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Te Kooti in 1887

Two pencil portraits of Te Kooti that were apparently drawn in 1887. According to the caption he was ‘addressing Rotorua natives at Tama te Kapua’.

Following his official pardon by the government in 1883 Te Kooti settled at Ōtewa, near Ōtorohanga. After establishing a religious community he began a series of journeys to visit his followers and make peace with his enemies.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: A-114-004-1
Artist: Thomas Aldworth Ryan (1864-1927).
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any reuse of this image.

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Honiana Te Puni NZ Wars memorial

This memorial stands in the Te Puni Street urupā – burial ground – in Petone, a seaside suburb of Lower Hutt City whose correct Māori name (Pito-one) means ‘end of the sand beach’. It commemorates the prominent Te Ātiawa leader Honiana Te Puni’s ‘unbroken friendship’ with Pākehā.

Te Puni belonged to the Ngāti Te Whiti and Ngāti Tawhirikura hapū of Te Ātiawa. He and his younger cousin Te Wharepōuri were among the first to welcome the New Zealand Company ship Tory when it arrived in what would become Port Nicholson (Wellington Harbour) on 20 September 1839.

The first New Zealand Company settler ship, Aurora, arrived at Petone on 22 January 1840. This marked the founding of the settlement that would become Wellington.

Te Puni became a firm friend of the new arrivals. His people built houses for the settlers and supplied food in exchange for European clothing and other goods. Later, he provided military advice and assistance.

Not all Māori were happy with the influx of Europeans to the Wellington region. By 1845 tensions were mounting as Ngāti Toa chief Te Rangihaeata supported local hapu such as Ngāti Rangatahi which opposed European settlement in the Hutt Valley.

On 16 May 1846, Tōpine Te Mamaku of Ngāti Hāua-te-rangi – Ngāti Rangatahi’s Whanganui allies – led a raid on the British military stockade at Boulcott’s Farm, 5 km up the Hutt River from Petone. Six British soldiers were killed and another soldier and a farm worker were mortally wounded.

Two weeks earlier, Te Puni had warned of an impending attack. His offer to assist Major Mathew Richmond if he was supplied with arms and ammunition had been rejected.

After Boulcott’s Farm, however, Te Puni was issued with 100 muskets. He built a stockade between Fort Richmond (Lower Hutt) and Boulcott’s Farm, and strengthened his own pā at Petone.

Skirmishes took place between Te Puni’s men and Ngāti Hāua-te-rangi on 2 June. Although Te Puni did not wish to initiate an attack, he was prepared to assist the Europeans. Te Puni’s son later crossed the Hutt River, occupied a position that had been held by Ngāti Rangatahi, and forced them to retreat without battle.

In July Te Puni’s forces escorted militia and armed police across the western Hutt hills to Pāuatahanui. This action helped to prevent further occupation of the Hutt by Te Rangihaeata and his allies.

Te Puni died on 5 December 1870 and was buried in the family cemetery, the urupā at Petone, on the 9th. The funeral was ‘as great a one as the city [Wellington] could give’. Government offices, banks and commercial houses were closed for the day, and ‘everybody of any consequence, who could possibly make the trip, went out to Petone by sea or road’.

Pallbearers included Native Minister Donald McLean and William Fitzherbert, the local Member of the House of Representatives. The Bishop of Wellington, Octavius Hadfield, read the funeral service and three volleys were fired over Te Puni’s grave by members of the Hutt Volunteers.

This memorial was erected in 1872. The Ōamaru stone was carved by a Mr Membray from a design by Colonial Architect William Clayton.

In December 1907, Te Puni’s monument was described as the ‘saddest feature’ of the ‘forlorn’ urupā at Petone. Within the burial ground, many graves had no markers and long grass covered the area. The memorial itself leant sadly awry, its base tilted. Some rings had been broken from the stone at the top, the entire structure was covered in moss, and the fence railings were rusted.

It is unclear what action was taken, when, and by whom. However, a photograph taken by an Evening Post staffer on 23 January 1940 shows Te Puni’s memorial in better times. A large group surrounds the gravesite shortly after Deputy Prime Minister Walter Nash laid a wreath in memory of the chief to mark Wellington’s centennial.

The urupā in which Te Puni’s memorial stands remains in use, although it is now within an industrial area.

Additional images

See also these 1940 and undated images of the memorial from the Alexander Turnbull Library.

