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TE PŪTAKE
WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND

TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI
O TE RIRI
WARS AND CONFLICTS
Commemorating wars and conflicts in Aotearoa New
Zealand is about standing together as Māori and Pākeha
and taking ownership of our joined history.
IN NEW ZEALAND
Edited by Malcolm Mulholland
THE HISTORICAL NEW ZEALAND WARS BETWEEN

MĀORI AND COLONIAL TROOPS SHAPED HOW WE
HAVE EVOLVED AS A NATION AND WHICH HAVE HAD
A LASTING IMPACT ON THE LIVES OF MANY NEW
ZEALANDERS.
The New Zealand Wars is a sensitive subject for many
people but there is no reason to pretend they did not
happen. It is about being brave and facing our colourful
history as a nation. By understanding the past we are better
able to build a solid foundation for the future and to plot a
pathway forward which is both informed and inclusive.
It is important that we put the same emphasis on our own

wars and conflicts as we do on wars and conflicts that
occurred offshore. Commemorating wars and conflicts in
Aotearoa New Zealand is about standing together as Pākehā
and Māori and taking ownership of our joined history.
(Ed.) Malcolm Mulholland
ISBN 978-0-473-44931-5
TE PŪTAKE

O TE RIRI
WARS AND CONFLICTS
Commemorating wars and conflicts in Aotearoa New
Zealand is about standing together as Māori and Pākeha
and taking ownership of our joined history.
IN NEW ZEALAND
Edited by Malcolm Mulholland
THE HISTORICAL NEW ZEALAND WARS BETWEEN

MĀORI AND COLONIAL TROOPS SHAPED HOW WE
HAVE EVOLVED AS A NATION AND WHICH HAVE HAD
A LASTING IMPACT ON THE LIVES OF MANY NEW
ZEALANDERS.
The New Zealand Wars is a sensitive subject for many
people but there is no reason to pretend they did not
happen. It is about being brave and facing our colourful
history as a nation. By understanding the past we are better
able to build a solid foundation for the future and to plot a
pathway forward which is both informed and inclusive.
It is important that we put the same emphasis on our own

wars and conflicts as we do on wars and conflicts that
occurred offshore. Commemorating wars and conflicts in
Aotearoa New Zealand is about standing together as Pākehā
and Māori and taking ownership of our joined history.
(Ed.) Malcolm Mulholland
ISBN 978-0-473-44931-5
Malcolm Mulholland (Ed.)
Title: TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: THE NEW ZEALAND WARS
ISBN 978-0-473-44931-5
Published by Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi
Publication Date 09/2018
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Malcolm Mulholland . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
CHAPTER 1
WAR AND CONFLICT
Sir Harawira Gardiner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
CHAPTER 2
WHAKAMAUMAHARA ME TE WAREWARE:
REMEMBERING AND FORGETTING
THE TARANAKI WAR
Kelvin Day . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
CHAPTER 3
HE TINO PAKANGA NUI NO NIU TIRENI
THE ‘GREAT WAR FOR NEW ZEALAND’
IN MEMORY AND HISTORY
Vincent O’Malley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
CHAPTER 4
THE WHANGANUI EXPERIENCE RESISTANCE
AND COLLABORATION ARE VALID FORMS
OF SURVIVAL
Che Wilson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
CHAPTER 5
PUKEHINAHINA (GATE PĀ)
Buddy Mikaere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95
CHAPTER 6
A NGĀTI AWA EXPERIENCE
Layne Harvey . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
CHAPTER 7
TE RIRI A TE KOOTI MAUMAHARA
Haare Williams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
CHAPTER 8
REMEMBRANCE, DENIAL AND THE
NEW ZEALAND WARS:
THE ROAD TO RĀ MAUMAHARA
Joanna Kidman and Vincent O’Malley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
CHAPTER 9
TE KAPEHU O TUMATAUENGA
WAY FINDING AS A MEANS OF
REMBERING THE PAST
Harawira Pearless . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
PROFILES OF THE CONTRIBUTORS
MALCOLM MULHOLLAND
Ngāti Kahungunu, Rangitaane.
Malcolm Mulholland has edited or co-edited seven publications that focus
on Māori development, has co-authored Marae: The Heart of Māori Culture
(Huia, 2015) and Māori Carving: The Art of Recording Māori History (Huia,
2015) and authored Beneath the Maori Moon: An Illustrated History of Māori
Rugby (Huia, 2009). Mulholland is currently a Senior Researcher at Te
Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi.
SIR HARAWIRA GARDINER

