Unsurprisingly, the peak is sacred to Maori.
This area was settled for a long time. In the 1830's the tribes of the Waikato river came south and there was a big inter-iwi war. After this, the land was fairly empty when the Pakeha arrived, and some Maori, against custom or iwi law, agreed to sell parcels to the New Zealand Company. The original iwi hotly contested this, and there were a series of wars in the 1860's. This included the infamous battle in which European Constabulary, armed with muskets, invaded a pa filled with women and children. The Government's own Sim Commission in the 1880's concluded that the Government's declaration of war in Taranaki had been unjust and unjustified.
The echoes of this conflict still resound today. There are many land claims still to be settled, not least to the foreshore and coast in New Plymouth itself. Maori in Taranaki as elsewhere, are disproportionately poor, educationally deprived, diagnosed with mental and physical health problems, and enmeshed in the criminal justice system.
New Plymouth has an excellent isite/library/museum/gallery complex called Puke Ariki. The gallery is showing an exhibition called Taranaki Whenua: Life Blood Legacy, (second in an annual series of five), which explores these issues relating people to the land. From its own collections there are a range of paintings and artefacts, including many maps, of great interest. What really makes it is the audio visuals containing many interviews with local people, Maori and others. It's a great exhibition, which we recommend to anyone who is wondering how NZ/Aotearoa can reconcile its past and future.