New Zealand’s Whanganui River is the lifeblood of the Māori. The tribes of Whanganui take their name, their spirit and their strength from this great river, which flows from the mountains of central North Island through to the Tasman Sea. In Te Ahi Kā – The Fires of Occupation photographer Martin Toft explores the deep physical and metaphysical relationships between the river and the Māori. In 1996 Toft spent six months in the middle and upper reaches of the Whanganui River in an area known as the King Country. Here he met Māori who were in the process of reversing the colonisation of their people and returning to their ancestral land, Mangapapapa, which is on the steep banks of the river inside Whanganui National Park. At the end of his journey Toft was given the Māori name Pouma Pokai-Whenua. Returning twenty years later to rekindle the spiritual kinship he had experienced, Toft began to work on this book. Its narrative is situated within the context of the current Whanganui River Deed of Settlement, Ruruku Whakatupua and the projects led by local Māori to settle historical grievances with the government dating back to the 1870s. At the heart of it is the Whanganui tribes’ claim to the river, which is seen by them as both as an ancestor and as a source of both material and spiritual sustenance.

Featured in Aperture, GUP Magazine, Photomonitor, PhotoBook Journal, Archive Collective Magazine , ZEIT Magazin, PH Museum, New Zealand Gepgraphic, Te Karaka, BooksellersNZ, Whanganui Chronicle, Bailiwick Express, BBC Radio Jersey, British Journal of Photography (Paris Photo), British Journal of Photography (interview)

Photographs: Martin Toft   
Book concept: Martin Toft, Ania Nałęcka-Milach
Book design: Ania Nałęcka-Milach, Tapir Book Design
Editing and sequencing: Rafal Milach
Texts: Martin Toft in interviews with Hokio Te-Rangi Ngataierua.Tinirau, Te Tawhero Haitana and Tukaiora Haitana December 2016. Tape recordings from hui at Tieke Marae 24 April 1996
Translations: Hokio Te-Rangi Ngataierua. Tinirau
Proofreading: Hokio Te-Rangi Ngataierua. Tinirau, Anahera Ngataierua
TeKere Hosè, Pauline Syvret and Nick Falle
Dimensions: 205mm (h) x 165mm (w)
Pages: 200 pages
Images 89 photographs, colour and monochrome
Printed on: Fedrigoni Tatami Ivory, Munken Pure, Crush Kiwi and Woodstock Betulia
Typeset TT Norms
Printing and binding: Argraf, Warszawa
Binding: Hardcover thread-sewn, linen with letterpress and hot-stamping
Printed in Poland
Print run: 1500 copies (1450 trade editions, 40 special editions, 10 collectors edition)

First published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by
Dewi Lewis Publishing
8 Broomfield Road, Heaton Moor
Stockport SK4 4ND, England
www.dewilewis.com

All rights reserved
© 2018
Photographs and text: Martin Toft
This edition: Dewi Lewis Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-911306-38-2 (Green cover/female)
ISBN: 978-1-911306-39-9 (Orange cover/male)

There are two cover versions: a female version featuring an image of a fern used by Maori women as a means of purification, protection and prayer. And a male version featuring an image of flames; embers are traditionally wrapped in a Ponga tree leaf (silver fern) to carry the fire from one village to another as a symbol of occupation.

Published with financial support from Creative New Zealand, Lottery Environment and Heritage Fund and Te Mana o Te Awa grant administered by Ngā Tāngata Tiaki o Whanganui.