Ngāti Awa, Te Whānau-ā-Apanui, Te Whakatōhea, Ngāti Pikiao.
Sir Harawira (Wira) Gardiner has had a number of careers including
working in the army, in the public service, and as a writer. While Lieutenant
Colonel in the army he took up leadership and establishment roles in the
public service and was the founding director of the Waitangi Tribunal, the
first general manager of the Iwi Transition Agency and the founding Chief
Executive of Te Puni Kōkiri. In 2008 he was knighted for his services to
Māori.
KELVIN DAY
Kelvin Day is Manager of Puke Ariki, New Plymouth. He completed an
MA (Hons) in Anthropology at Auckland University in 1983. Since then
he has worked in several New Zealand museums and published a number
of articles on archaeological and museum collection related topics. He
has also written a book, Māori Wood Carving of the Taranaki Region (Raupo
Publishing, 2001) and edited a volume of essays, Contested Ground Te
Whenua I Tohea: The Taranaki Wars 1860-1881 (Huia, 2010).
VINCENT OMALLEY
Dr Vincent O’Malley is a professional historian and founding partner of
HistoryWorks, a Wellington consultancy specialising in Treaty of Waitangi
research. He has published widely on New Zealand history including The
Great War for New Zealand: Waikato 1800-2000 (Bridget Williams Books,
2016), completed in part during his 2014 tenure as J D Stout Fellow at
Victoria University of Wellington.
CHE WILSON
Ngāti Rangi, Te Atihaunui-a-Paparangi.
Che Wilson has held a number of roles involving the environment and
tribal leadership. These include being a member of the Māori Advisory
Board for Geological Nuclear Science, the Māori Heritage Council, Deputy
Chief Executive for the Ministry for the Environment and an Environmental
Court Commissioner. He has also been the Chief Negotiator for Ngāti
Rangi and was recently elected as the Co-President of the Māori Party.
BUDDY MIKAERE
Ngāti Pukenga, Ngāti Ranginui.
Buddy Mikaere is a historian and consultant. In 1990 Mikaere was
appointed Director of the Waitangi Tribunal and was responsible for the
research programmes that investigated raupatu claims, as well as overseeing
the amalgamation of claims. Mikaere is also a published author having
written Te Maiharoa and the Promised Land (Heinemann, 1988) and
Maori in Aotearoa New Zealand: Understanding the Culture, Protocols and
Customs (New Holland Publishers, 2013).
PROFILES OF THE CONTRIBUTORS CONTINUED
LAYNE HARVEY
Ngāti Awa, Rongowhakaata, Te Aitanga a Māhaki, Te Whānau a Apanui, Ngāti
Kahungunu
Judge Layne Harvey was appointed to the Māori Land Court in 2002.
Based in Rotorua, he is the resident Judge for both the Aotea and Tākitimu
Districts of the Māori Land Court. Judge Harvey has also been a trustee of
Māori land trusts, Iwi authorities and Māori reservations and has been a
member of the Council for Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi since 1997.
HAARE WILLIAMS
Ngāi Tuhoe, Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki.
Haare Williams is a veteran broadcaster, poet and artist. Raised at Karaka
between Ohiwa and Kutarere, Williams was raised by his grandparents and
exposed to the waiata of Te Kooti and Ringatū writings from a young age.
In 2018, Williams became a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for
his services to Māori, the arts and education.
JOANNA KIDMAN
Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Raukawa
Joanna Kidman works in the field of indigenous youth sociology at Victoria
University of Wellington where she is Kaihautū of Te Kura Māori in the
Faculty of Education. Her research centres on the politics of indigeneity
and settler-colonial nationhood. Over the past twenty years Joanna has
worked with Māori research partners and community-based tribal groups in
different parts of New Zealand.
HARAWIRA PEARLESS
Ngāti Tū-mata-uenga
The dissertation of Harawira Pearless, Moenga Toto Te Whenua, adopted
a series of eclectic way finding methods to geographically and physically
relocate a series of 28th Māori Battalion battle grounds and burial sites with
the intention of reopening previously unknown remembrance pathways. He
is currently writing the official history of the D Company of the 28th Māori
Battalion.
Malcolm Mulholland
INTRODUCTION
MALCOLM MULHOLLAND
This publication is based on a collection of presentations that were

delivered at a symposia held at Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi on
October the 18th and 19th 2017. The two-day event was the first of its
kind, bringing together historians who specialise in the conflicts of the
‘New Zealand Wars’. Over three hundred people attended, in person
and online, and the presentations were broadcast on Radio New Zealand.
Each presenter was asked to address two questions; “What has been done
in the past to commemorate the New Zealand Wars?” and “How should
we commemorate the New Zealand Wars today?” The common response
was deafening; historically Pākehā New Zealand commemorated (and in
some cases ‘celebrated’) previous battles with little or no Māori input while
Māori remembered the events of the 1860s in our own culturally unique
way such as the naming of wharenui or the composition of waiata and
haka. With regard to why we should commemorate the wars today, again
a shared response was found; that in order to appreciate the position of
Māori today, one has to have a deeper understanding of the conflict that
devastated Māori communities in the mid-19th century.
1 | INTRODUCTION TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND

In recent years there has been a debate about the place of the New Zealand Wars
and what efforts should be made to memorialise a series of events that forever
changed New Zealand. The genesis of the more recent discussion about the place
of the New Zealand Wars can be attributed to the presentation of a 12,000-strong
petition to Parliament by Waimarama Anderson, Leah Bell and other pupils of
Otorohanga College in December 2015. The aims of the petition were to “1. To
raise awareness of the Land Wars and how they relate to local history for schools
and communities 2. An introduction of these local histories into the New Zealand
Curriculum as a course of study for all New Zealanders 3. To memorialise those
who gave their lives on New Zealand soil with a statutory day of recognition.1”
The previous year, the same students visited the sites of Ōrākau and Rangiaowhia,
following the initiative of their teachers. The pupils were exposed to the histories
of those locales from local kuia and kaumātua and as petitioner and pupil, Leah
Campbell, would remark “…there were massacres [committed] only half an hour
from where you live, not that long ago.2”
The petition was heard by the Māori Affairs Select Committee.3 During the
hearing, the Government announced that a ‘Raa Maumahara National Day of
Commemoration’ would be held every year on October 28th (the anniversary of
the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1835) and that the inaugural
commemorative day would be held in Tai Tokerau in 2017 with the intention
of shifting the venue each year to highlight battles that took place around the
country.4 The Government also announced a fund of $4 million dollars to be
distributed over a period of four years, to help communities commemorate the New
Zealand Wars.5 The Māori Affairs Select Committee in their report congratulated
the Government for their support of the petition and supported the Crown-Iwi
partnership that would oversee the development of the recognition, teaching and
curriculum development associated with Raa Maumahara.6
The report also noted that it supported the notion of ‘Raa Maumahara’ as a day
of commemoration, after having sought the advice of Treasury that a public holiday
would cost somewhere in the vicinity of $220 and $280 million.7 Other alternatives
were explored including replacing a current public holiday or establishing regional
observation days. Of the suggestion to replace a public holiday 8 it was noted
by this author that of the eleven public holidays in New Zealand, only Waitangi
Day focuses upon the country’s bicultural past.9 An Act of Parliament to mark
Matariki as a public holiday was defeated in 2009 when it was introduced by the
TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND INTRODUCTION |2

