project kaitiaki Moana Wesley to ensure historical accuracy and impact in the story.

“It’s telling this amazing wahine’s story, relishing the idea of being female.. There are only two blokes on the crew, and it’s 90 per cent Kāi Tahu techs, producers, actresses.”

The play is infused with comedy, Cindy said it felt like her mum was on her shoulder when she was writing it saying; ‘it needs to have jokes’. 

When her mum watched it for the first time she “loved it” and was “blubbing” by the end.

Cindy said she feels so many connections to her roots in Pātahi’s story, such as the story of Kōpūwai told often by her mum, where the girl plots her escape.

“Pātahi [shows] staunch women existed for real. Pre-colonial Maori did have a far more equal balance [between the genders].”

Cindy’s high-born ancestor Pātahi refused to marry a leading warrior who proposed to her, and she fell in love with a whaling captain, who left for Australia and promised to return.

Pātahi stole a waka and fled up North for six months, causing shame and a rift within her family.

The Pakeha whaler did come back, and she did marry him, had two daughters, and ended up saving him from drowning during a shipwreck. They separated and she moved to Lyttleton, and started over, getting baptised and remarried.

She ended up in court ten years later, found to be having an affair with a man 20 years her junior. In her third life journey she moved to the Greenstone Valley on the West Coast and became a pounamu fossicker, carver and a gold miner with her partner.

Together they moved a greenstone boulder and found a seam of gold, and ended up taking a gold miner to the High Court in Wellington in the first test of customary rights under the Treaty of Waitangi (Reynolds and Tuakau), and they won the case.

The play ‘Wahine Mātātoa: The (Mostly) True Story of Erihāpeti Pātahi’ is a part of the Wānaka Festival of Colour, and showing at the Lake Hawea Community Centre on April 1. 

Cindy said after Wānaka she was excited to be “taking Pātahi home” to Ōtākou, Moeraki and Puketeraki marae for free performances to the runaka on April 4-6.

Read more: Creativity, culture to be celebrated at Wānaka Festival of Colour 2025

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