Inscription

Front face
To the memory of / Honiana Te Puni / A Chief of Ngatiawa / who died on the / 5th of December 1870

Side face
This / monument is erected by the / New Zealand government / in consideration of the / unbroken friendship / between him and the Pakeha

Rear face
Ko te Tohu Tenei o / Honiana Te Puni / Rangatira o Ngatiawa / I Mate I Te / 5th Tihema 1870

Side face
Na Te Kawanatanga Oniu / Tireni Tenei Kowhatu I / Whakatu Hei Tohu Mo Te / Piri Pono O Taua Kaumatua / Ki Te Pakeha

Further information

‘Local and General News’, Wellington Independent, 2 February 1872
‘Te Puni. A Petone Chief’, Evening Post, 5 December 1907
Angela Ballara, ‘Te Puni-kokopu, Honiana’, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 1 September 2010
James Cowan, ‘Wellington Settlement and Hutt War’ and ‘The Fight at Boulcott’s Farm’, in The New Zealand Wars: a history of the Maori campaigns and the pioneering period: volume I: 1845–1864, R.E. Owen, Wellington, 1955, pp. 88–111
Chris Pugsley, ‘Walking the Wellington Wars: The Hutt War of 1846 and the Fight at Boulcott’s Farm’, New Zealand Defence Quarterly, no. 6 (Spring 1994), pp. 36–41
Louis E. Ward, ‘Death and Burial of Te Puni, 1870’, in Early Wellington, Whitcombe and Tombs, Auckland, 1928, pp. 172–6

Credit:

Images: Margaret Marks, 2009

Text: Karen Cameron

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Ngāruawāhia NZ Wars memorial

Ngāruawāhia is 20 km north-west of Hamilton at the point where the Waikato and Waipā rivers meet. The town is home to the Māori Kīngitanga or King Movement. The first Maori king, Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, was crowned there in 1858 and established the settlement as his capital. Pōtatau’s son, Tukaroto Matutaera Pōtatau Te Wherowhero Tāwhiao, succeeded his father as Māori King in 1860. The early part of Tāwhiao’s 34-year reign coincided with the Waikato War (1863–64).

British forces under Lieutenant-General Duncan Cameron entered Ngāruawāhia on 8 December 1863. The town was renamed Newcastle but soon reverted to its original name. By January 1864 Cameron had 7000 men south of the settlement, half of them devoted to protecting the supply line along the Waipā River to the front. By April the Kingite heartland had been occupied by imperial and colonial troops.

This memorial obelisk stands in Ngāruawāhia Public Cemetery, about 1½ km south-east of the town centre on State Highway 1. It records the names of three imperial and colonial troops, and is dedicated to 10 others whose names are now unknown, who died during the New Zealand Wars and were buried nearby.

The 13 men were originally buried in the Octagon in the town centre. Their remains were exhumed and reinterred in the public cemetery in mid-1882 by a party of six Armed Constabulary led by Sergeant Joshua Foster. The relocation was part of a wider project to improve soldiers’ burial grounds in Waikato.

Foster and his men arrived at Ngāruawāhia on 19 July. Less than two decades after fighting ended in Waikato, the original grave site appears to have been somewhat neglected:

Some of the head-boards are to the good, but all traces of the occupants of many of the graves is completely lost. There is one head-stone erected to the memory of Lance-Sergeant Jameson, Army Hospital Corps. This has been carefully removed and placed at the head of a new grave in the public cemetery, alongside are the bones of the twelve others, who will have a stone erected by the Government, which will afford all the information available.

This memorial was erected at the behest of Edith Statham, the Inspector of Old Soldiers’ Graves in the Department of Internal Affairs from 1913. The names of only three of the 13 men to whom it is dedicated could be retrieved from the original headboards at the Octagon site: Private William Hammell of the 65th Regiment, Corporal Thomas Hill of the Colonial Defence Force (CDF), and Lance-Corporal William Hewitt of the Commissariat Transport Corps (CTC).

The memorial records that Private Hammell died on 2 February 1864 at the age of 19. However, official casualty lists spell the surname as Hamel or Hamell and give his date of death as 29 February. According to these lists, Hamel was born in Lurgan, County Armagh, northern Ireland. He was a labourer before enlisting in the British Army on 21 February 1852, a date which rules out the age at death shown on the memorial.