then Māori Party Member of Parliament, Rahui Katene.10 Since 2009 the idea of
having Matariki as a public holiday has resurfaced with Wellington Mayor Justin
Lester publicly stating in 2018 that he would like to see the Māori New Year replace
the Queen’s Birthday as a public holiday.12 The Māori Affairs Select Committee
report concluded by noting that more needs to be done when teaching the New
Zealand Wars within the New Zealand curriculum.
The fund that was established by Government is administered by Te Puni Kokiri

and overseen by the Te Putake o Te Riri Advisory Panel.13 Chapter One is written by
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Harawira ‘Wira’ Gardiner who chairs the Panel and delivered
the opening address of the symposia. Gardiner provided a useful overview of why
war is commemorated including celebrating victories, remembering the sacrifices,
making a virtue from a military disaster, maintaining the continuity of history,
committing to the eternal memory a spectacular military feat, and not wanting to
repeat the mistakes of the past. As to how they are commemorated again a range
of options are presented such as monuments, national days of commemoration,
through literature and poetry and, in a uniquely Māori way, via hikoi to past battle
sites.
Gardiner himself noted some of the inherent problems in deciding upon a

solitary date to commemorate the New Zealand Wars. As Ngāti Awa commemorate
their tūpuna signing the Treaty of Waitangi at Whakatāne on the 16th of June at
Pohaturoa Rock every year, the Iwi commemorate the Battle of Te Kupenga at Te
Teko annually on October the 20th. Such difficulties can be avoided by allowing
Iwi to commemorate significant battles related to the New Zealand Wars on the
appropriate date. The concept of ‘regional observance days’ were explored by the
author in his report to the Māori Affairs Select Committee.
In the United States of America, the President has the ability to issue a declaration
of selected public observances, either as designated by Congress or by his/her
own discretion.14 These days are not public holidays but rather days that can
be observed with appropriate ceremonies and activities. Observance days are
typically created to honour or commemorate a social cause, an ethnic group, an
historic event, or an individual. There are over fifty such days and the following
table provides examples of American observance days.
3| INTRODUCTION TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND

SAMPLE OF AMERICAN OBSERVANCE DAYS
NAME OF
DATE PURPOSE
OBSERVANCE DAY
16th of January Religious Freedom Day Religious Freedom
Day commemorates
the Virginia General
Assembly’s adoption
of Thomas Jefferson’s
landmark Virginia Statute
for Religious Freedom on
January 16, 1786.
15th of February Susan B. Anthony Day Susan B. Anthony Day
celebrates the birthday
of Anthony, a women’s
suffrage leader.
2nd Thursday in D.A.R.E. Day Drug Abuse Resistance
April Education (D.A.R.E.) is an
international substance
abuse prevention
education programme
that seeks to prevent
use of controlled drugs,
membership in gangs, and
violent behaviour.
19th of May Malcolm X Day Malcolm X Day is held on
the birthday of the Civil
Rights Leader Malcolm X.
3rd Sunday in June Father’s Day A celebration that honours
fathers.
26th of August Women’s Equality Day Commemorates women
being given the right to
vote.
17th of September Constitution or Recognising the day
Citizenship Day the Declaration of
Independence was signed
in 1787.
1st Monday of Child Health Day The Day invites all agencies
October interested in child welfare
to unite to develop the
health of the children of
the United States.

Friday after Native American The Day pays tribute to
Thanksgiving Heritage Day the contribution made by
Native Americans.
In applying such a concept to the New Zealand calendar, there are some obvious
days that we currently ‘observe’ although they are not written into law. The table
below are days that we observe in New Zealand.
NEW ZEALAND OBSERVANCE DAYS
DATE DAY OBSERVED

14th of February Valentine’s Day
14th of May Mother’s Day
Early June Matariki
3rd of August Father’s Day
31st of October Halloween
5th of November Guy Fawkes Day
To borrow from the calendar of the United States of America, New Zealand
regional observance days could be days that are acknowledged but are not public
holidays, that are significant to a region and can be named by regional authorities
which, in turn, present themselves as opportunities for local communities to
organise local events and therefore commemorate dates of historical significance.
For example, Ngāti Awa may choose to commemorate the New Zealand Wars on
the anniversary of the Battle of Te Kupenga on October the 20th every year and the
date can become significant to the local community by it being named ‘Te Kupenga
Day’ for the Bay of Plenty. Potential dates to commemorate significant battles or
events connected to the New Zealand Wars are provided in the following table.
5| INTRODUCTION TE PŪTAKE O TE RIR: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND

POTENTIAL DATES TO REGIONALLY COMMEMORATE THE NEW
ZEALAND WARS
CONFLICT
DATE REGION
COMMEMORATED
11th January Ruapekapeka Northland
31st March Ōrākau Waikato
29th April Pukehinahina Tauranga
14th May Moutoa Whanganui
17th June Wairau Te Tau Ihu
18th June Opening of Great South Road Auckland
6th August Battle Hill Wellington
4th October Te Pōrere Taupō
12th October Ōmarunui Hawkes Bay
20th October Te Kupenga Bay of Plenty
5th November Parihaka Taranaki
3rd December Ngatapa East Coast
The application of observance days in New Zealand need not be limited to only
the New Zealand Wars. For example, at a national level the following observance
days could be acknowledged.

NEW ZEALAND OBSERVANCE DAYS
DATE DAY OBSERVED PURPOSE

29th of May Sir Edmund Hillary Day Celebrating the
anniversary of when
Edmund Hillary become
the first man to climb
Mt Everest, the highest
mountain the world.
Early June Matariki Celebrating the Māori
New Year.
3rd of July Apirana Ngata Day Acknowledging the
significant contribution
Apirana Ngata made
to Māori and New
Zealand society on
the anniversary of his
birthday.
10th of July Rainbow Warrior Day Acknowledging and
celebrating New
Zealand’s role in
being a world leader
in opposing nuclear
weapons and becoming
nuclear free.
14th of July Charles Upham Day In recognition of
Charles Upham who
was awarded his second
Victoria Cross following
an attack on El Ruweisat
Ridge.
30th of August Ernest Rutherford Day Celebrates the birthday
of Ernest Rutherford
and the contribution he
made to the world of
science by being the first
man to split the atom.
19th of September Suffragette Day The date the new
Electoral Act came into
law in 1893 that gave
women the right to vote,
the first self-governing
country in the world to
do so.

