Kumutoto, the Forgotten Awa.

Eleanor Thorpe

I sit in a wooded glen tucked beneath Salamanca Terrace. Tall karaka trees surround me; kawakawa and other shrubs strain for light in the undergrowth. Tradescantia—an invasive weed and conservationist’s never-ending foe—sprawls across the forest floor. Before me, emerging from three unceremonious storm water pipes, flows Te Awa o Kumutoto. 

Her bank offers a kind of sanctuary, a whakatā (break) from the hectic bustle of my university day. I am only a hundred meters below campus. Above me, I hear the raucous laughter of some students heading to class. Soon I will go too. For now, I sit and recharge while Kumutoto steadily flows on.

It would be obvious to say that wai māori (freshwater) is vital for life. It underpins everything: food, energy, waste, survival itself. We rely on it constantly. And yet, in Pōneke, awa are strangely absent. Where are they? And who is looking after them?

The city is, in fact, threaded with some seven hundred kilometres of awa. Only about sixty kilometers remain visible in daylight. The rest—ninety-seven per cent—have been diverted, buried, or culverted.

We still use them—they are exploited for drainage—but we have hidden them from view. We rely on awa to faithfully carry on flowing, yet to most of us they areforgotten.

In te ao Māori, wai māori is not a “resource.” Awa are tūpuna to be respected and cared for. Awa are integral to whakapapa, to identity. Their significance is demonstrated in the whakataukī “Ko au te awa, ko te awa ko au. I am the river, the river is me.”

The colonial imposition of pākehā systems bulldozed through this understanding.

Te Awa o Kumutoto is one of the many awa in Pōneke. Her story is one of resilience in the face of change and damage. Once a long-flowing, life-sustaining awa, she now lies mostly buried.

Sitting here, I try to imagine what Kumutoto was like two hundred years ago. Her course is shaped by the Wellington fault. She ran for two kilometers—from Pukehinau Ridge (just above what is now Victoria University), down through the valley (where cars now zoom through the Terrace Tunnel), before turning right and emptying into the harbour. Rimu, tōtara and hīnau rose high along her banks. The forests would’ve housed an orchestra of birds: the screeches of kākā, peeps of pīwakawaka, laughter of tīeke. Tuna, kōura and other ika would have glided in her clear waters, slipping between stones and roots, the nooks and crannies of the forest stream bed.

To understand what changed, you have to understand the settlement of Pōneke.

In the 1820s, following conflict from the Musket Wars, Ngāti Mutunga, Ngāti Tama, and Te Ātiawa migrated south from Taranaki, settling across the Kāpiti coast and into Pōneke. By the late 1820s, Ngāti Ira had relinquished ahi kā in the area, seeking refuge with Ngāti Kahungunu to the east. In the following years, flourishing pā and kāinga (fortified and unfortified villages) were established around the harbour. Wiremu Piti Pōmare of Ngāti Mutunga established Kumutoto Pā in 1824. Māra kai (gardens) grew along her stream banks.

The harbour became a hub of trade. From 1831 to 1835, Kumutoto sat at the center of a prosperous flax trade. In 1835, Ngāti Mutunga migrated to the Chatham Islands, passing ahi kā to Te Ātiawa.

Kumutoto also held a birthing stone in her waters—a place of deep cultural significance. Her name reflects this: Kumu, ‘from behind’, toto, ‘to bleed’. Women and children would come from Te Aro and Pipitea Pā to bathe in her waters. 

Then, abruptly, everything changed.

In 1839, the New Zealand Company ship Tory docked in the harbour. Shortly after, the Port Nicholson Deed of Purchase was signed—a document riddled with mistranslations and misunderstandings, facilitated in part by the trader Dicky Barrett.

Settlers began to arrive. A town—Britannia—was established at Pito‑one, only to be abandoned after flooding forced relocation across the harbour in the Lambton area. This land, already occupied and cultivated by Māori, was taken. Those living there were displaced by the settlers. 

Early pākehā settlements mirrored cramped British industrial cities—dense, disease ridden, and unplanned. Waste systems were rudimentary or nonexistent. Awa became drains, absorbing sewage, dead animals, and waste. Unsurprisingly, disease spread quickly. By 1870, no urban stream in Pōneke was considered safe to drink from. In 1879 alone, seventy-five deaths were attributed to sewage contamination.

In less than a generation, Te Awa o Kumutoto had been transformed from a source of life into a carrier of disease.

In 1866, Kumutoto became the first awa in Pōneke to be culverted. Slowly, section by section, she was buried beneath the growing city. Today, of her original two-kilometre journey, less than a hundred metres remains above ground.

And so we return to the present.

It is now 2026. Nearly two centuries later, I sit at her bank. Sunlight scatters across her surface. Three juvenile kōkopu dart between the stones, flashing silver as they move. Despite everything she has endured, Kumutoto still flows. That is her story, so why am I here? What connection do I have with Kumutoto? 

I am Pākehā, I don’t whakapapa to Kumutoto. My ancestors were part of the colonial system that reshaped this land. And yet, sitting here, I find connection. Peace.

I have been coming here for a year and a half. Like many, I moved to Pōneke to study. At first, I knew nothing about Kumutoto, the story of our city’s water, or colonial settlement. 

In those early months, I felt uprooted. Uncertain. About university, about belonging, about whether I could do this at all.

But I was here, and I had to step into the current.

Six months into my time at Te Herenga Waka, I found the Kumutoto Restoration Project.

I still remember my first working bee. I arrived late. Having run the whole way,  I was flustered and nervous. But from the beginning, I was welcomed. We gathered, as we always do, in whakawhanaungatanga—introducing ourselves, sharing where we are from and why we are here. Slowly, connections form: to each other, to the place, to Kumutoto herself.

Over time, something shifts in that circle. We are not just restoring a stream. We are reconnecting—to place, to time, to one another.

When I left that first day, I carried something new: the beginnings of a seed of community.

Since then, both the project and the people within it have grown. Together, we work to restore the mana and mauri of Te Awa o Kumutoto. In doing so, we are weaving community, resilience, and care for both the whenua and each other.

Over the past eighteen months, we have successfully pushed back tones of tradescantia and other invasive weeds, planted several hundred trees, and established regular traplines and bird-count stations. In the coming year, we plan to plant more than 2,500 natives, and host many more working bees and community events. Thanks to the amazing work of Dr Dennis Ngawhare, Kumutoto was recognised as a ‘wahi tūpuna’ by the Heritage Foundation last year.

As our project continues to grow, we meet new people, new opportunities. What grounds me in the kaupapa and brings me back every week is our growing community of awesome people. These people show me what caring looks like, how to build community. They show  me what it means to stand up and take action, turn up and be the change you want to see in your community.

So as I sit along her banks today, amidst the turmoil of the world—violence, awful wars, greed, destruction of life—I look to Kumutoto for grounding. I remember the whakatauākī written for us by project lead Martin Andrew: “Mā te awa e ārahi. Let the awa lead the way.” 

I don’t know what the future holds for us, for her, for anyone—but I can see the resilience Kumutoto has shown. In the face of profound harm, she keeps flowing—quietly, relentlessly. Through her persistence, she teaches us how to keep going, too.

The Kumutoto Restoration Project meets on the second and fourth Saturdays of each month. From 10 a.m. to noon, we work to restore the biodiversity of the awa. Afterwards, we share homemade soup made from donated Kaibosh vegetables. Come along and get involved in the kaupapa.