Two explanations seem possible. The first is that two Williams with similar last names, both of the 65th Regiment, both died in the Waikato during February 1864. The second is that the original headboard was so difficult to read that Foster’s men made errors transcribing the inscription in 1882.

The second explanation is plausible, given the dilapidated state of the original headboards reported by the Waikato Times in 1882. It is possible, for example, that the number ‘9’ had disappeared from Hammell’s date of death inscription on the original headboard. Similarly, he may have been 29 years old when he died, with the ‘2’ being mistakenly read as a ‘1’. Further information is required to determine which, if either, of these scenarios is correct.

According to the memorial, Corporal Hill died on 28 April 1864 from wounds he had received at Rangiaowhia on 22 February. Though the best-known engagement at Rangiaowhia took place on 21 February, mounted units pursued Māori fleeing from nearby Hairini Ridge as far as the settlement the next day.

The name of ‘Corporal Thomas Hill’ does not appear on the ‘Nominal Return of Officers and Men of the Colonial Forces who have been Killed in Action or who have Died of Wounds prior to the 11th July, 1868’. However, the return does record a Corporal Thomas Little, who received a ‘severe’ gunshot wound to the thigh at ‘Rangiawhia’ on 21 (or 22?) February. It is entirely possible that the surname ‘Hill’ on the memorial resulted from a misreading of ‘Little’.

Little is currently known about Lance-Corporal Hewitt, who died on 9 April 1864, a week after the battle at Ōrākau. His name has not been found on official casualty lists and his death may have been entirely unrelated to this engagement.

Lance-Sergeant Freeman Jamieson (or Jameson) is another whose name has not been found on official casualty lists. According to his headstone Jamieson, of the Army Hospital Corps Purveyors Branch, died on 19 May 1864, aged 28.

Additional images

Inscription

Monument

Front face:
In memory of / Wm. Hammell / 65th Regt / who departed this life / 2nd Feby 1864 / Aged 19 years

Left face:
In memory of / Corporal Thomas Hill / Col Defence Force / who died 28th April / from wounds received in action / Rangiaohia 22 Feby 1864

Right face:
Here also lie / the remains of soldiers / who fell in the Maori Wars, / and whose names cannot / be traced. / “They live in memory / by their deeds.”

Obverse facing:
In memory of / Lance Corpl Wm Hewitt / Corp. C.T.C. / who died 9th April 1864 / aged 22 years

Grave

In memory of / Lance Serjt. / Freeman Jamieson / Purveyors Branch / Army Hospital Corps / Died 19 May 1864 / Aged 28 years / This tablet is erected by / the Officers of the Purvey- / ors Department, Non-Commiss- / ioned Officers and Pri- / vates Army Hospital Corps

Sources

‘Further Papers Relative to the Issue of the New Zealand War Medal’, Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1871 Session I, G-01a
Extract from ‘Ngaruawahia’, Waikato Times, 8 August 1882
‘In Memoriam’, Evening Post, 2 January 1914
James Belich, ‘Paterangi and Orakau’, in The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian interpretation of racial conflict, Penguin, Auckland, 1998, pp. 158–76
James Cowan, ‘The Invasion of Rangiaowhia’, in The New Zealand Wars: a history of the Maori campaigns and the pioneering period: volume I: 1845–1864, R.E. Owen, Wellington, 1955, pp. 351–64
Jeffrey E. Hopkins-Weise, ‘New Zealand's Colonial Defence Force (Cavalry) and its Australian context, 1863–66’, Sabretache, 1 September 2002, http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-2072614/New-Zealand-s-Colonial-Defence.html, originally published as 'A History of the Colonial Defence Force (Cavalry): and the Australian context', in The Volunteers, vol. 26, no. 1, July 2000, pp. 5–25
Chris Maclean and Jock Phillips, The sorrow and the pride: New Zealand war memorials, GP Books, Wellington, 1990, p. 33
Nigel Prickett, ‘The Waikato War, 1863–64’, in Landscapes of conflict: a field guide to the New Zealand Wars, Random House, Auckland, 2002, pp. 69–86
Nancy Swarbrick. ‘Waikato places – Te Awamutu’, Te Ara – the encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 26 May 2010

Credit:

Images: Margaret Marks, 2008

Text: Karen Cameron, 2011

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1921 - key events

First regular airmail services take off

The 1920s was a decade of numerous ‘firsts’ in the rapidly developing field of aviation. Pioneer aviator George Bolt had flown New Zealand’s first experimental airmail flight in 1919, and the first scheduled services began in 1921. On 31 January the first flight of the Canterbury Aviation Company’s new airmail service took off from Christchurch, bound for Ashburton and Timaru. On 9 May Bolt himself launched an Auckland–Whāngārei service. But neither venture proved profitable, and they were soon discontinued.