To extend the concept of observance days at a regional level, the following could
be applied, for example, to the Canterbury Province.
CANTERBURY OBSERVANCE DAYS
DATE NAME OF DAY PURPOSE

22nd of February Canterbury Earthquake Remembering the
Remembrance Day anniversary of the 2011
Canterbury Earthquake
when 185 people died.
24th of August Ngāi Tahu Day Commemorating the
anniversary of the Ngāi
Tahu Settlement that
was signed between
Ngāi Tahu and the New
Zealand Government in
1997.
21st of December Antarctica Day Recognising the
significance of
Christchurch as a
gateway to Antarctica.
The date commemorates
the Discovery leaving
Lyttelton Harbour under
Robert Falcon Scott in
1901.
Chapter Two is penned by Kelvin Day on the subject of the Taranaki Wars.
Day selected three battles that took place and their subsequent commemorations:
The Battle of Waireka, Te Ngutu o te Manu, and Parihaka. Commemorations that
took place at the turn of the twentieth century involved culturally-inappropriate
picnics with Pākehā veterans in attendance, with the occasions emphasising the
participation of British troops and their heroic efforts rather than the valiant
and intrepid moves made by Māori to protect their lands in the face of superior
technology and adversaries that outnumbered them significantly.
As stated by Day, the twenty or so memorials that were erected to acknowledge

the New Zealand Wars between 1907 and 1920 throughout the country were, as
argued by Chris McLean and Jock Phillips in “The Sorrow and Pride: New Zealand
War Memorials”,15 created by the jingoistic fervour that captured New Zealand at

the time following the first occasion New Zealand troops were sent to their first
overseas conflict with the Boer War. Although there was a need to establish a
sense of national identity, and perhaps an even greater need to develop a proud
history of military prowess, this should not be confused with the creation of the
identity of a “New Zealander”. While the New Zealand Native Association grew
in numbers during this time (the Association was interested in the development
of a “New Zealand” identity rather than one that was embedded as “British”),16 a
far greater number viewed themselves as what James Belich would label as being
a ‘recolonial collective’;17 that national identity was viewed by the majority as
being ‘subnationalist’ or ‘dominionist’, that New Zealand identity was a subset
of a wider British notion of identity. Interestingly this notion of national identity
would continue to exist within New Zealand society well into the 1960s.
In stark contrast to the earlier commemorations of the New Zealand Wars, Day
notes that the centenary commemorations of the invasion of Parihaka in 1981
were Māori-led with five thousand people in attendance. The commemoration of
Parihaka in 1981 reflected the slowly- changing attitude of a wider New Zealand
society towards Māori rights as a result of the Māori activism of the 1970s. Events
such as the Māori Land March (1975), the occupations of the Raglan Golf Course
(1975-1978) and Bastion Point (1977-1978) and the consciousness that was raised
as a result of protests organised by Ngā Tamatoa, all contributed towards a growing
awareness of injustices that had been committed against Māori.
By the time the site of Te Ngutu o te Manu was returned to Ngāruahine as part of
their 2015 settlement with the Crown, again many advancements had taken place
in New Zealand society concerning Māori rights; the Waitangi Tribunal process
had heard multiple historical grievances and the New Zealand Government had
made numerous settlements with Iwi across the country; te reo Māori had been
recognised as an official language of New Zealand and Māori Television had been
established, and the Māori economy was valued at $50 billion as of 2017.18
Chapter Three is authored by Dr Vincent O’Malley. O’Malley himself played

a pivotal role in advocating for more history to be taught in relation to the New
Zealand Wars as part of the New Zealand curriculum following the release of
his book on the Waikato Wars titled “The Great War for New Zealand: Waikato
1800-2000”.19 O’Malley compares the efforts made to commemorate the centenary
of World War I to that of the sesquicentenary commemorations of Rangiriri and
Ōrākau. For WWI the Government allocated $20 million dollars,20 the events

were well covered by mainstream media, and the proceedings were well attended
by a number of politicians. For the 150th anniversary of Rangiriri and Ōrākau,
the Government contributed little funding, there was minimal media coverage of
the event, and the only politician to attend was the Minister of Māori Development
and the Co-Leader of the Māori Party, Te Ururoa Flavell.
O’Malley’s account of how the Waikato Wars have been commemorated in the
past are similar to that of Day’s analysis of the remembrances of the battles that
took place in Taranaki. The commemorations from the turn of the twentieth
century to the 1960s was a Pākehā affair while Waikato Māori petitioned successive
Governments to have their grievances heard. During this time, the country and
majority of Pākehā portrayed New Zealand as having the best race relations in the
world. Publications such as the cartoon book ‘The Half-Gallon Jar’.21 penned by
‘Hori’ (a pseudonym for the Pākehā writer W. Norman McCallum) entertained
older Pākehā audiences with stereotypical stories regarding Māori, while younger
generations were being taught from the textbook ‘Our Country’s Story’ that stated
that New Zealand enjoys the world’s greatest race relations.22
During the 1970s, the narrative changed from the New Zealand Wars being a
‘noble’ affair to that of a land-grab as articulated by James Belich in his authoritative
work “The New Zealand Wars”23 that was published in 1986. Belich was not the
first Pākehā historian to advocate for a greater and more accurate awareness of the
New Zealand Wars. James Cowan, the author of the first comprehensive history
of the conflict in his two-volume series commissioned by the Government during
the 1920’s, did his best to advocate for the better protection of historic battle sites
despite a motorway dividing the Pā of Rangiriri in two during the 1960s.
Chapter Four is written by Che Wilson. Wilson’s contribution is titled “Resistance