Anzac Day becomes a sacred holiday

Anzac Day (25 April) was first marked in 1916, on the anniversary of the previous year’s Gallipoli landings. But the staus of this half-day holiday was unclear. In 1920 the government responded to lobbying by the Returned Soldiers’ Association (RSA) by declaring Anzac Day a full-day public holiday, which was observed for the first time on 25 April 1921. This legislation closed banks and hotels and banned race meetings, but the RSA still wasn’t satisfied. The following year 25 April was effectively ‘Sundayised’, further emphasising its sacred place in the New Zealand calendar.

Tūrangawaewae marae established

After the First World War and the devastating influenza pandemic of 1918, Waikato leader Te Puea Hērangi resolved to rebuild a centre for the Māori King movement at Ngāruawāhia, its original home before the land confiscations of the 1860s. Waikato leaders purchased 4 ha of riverside land opposite the township in 1920. The following year Te Puea began moving her people from Mangatāwhiri to build a new marae, called Tūrangawaewae. Years of hard work followed, draining and filling swampy, scrub-covered land and fundraising for buildings. They also had to overcome opposition from Ngāruawāhia’s Pākehā citizens, who initially tried to have them removed from the borough.

Economic recession hits

A post-war economic boom came to a shuddering halt in late 1921, when the end of Britain’s wartime commandeer of New Zealand farm exports and a worldwide glut of primary produce sparked a short, sharp recession. Income from wool exports tumbled from £19.6 million in 1919 to just £5.2 million in 1921; meat returns slumped from £11.6 million in 1920 to £8.4 million in 1922.

As unemployment soared and industrial unrest mounted, the Reform government responded by slashing state spending, cutting public servants’ wages by up to 10%. Among the worst affected by the recession were discharged soldiers recently settled on farms, many of whom were struggling with large debts, reduced income and often marginal land.

Other events in 1921:

In November and December Professor Robert Jack of the University of Otago broadcast this country’s first radio programmes, which included live voice and music as well as gramophone recordings. Reception was best in Otago, but the broadcasts were heard as far away as Auckland.
Herbert Guthrie-Smith’s landmark enviromental history, Tutira: the story of a New Zealand sheep station, was published.
Weekly flag saluting ceremonies were made compulsory in public schools.
The Communist Party of New Zealand was founded by a small group of Marxist-Leninists.
A commission of inquiry into Ngāi Tahu’s land claims recommended that compensation should be paid, but no immediate action was taken.
The Otago Central Railway between Dunedin and Cromwell was completed.
The Cawthron Institute – New Zealand’s first privately funded scientific research institution – was opened in Nelson.
The New Zealand Federation of Country Women’s Institutes (CWI) was established.
The New Zealand Division of the Royal Navy was established, with HMS Chatham as its first ship.
Plunket Society guru Frederic Truby King was appointed the first director of child welfare.
The South African Springbok rugby team toured New Zealand for the first time, squaring the test series 1–1; the third test was drawn. The tour included a controversial match between the Springboks and a Māori side.
The Victoria College Tramping Club was established, one of a number of tramping clubs founded around this time.

NZ Wars flags

Many Māori in the 19th century saw the Union Jack as a potent symbol of Great Britain's power in New Zealand. In the New Zealand Wars, Māori parties who sought to resist government forces often devised their own flags to show their independence and counteract the 'mana' of the Union Jack.

King movement flags

The King Movement used three flags, bearing the words 'Kīngi' (King) and 'Niu Tireni' (New Zealand), for the appointment of Pōtatau Te Wherowhero as the first Māori King in 1857. The tradition continued with the crowning of Tāwhiao in 1861, and all successive monarchs have had their own personal flags drawn up for use at the residence at Tūrangawaewae, and when visiting other maraes which accept the monarch's authority. The monarch's flag is considered to be strictly tapu and is kept by a hereditary custodian until interred with the monarch upon death.

Pai Mārire flags

The Pai Mārire or Hauhau faith also believed in the power of flags, with the 'Niu Pole' and its three flags prominent in religious ceremonies. The 'Riki' flag or pennant was a war flag, while the 'Ruru' flag represented peace. The relative positions of 'Ruru' and 'Riki' on the Niu pole were believed to indicate whether the spirit behind the gathering was peaceful or hostile. The third flag used on the pole was the personal flag of the priest conducting the ceremony.

Te Ua Haumēne, the leader of the Pai Mārire movement, also had his own personal flag, which featured the word 'Kenana' (Canaan) to show that he identified with the Jews. The five apostles of the church also had personal flags decorated with various distinctive symbols, such as crosses, stars and crescents.

Te Kooti's flags

Te Kooti's use of flags in the New Zealand Wars is also notable, with the designs of each flag being altered as his success or failure dictated. Perhaps his most famous flag is that dubbed 'Te Wepu' (the whip), made for Ngāti Kahungunu by nuns at the Greenmeadows Missionary School. Measuring 52 ft by 4ft (or just under 16m by 1.2m), it was captured by Te Kooti in 1868 and remained in his possession until reseized by Gilbert Mair near Rotorua in 1870. Te Wepu was decorated with a crescent moon, a cross, a six-pointed star, a mountain representing New Zealand and a bleeding heart, thought to symbolise the sufferings of the Māori people. The fate of Te Wepu is unknown, but there are stories of it having been used as a duster, cut up or stolen from the Dominion Museum.

Use of flags by the government

Flags were also used to reward or thank Māori who supported the government during the New Zealand Wars, with the government continuing this tradition as a mark of recognition in the early 1900s. The British or New Zealand Red Ensign with the name of the hapu or a notable ancestor worked into the design was a common gift from either Queen Victoria or the government, as the colour red was often preferred by Māori for its properties of 'mana' or rank. The customary use of the Red Ensign by Māori on significant occasions is still provided for in the Flags, Emblems and Names Protection Act 1981.

Other groups had tribute paid to them with flags of different designs, such as that presented by the ladies of Whanganui to the lower Whanganui iwi in 1865 to mark their success at Moutoa Island. Today the Moutoa flag is believed to be held at the Whanganui Regional Museum.

Imperial and colonial troops also had their services recognised with flags. The Taranaki Militia and Rifle Volunteers' efforts in 1860 were rewarded by the presentation of an impressive flag in 1861, designed and sewn by the women of the area.

King movement flags

The three flags depicted by W.F. Gordon on the left are those used by the King Movement to mark the appointment of Pōtatau Te Wherowhero as the first Māori King in 1857. Gordon drew the flags when they were flown at Mataitawa, Taranaki on the anniversary of Pōtatau's accession in 1862.

The two flags depicted on the right are believed to have been used by supporters of the Pai Mārire faith in the 1860s.

Credit:

Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

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1966 - key events

NZ’s longest running TV show debuts

The first episode of Country Calendar screened on the evening of Sunday 6 March. The 15-minute show was intended as a roundup of news for country folk. New Zealanders' identification with their rural heartland and traditions ensured that even 'townies' embraced Country Calendar, which has consistently been one of the most popular locally made television shows. It is believed to be the second-longest-running series in the world – after the English soap-opera Coronation Street.

Kaitawa tragedy

On the evening of 23 May all 29 crew on board the MV Kaitawa died when the ship was lost in heavy seas as it approached Cape Reinga. This was one of New Zealand’s worst shipwrecks of the 20th century. On a routine run with a cargo of coal from Westport to the Portland cement works, near Whangarei, the Kaitawa sent a Mayday call around 9 p.m. All contact was then lost and wreckage began floating ashore the next day. Investigators concluded that the Kaitawa was most likely swamped by one or more great waves. As the ship took on water it began to list and drifted on to the Pandora Bank. Here it was smashed by the heavy seas and capsized before drifting to a point closer to Cape Maria van Diemen, where it sank to the ocean floor. Only the body of motorman John Wright was ever recovered.

Coronation of new Maori Queen

In May the Maori King, Koriki, died at his home in Ngaruawahia. Shortly before his burial on 23 May his daughter Piki was crowned as Te Atairangikaahu, becoming the first Maori Queen. The sixth Maori monarch since the creation of the Kingitanga in 1858, Te Atairangikaahu is to date the longest-serving Maori monarch. She died in August 2006, shortly after celebrating her 40th jubilee as Queen.