and Collaboration are Both Valid Forms of Survival” as he recounts both sides of
his whakapapa, Kūpapa and Hauhau, who fought against each other at the Battles
of Moutoa Island and Ohautahi in 1864 and 1865. Despite the internal conflict
within Whanganui, Wilson reminds readers that the Crown were instrumental in
motivating the conflict on both occasions and that those who collaborated with the
Crown did so as a result of the what had taken place during what has been known
as the ‘Musket War’ period. During that time the lower river was open to attack,
whereas those upstream were able to protect their lands by climbing ladders and
throwing rocks at the enemy. From this experience, those from the lower parts of
the Whanganui River suffered heavy losses and so when conflict erupted during
TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND INTRODUCTION | 10

the 1860s due to the arsenic poisoning of those from the upper river who were
not prepared to sell their land, those from the lower river were concerned of the
pending clash that could inflict similar losses as they had endured during the 1810’s
and 1820’s as well as the threat of losing the numerous trading opportunities in
Whanganui with the settler population. The battles occurred despite those from
the upper river wanting to kill the settlers and not their relatives.
Te Keepa Te Rangihiwinui (Major Kemp) led the Kūpapa troops and Matene
Rangitauira led the Hauhau contingent. The two opposing rangatira had agreed
to meet at Moutoa Island by the small Whanganui River settlement of Rānana.
Wilson, who can trace his ancestry directly from both rangatira, recalled the battle
as the day the river ran red with blood and when cousins killed cousins. The event
was memorialised with a flag and a kaioraora, a derogatory chant. Following the
battles, peace accords were struck and remembered in a uniquely Māori fashion
with the naming of wharenui.
The trend of naming wharenui in the name of peace continued when Te Kooti
opened several wharepuni in the region within fifteen years of being hunted by
some of the people of Whanganui. In more recent years, kaumatua Mark Grey
handed back land near Waverley, as a gesture of peace and goodwill as the land
had initially been given to Whanganui as a result of their loyalty to the Crown.
Nowadays the history of internal conflict in Whanganui is taught on an annual
basis to those who attend the annual Te Tira Hoe Waka.
Buddy Mikaere in Chapter Five on Gate Pā, and supported by O’Malley in his
chapter, highlights that a significantly large number of troops were provided by
the British Empire to fight Māori during the New Zealand War. Gate Pā, otherwise
known as Pukehinahina, was the worst loss suffered by an imperial force during
that era. Apart from India, New Zealand accounted for the largest number of British
Troops stationed anywhere in the world. It is forgotten by many that during this
period New Zealand was very much the ‘naughty child of the Empire’ with George
Grey in his second term as Governor of New Zealand defying orders to have the
British troops depart New Zealand shores and for the colony to take responsibility
(and the cost) of fighting Māori. The situation deteriorated to the point where
Grey’s appointment was terminated in 1868.
The actions of Grey and the burgeoning cost of warfare in the far-flung corners
of the Empire harken the need to analyse the New Zealand Wars within the wider

context of Empire and global affairs during the 1860s. Of particular note other
major conflicts during this time included the ‘civil wars’ (it has been argued that
the same label could apply to the New Zealand Wars) of America (1861-1865)
and Japan (1863-1868). The American Civil War saw the deployment of gunboats
used to great effect, so much so that Governor Grey copied the same tactic to
overcome the forces of the Kingitanga during the Waikato War. In comparison
with the other two civil wars of the decade, the New Zealand Wars lasted longer
(most argue that the New Zealand Wars went from 1860 to 1872).
The sesquicentenary of the Battle of Gate Pā in 2014 was a major event for
Tauranga Moana and the community of Tauranga. It serves as an illustration of
what can be achieved for the benefit of the whole community when commemorating
a significant event of the New Zealand Wars. As is often the case with former Pā
sites, a motorway dissects the site. Yet Gate Pā was revamped, as best it could be,
in anticipation of the anniversary. Local businesses were contracted to carry out
the restoration that included increased accessibility and pou being erected. For
the day itself, one hundred Gate Pā flags were recreated, cannons, coehorns and
tupara (double-barrelled shotguns designed in Italy) were also on display. A one-
thousand strong haka was performed, along with items from the New Zealand Army
Band and a string quartet reciting songs from the era. Other activities associated
with the anniversary included art and poetry competitions.
The mantra of the organising committee was to include the local community
in all of the events associated with the sesquicentenary, an aim that contributed
significantly to the success of the day.
Chapter Six was written by Judge Layne Harvey regarding a perspective on

the history of the involvement of Ngāti Awa in the New Zealand Wars. He, as do
other contributors to this publication, place the conflict within the wider context
of what was happening in Māori society at the time, including battles preceding
the unfortunate conflict between Ngāti Awa and the Crown. Harvey’s retelling of
the history of Ngāti Awa since the New Zealand Wars is a poignant reminder of
how Iwi with grievances are reminded on a daily basis the injustices committed
against them by the British Crown and as such the regularity with which they
‘commemorate’ the New Zealand Wars.
The crossing of armed troops over the Mangatāwhiri Stream would lead to a
succession of shattering conflicts that resulted in a loss of life, land and resources.

Ōrākau, Gate Pā, Moutoa, Te Ranga, and the death of Carl Volkner, would all
become events synonymous with the New Zealand Wars. The next significant
incident was war in the Eastern Bay of Plenty in 1865. As Ngāti Awa descendant
and Government Agent, James Fulloon, was killed as a result of breaching an aukati,
the Government, with loyalist troops in toe, deployed five hundred soldiers and
arrested those responsible in a series of conflicts between the months of September
and October that resulted in the final stand at Te Kupenga on the 20th of October.
In January 1866 came the confiscation of 440,000 acres while thirty Ngāti Awa
prisoners were tried in Auckland; five were executed and three died from disease
contracted in prison. In a despicable act of adding insult after death, some of the
prisoners executed were buried standing up with lime poured over them to hasten
the decomposition process and their bodies were encased in concrete. The men
were not returned to their homelands until 1988.
Ngāti Awa continued to pursue redress from the Crown following the acts of
1865 and 1866 and the pursuit of justice, as was the case with other Iwi, would
become the way in which Ngāti Awa would commemorate their participation in
the New Zealand Wars.
First came the Compensation Court Hearings to determine who owned what
land and/or who was unjustly treated with the raupatu imposed upon Ngāti Awa.
In much the same way the disposal of the bodies of the Ngāti Awa men who were
executed by the Crown was to further insult the Iwi, the wharenui Mataatua and
Hotunui found themselves in museums and were altered in a way not envisaged
by their original designers. The Native Land Court documented the conflict of the
1860s, as did numerous petitions and the hearings of the Sim Commission of 1927.
As highlighted in previous chapters, a more sympathetic ear was developed by

the New Zealand Government between the 1980s and 2000s, an era that saw the
creation of the Ngāti Awa Trust Board that headed the Waitangi Tribunal claim
on behalf of the Iwi and that resulted in a settlement with the Crown in 2005.
Following the settlement with Ngāti Awa has come two grassroots initiatives to
further commemorate the New Zealand Wars for Ngāti Awa; Te Kupenga and Ngāti
Awa Te Toki. Both serve as reminders to the unique way Māori commemorate
past battles.
Chapter Seven penned by Haare Williams on Te Kooti provides a precis of the

major events of the prophet’s life. Williams also provides a valuable insight into

his own childhood experiences of his Ringatū upbringing whereby Te Kooti was
both revered, by the Māori community, and reviled by the Pākehā community.
Pākehā attitudes towards Te Kooti are often ill-informed by incorrect information
about the man from both Māori and Pākehā. This has motivated Williams to
not rely solely on historical written accounts, normally authored by Pākehā, and
he has used a number of expert informants on Te Kooti who he has interviewed
during his extensive broadcasting career. Sadly, for Te Kooti, he himself endured
a campaign of misinformation and propaganda that preyed on the worst fears of
settlers and that was distantly removed from the truth.
The place of religion is central to the beliefs and actions of Te Kooti. This is the
tragedy of the story of Te Kooti; that despite being held on unsubstantiated charges
and detained on an island six hundred and fifty kilometres from New Zealand at
the closest point, Te Kooti was not opposed to law or to the Government. And
although he was pursued through the central North Island by the Government for
the best part of five years, he declared peace with the Pākehā forever at his pardon
at Otewa in 1883. The lesson here is that arguably the most maligned Māori figure
of the New Zealand Wars was able to reconcile his feelings towards a people who
had hunted him in the hope of killing him.
Chapter Eight, co-authored by academics Joanna Kidman and Vince O’Malley,

takes a closer look at the reaction of the public following the submission of
the petition of the Otorohanga College students to have a national day of
commemoration for the New Zealand Wars and for the history to be included in
the secondary school curriculum. The overall thesis of the chapter is that within
Pākehā society there is a great unease at the unravelling of settler forms of national
identity since the 1970s, so much so that perhaps that ‘unravelling’ can now be
labelled as a ‘backlash’ against the resurgence of Māori rights over the decades since.
Overall, three quarters of submissions to the petition opposed the aims stipulated
in the document.24 In the main, those who opposed the petition believe that New
Zealand’s history has been re-written through the Treaty settlement process, label
those who advocate for Māori rights ‘activists’, ‘radicals’ and ‘troublemakers’,
and that changes in society that uphold Māori rights lead to widespread ‘unrest’.
They follow arguments promoted by ‘anti-treatyists’ who have found their voice
as a result of Don Brash’s infamous Orewa Speech in 2004. They believe in ‘One
Nation’, they are regularly confused between the ‘Musket Wars’ and the ‘New
Zealand Wars’, and they constantly reference Māori cannibalism as being a reason

why Māori should be grateful for being colonised. Hobson’s Pledge is one such
organisation that advocates such arguments. A 2011 survey highlights the tension
in race relations. Just over 50% agree that the Treaty of Waitangi is New Zealand’s
founding document, while 21% disagree and 24% consider themselves neutral in
responding to the question put.25
Chapter Nine is written by Harawira Pearless. Pearless has developed a unique

Māori tool that helps descendants commemorate past battles their tūpuna were
involved in. Despite the focus of Pearless’ research being the 28th Māori Battalion’s
conflicts during World War II, his wayfinding instrument has potential benefits
when looking to develop devices that could assist descendants of those who
participated in the New Zealand Wars. Named ‘Te Kupehu o Tū-mata-uenga’, the
instrument created by Pearless is a navigational tool that observes significant battle
grounds, the Roll of Honour, Gallantry, and Mentions in Dispatches involving the
28th Māori Battalion. The wayfinding instrument utilises Māori iconography to
assist the user such as ‘nihoniho tuhua’, ‘haehae’ and ‘koi’. The overall objective
of the exercise when using the instrument is to connect the present to those who
have passed on in a uniquely Māori way. Pearless’ instrument is yet another way
in which Māori uniquely commemorate past conflicts. Throughout the publication
are numerous examples of wharenui, haka, hikoi and taonga that commemorate
the New Zealand Wars. The Māori way of remembering is different to that of our
Treaty partners and this needs to be considered when contemplating future ways
of commemorating a war that continues to define the country into the future.
There is one final observation that can be made once reviewing all of the chapters
contained in this publication. All contributors stress that more needs to be done to
educate the public concerning the New Zealand Wars and one such measure that
could go some way to addressing this is the implementation of observance days.
While this publication does not focus on options to educate the public regarding
the New Zealand Wars, the author presented the following option to the Māori
Affairs Select Committee in his briefing paper: 26
“That a working group be assembled to ascertain the importance placed on New

Zealand and Maori history within New Zealand schools and the New Zealand
Curriculum, to develop a minimum standard of knowledge of New Zealand and
Māori history for Levels 1-13 and to investigate options to best implement the
standards through either the development of national standards for the social
sciences or the introduction of explicit achievement objectives within the New