The White House comes to New Zealand

In a bid to shore up support for the war in Vietnam, New Zealand received two high-profile visitors from the White House in 1966. A visit in February from Vice-President Hubert Humphrey was followed in October by the two-day visit of President Lyndon B. Johnson. ‘LBJ’ was the first President to visit this country. It was not, however, his first visit New Zealand – he had been stationed here (and in Australia) during the Second World War.

Other events of 1966

The local television music show C’mon made its debut. Hosted by Peter Sinclair, it showcased a number of local artists and dancers who became household names including the Chicks, Mr Lee Grant and Dinah Lee.
Don’t Let It Get You was only the third New Zealand feature film since the end of the Second World War. Made by John O’Shea for Pacific Films, it starred Howard Morrison, a heavily brylcreemed Lew Pryme and a young Kiri Te Kanawa.
Maria Dallas won the Loxene Golden Disc Award for Tumbling down. These awards were the forerunner of today’s Tui Awards or New Zealand Music Awards.
The Socialist Unity Party was established by the pro-Russian faction of the New Zealand Communist Party. With strong trade union ties, the SUP established itself as the most powerful extreme left-wing group in the country.
The All Blacks completed a 4-0 clean sweep against the touring British and Irish Lions. The Lions played 25 matches in New Zealand, also losing to Southland, Otago, Wellington and Wanganui-King Country. Bay of Plenty and Hawke’s Bay drew with the visitors.
The new inter-island ferry Wahine arrived at Wellington on 24 July 1966, making its first voyage to Lyttelton on 1 August. Its sinking at the entrance to Wellington Harbour in 1968 is one of the enduring images of New Zealand in the sixties.
The 20-year-old two-party monopoly of Parliament was ended when Social Credit leader Vernon Cracknell won the Hobson electorate in the 1966 general election. National won the election with a nine-seat majority from Labour.
The state monopoly on commercial radio broadcasting was challenged by pirate station Radio Hauraki’s first transmission from the vessel Tiri in the Colville Channel.
The poet James K. Baxter was awarded New Zealand's premier literary residency, the Robert Burns Fellowship.
Gisborne was hit by a magnitude 6.2 earthquake on 5 March with considerable damage to property.
The first Trekka, the only vehicle to be designed and mass produced in New Zealand, rolled off the assembly line for the first time. Some 2500 of these jeep-style farm vehicles were built between 1966 and 1973.

Can you remember 1966? Add your memories and comments in the form below.

Portrait of Hoani Wiremu Hīpango

Portrait of Hoani Wiremu Hīpango, 1855.

The Pūtiki chief Hoani Hīpango was a leader of Ngāti Tūmango, of Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi. His mana over Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi tribal lands extended some 100 kms up the Whanganui River. He was one of the first Whanganui Māori to convert to Christianity. Hīpango was described by the missionary Richard Taylor as the most influential Whanganui leader from the 1840s to the 1860s.

In 1846 Hīpango provided men to defend the township of Whanganui, under threat from hostile Taupō and upper Whanganui Māori, until the arrival of government troops. He helped apprehend those responsible for the Gilfillan killings in April 1847.

Hīpango was chosen by a meeting of Whanganui and Rangitīkei leaders to accompany Richard Taylor on a visit to England in 1855. Leaving in January, they travelled via Sydney, where Hīpango visited the former home of Samuel Marsden at Parramatta. In London he had an audience with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, whom he presented with gifts from the Whanganui tribes.

Hīpango played a key role in the battle at Moutoa Island in May 1864 and in the ongoing campaign against Pai Mārire. He died in February 1865 as a result of wounds he received during an attack on Ōhoutahi, the main Hauhau pā below Pipiriki.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: PA2-2076
Photographer: Arthur Madison
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image

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Hōri Kīngi Te Ānaua

Hōri Kīngi Te Ānaua, about 1860.

Te Ānaua and his brother Te Māwae were among the leaders of the Whanganui iwi in the tribal wars of the early 19th century. In 1819 or 1820 he fought against an expedition of northern, musket-armed tribes led by Tūwhare, Patuone and Nene near the mouth of the Whanganui River. Te Ānaua was also involved in an unsuccessful attack by Whanganui and other southern tribes on Ngāti Toa at Kapiti Island around 1824. He later opposed the Tama-te-uaua migration of Te Ātiawa to the south in the early 1830s.

Te Ānaua signed the Treaty of Waitangi at Whanganui in 1840. He also signed Edward Jerningham Wakefield's deed of purchase for Whanganui, which he later described as ‘of no significance’.

The Church Missionary Society had established a mission station at Putiki in 1840 and Te Ānaua became a close friend of the missionary Richard Taylor. In 1846-47, when the European settlement at Whanganui was threatened by Te Mamaku of Ngāti Haua-te-rangi, Te Ānaua provided men to help defend the town. In February 1848, at Governor George Grey’s request, he became involved in peace talks with Te Mamaku.

Te Ānaua was one of the tribal leaders who successfully argued for increased Māori reserves when the Wanganui purchase was finalised in May 1848. That December he was appointed a magistrate and in the 1860s he was made an assessor by the government. His loyalty was recognised at the 1860 Kohimarama conference of Māori leaders when he was presented by Governor Thomas Gore Browne with a staff of honour from Queen Victoria.

Te Ānaua was among those offered the Māori kingship in the 1850s, a suggestion he declined. In the 1860s he resisted the influence of both the Kīngitanga and Pai Mārire in the area. In May 1864 he led the force which defeated upper-river Hauhau followers at Moutoa Island. In July 1865 he joined Grey outside Weraroa, a Pai Mārire pā overlooking the Waitōtara River. When the ‘Hauhau’ were driven from Pipiriki that August, he helped negotiate an end to hostilities on the Whanganui River. In early 1866 Te Ānaua participated in Major-General Trevor Chute’s campaign in South Taranaki.

Te Ānaua died at Pūtiki on 18 September 1868, aged in his seventies.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: PA2-2397
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image

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Tōpine Te Mamaku

Tōpine Te Mamaku at Tawhata, on the Whanganui River below Taumarunui, photographed in May 1885 by Alfred Burton.

In the early 1820s Te Mamaku (Ngāti Hāua-te-rangi) wanted his people to join the migration of Te Rauparaha and Ngāti Toa to Kapiti, but was dissuaded by Te Peehi Tūroa. In 1829 both men were caught up in Te Rauparaha’s siege of Pūtiki, near the mouth of the Whanganui River. They managed to escape and fled upriver.

In 1846 Te Mamaku and some 200 of his Ngāti Hāua-te-rangi warriors supported Te Rangihaeata and Ngāti Rangatahi in their dispute with the European settlers in Hutt Valley. He led the attack on Boulcott’s farm in May 1846 and asked other Whanganui chiefs to join him in fighting the Wellington settlers. The missionary Richard Taylor intercepted his letters and one reached George Grey, influencing the governor’s decision to arrest Te Rauparaha.

When four upriver Māori were executed for their part in the Gilfillan killings in April 1847, Te Mamaku laid siege to Whanganui with up to 700 warriors. After a minor battle in July the siege was lifted and Te Mamaku returned to his upriver stronghold near Pipiriki.

On Christmas Day 1853 Te Mamaku was baptised at Pūtiki by Richard Taylor, taking the name Hemi Tōpine (James Stovin). Conversion to Christianity did not see him renounce war. In the mid-1850s a dispute broke out between Ngāti Hāua-te-rangi and Te Kere Ngātai-e-rua of Ngāti Tū, possibly over a flour mill under construction at Maraekōwhai. There was a battle at an old pā high above Kirikiriroa on the upper Whanganui, and subsequently a Ngāti Tū pā downstream at Puketapu was besieged.

Te Mamaku declined an offer to become the first Māori king in 1857, but joined the Kīngitanga the following year.

War returned to the Whanganui River in May 1864 when Mātene Te Rangitauira of Taumarunui led Pai Mārire forces against lower Whanganui Māori. Te Mamaku did not take part in the decisive battle of Moutoa, but he did support Te Peehi Pākoro Tūroa (Te Peehi Tūroa’s son) and Pai Mārire forces in a battle at Ōhoutahi, below Pipiriki, in February 1865.

Te Mamaku was said to be almost 100 years old when he died in June 1887 at Tawhata.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: PUBL-0011-05
Photographer: Alfred Burton
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image

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