Zealand Curriculum, to assess the uptake of Te Takanga o Te Wā and to identify
potential barriers and solutions to overcome them and any needs that either the
schools or teachers have in relation to the teaching guidelines, and to oversee the
implementation of the recommendations made by the Ministry of Education within
their respective submission.”27
Underlying the desire to better educate the public, and perhaps more importantly
future generations about the New Zealand Wars, is the need to appreciate that
the events that took place in the 1860s in New Zealand have defined our identity
and who we are as a nation since and into the future. Most contributors to this
publication lament the dearth of accurate information within the New Zealand
curriculum regarding the New Zealand Wars when they were at school, a trend
that seems destined to continue unless a minimum standard of New Zealand
historical knowledge is defined and required by the Ministry of Education. Again,
as several contributors have written, their interaction with the history of the New
Zealand Wars through the New Zealand education system has been little or none
and what was taught has tended to place the Government forces as heroes pitted
against Māori savages.
The majority of contributors to this publication urge each New Zealand resident
to gain a better understanding of the New Zealand Wars. They do so, so that all

citizens understand better the plight of Māori today. The New Zealand Wars
resulted in the loss of power, land and resources, all of which where guaranteed
under the Treaty of Waitangi that was signed twenty years earlier. This loss is
what New Zealand society is confronted with today; Māori dominating negative
socio-economic statistics such as high imprisonment rates, poor health outcomes,
lower educational qualifications, and lesser high-paying employment opportunities.
These outcomes do not simply occur within a vacuum; they exist as a result of
inter-generational poverty that can be traced back to, for many Māori, to the New
Zealand Wars.
Hopefully this book goes some way to addressing the lack of information and
knowledge about an event that would forever transform New Zealand.

ENDNOTES
1
https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/sc/make-a-submission/
document/0SCMA_SCF_51DBHOH_PET68056_1/petition-of-
waimarama-anderson-and-leah-bell
2
Libby Wilson and Rachel Thomas, ‘College students petition for a national
holiday to recognise Land Wars’, http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/
politics/72303304/College-students-petition-for-a-national-holiday-
to-recognise-Land-Wars (accessed 25 October 2016).
3
It should be noted that the author was appointed as a “Specialist Advisor” to
the Maori Affairs Select Committee hearing the petition.
4
https://mch.govt.nz/date-set-commemorate-land-wars
5
Ibid.
6
Report of the Maori Affairs Select Committee of Petition 2014/37 of
Waimarama Anderson and Leah Bell.
7
Ibid, p.8.
8
The most popular suggestion to replace an existing public holiday is that of
the Queen’s Birthday that is held on the first Monday of every June
despite her actual birthday falling on April the 21st.
9
Nine of the country’s public holidays are inherited from the British Empire
and Labour Day was become a public holiday as New Zealand
was the first country in the world to accept an eight-hour working
day. Another suggestion has been to have the New Zealand Wars
commemorated as part of the Anzac Day commemorations. The
wording of the Anzac Day Act 1966 is such that it is highly dubious it
could be extended to account for those who fought during the New
Zealand Wars.
10
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_
id=1&objectid=10592009
11
New Zealand is one of five remaining Commonwealth countries to
commemorate the Queen’s Birthday. The others are Australia, Papua
New Guinea, Tuvalu and the Solomon Islands.
12
http://www.maoritelevision.com/news/national/call-make-matariki-public-
holiday

13
https://www.tpk.govt.nz/en/whakamahia/te-putake-o-te-riri-wars-and-
conflicts-in-new-zeal
14
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/36
15
Chris McLean and Jock Phillips, The Pride and the Sorrow: New Zealand War
Memorials, (Wellington: GP Books, 1990).
16
For more information regarding the ‘New Zealand Natives Association’
please see: Keith Sinclair, A Destiny Apart: New Zealand’s Search for
National Identity (Wellington: Allen & Unwin, 1986), pp.31-46.
17
James Belich, Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders – From the
1880s to the Year 2000, (Auckland: Allen Lane and The Penguin
Press, 2001), p.29.
18
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/94141344/the-50-billion-maori-economy-
poised-for-growth-diversification
19
Vincent O’Malley, The Great War for New Zealand: Waikato 1800-2000,
(Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2016).
20
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/last-post-first-light/67781872/govt-spends-
20m-on-wwi-arts-and-culture
21
Hori, The Half-Gallon Jar, Cartoons by Frank St Bruno, N.D.
22
As referenced by Joanna Kidman and Vincent O’Malley in Chapter Eight,
K.C. McDonald, Our Country’s Story: An Illustrated History of New
Zealand (Christchurch: Whitcombe and Tombs, 1963), 148.
23
James Belich, The New Zealand Wars
24
152 submissions were received; 71% were opposed, 26% were in support,
and three did not state a position. It should be noted that many
who wrote in support did so as a collective. Please see: Petition
2014/37 of Waimarama Anderson and Leah Bell Māori Affairs Select
Committee Briefing Paper, Malcolm Mulholland.
25
As referenced in Joanna Kidman and Vince O’Malley, Chapter Eight:
Remembrance, Denial and the New Zealand Wars – The Road to
Rā Maumahara, UMR Research, Treaty of Waitangi UMR Omnibus
Results (Wellington: UMR Research, 2011), 7.
26
Petition 2014/37 of Waimarama Anderson and Leah Bell Māori Affairs
Select Committee Briefing Paper, Malcolm Mulholland.
27
Ibid.

Sir Harawira Gardiner
CHAPTER 1
WAR AND CONFLICT

SIR HARAWIRA GARDINER
The three issues I want to raise are personal reflections. I want to address
the issue of why we commemorate war, of how we commemorate war,
and then discuss the issue of the New Zealand Wars. The reason I want
to contextualise the issues of war and conflict, and why we remember
and how we remember war, is because war is an extraordinarily complex
issue. It is hugely divisive and is potentially destructive. It disrupts entire
societies which implies we have to address these issues within a much
broader scope.
Let me begin with the recent commemoration of the centenary

of Passchendaele which was commemorated on the 12th of October
2017. It was the worst day in New Zealand’s military history with about
nine hundred New Zealanders being killed or seriously wounded. The
centennial commemorations of Passchendaele signalled the transition of
our society regarding the role of Māori in war and about the role of Māori
in the fabric of our society. During the commemoration ceremonies we
observed Māori and Pākehā soldiers together performing haka.
The incorporation of tikanga and māramatanga Māori within the defence

forces of our country is a recent initiative. Following the tangihanga in 1998
of Sir Charles Bennett, the New Zealand Defence Force took a practical and
far-reaching measure. They inserted a taiaha into their symbol to show the
relationship of Māori and Pākehā soldiers and to particularly acknowledge
Sir Charles Bennett for the leadership that he played as a Commander
of the 28th Māori Battalion, his position as a High Commissioner, and
21 | CHAPTER 1 TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND

Figure 1. New Zealand troops in the trenches, World War I.
the many other roles he held in society. In this respect, the defence forces are
well ahead of the rest of society. For example, whenever a haka is done the entire
assembly of soldiers are capable of participating. When I was a solider in Malaya
and Vietnam we very seldom had karakia or a haka and to a certain extent Māori
soldiers merged into the mainstream of soldiering. Nowadays, especially in the
younger generations, we see a greater acceptance of tikanga and āhuatanga Māori.
I think that is something that will be reflected upon as we address the issue of
where the New Zealand Wars fit within our history, within our society, and in the
future, how we might deal with that conflict.
Why do we commemorate wars? The first reason is that the victors of conflicts
have a wish to commemorate and celebrate their victory. Perhaps the most
significant battle of the Second World War which paved the way for the landings
in Normandy was the battle for Stalingrad which occurred between June of 1942
and February of 1943. The 75th anniversary of this conflict will be commemorated
TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND CHAPTER 1 | 22

Figure 2. An intercessional service commemorating the fourth anniversary of World War I,
Etaples, France.
by Russia in 2018. It was fought around the City of Stalingrad and nearly two million
soldiers and civilians were killed. If the Battle of Stalingrad had not taken place,
it would have made it much more difficult for the D-Day landings on Normandy.
German reinforcements for the battle included units drawn from the forces facing
the English Channel. The Germans who were killed the Russian Front diminished
the capacity of the German Army to withstand and hold off against the allies in
France, in Italy, and in other places. The Russians see this as the Battle of World
War Two and I agree with them. The second reason we commemorate war is to
remember the sacrifices. In May 2017 I was standing at Sfakia in Crete and a group
of young men and women from Te Whānau ā Apanui and Ngāti Porou performed
a haka in front of the cenotaph to remember their Māori Battalion tūpuna who
were killed in Crete. Through commemorations we remember the brutal fact that
war is about people dying.
The third reason we commemorate war is that we may need to make a virtue
out of military disaster. Politicians, by and large, do not want to admit that due to

war they committed thousands of their troops to death. The Gallipoli Campaign
was a disaster; about 100,0000 Turkish soldiers were killed and about 30,000
to 40,000 Allied Troops including Australians, New Zealanders, British and the
French, were killed as well. The ANZAC tradition and legend was created out
of the military disaster that was Gallipoli. Politicians pointed to the how in the
crucible of war we found ourselves as two young nations ready to cut the apron
strings from the British Empire.
The fourth reason is that commemorations go to the heart of the continuity of

the history of a nation. We remind ourselves, through the symbols of war and
commemorations the deeds of our ancestors. In 2017 I met with King Tūheitia
and two Australian Defence Force personnel who sought permission to take a
kilo of soil from the battlefield of Ōrākau. The Australian Defence Force have a
memorial in New South Wales and part of the focus of the memorial is to have
samples of soil from every battlefield Australians have fought on. In 1866 and 1867,
the Second and Fourth Waikato Regiments that fought in the New Zealand Wars
were formed mainly from men who came from New South Wales and from wider
Australia. That project enables the continuity of history and tradition because in
the memorial there will be earth from the battlefields of New Zealand.
The fifth reason we commemorate war is to enshrine the eternal memory of

some spectacular military feat. In 480 BC Leonidas the Spartan and 7,000 Greeks
defended at Thermopylae, a gap between the hills and the sea. He was faced with
upwards of 300,000 Persians under the command of King Xerxes. This narrow
pass was blocked and the Persians could not get through. They lost thousands
on the first three days and then a Greek traitor showed the Persians a backtrack
around the hills which enabled them to cut off the Greek forces. When Leonidas
found out, he sent the bulk of his force back to Athens and kept with him 300
Spartans. They defended that pass until they were all killed. That event of more
than two and a half thousand years ago has enshrined in the minds of the Greeks
the heroism and courage that the Spartans were known for. It also signalled the
rise of the Greek nation that lead to the development of literature, poetry, law, and
the founding of the political philosophy that we now know as democracy today.
That came out of this event at Thermopylae in 480 BC.
Finally, we commemorate wars to remind ourselves never to repeat the same

mistakes. We went to war in 1939 to defeat Hitler and Nazi Germany. The Holocaust

demonstrated the horrors that Nazi Germany committed against the Jewish
population. For the Jews particularly, it is indelibly etched in their memories.
They will never forget it and no civilised society will ever forget it. Germans ought
never to forget what happened in WWII. In the period 1939-1945 tens of millions
died as a consequence of war.
How do we commemorate war? There are a number of ways we do that. First

of all, the victors generally build big monuments. Ironically these memorials are
set in scenes of serenity and peace which is the exact opposite to the trauma,
disruption, and the massively destructive force of war where millions of people
have died. Many soldiers are killed in action and their graves are never found.
So, in part, memorials are a way to remember them. Many of the New Zealanders
who died in Crete were never identified and relocated to the Souda Bay Cemetery.
In the Phaleron Cemetery in Athens, there is a long list of names of all the
soldiers that were killed. We have to find a way in society to remember them.
People who lose wars generally do not build large monuments. After the First
World War, the Allies, as the victors, erected massive monuments. When Hitler
rose to power he changed the nature of remembering the First World War. As
part of the resurrection of the German people, Hitler built monuments so the
German people could remember the sacrifices of World War One. In this repect
the memory of the humiliation and defeat in WWI was a political weapon used
to rally the Germans to rise once more.
When I was a child we used to wait at Pohaturoa Rock, Whakatāne, for the bus
to take us back to Te Teko. I had never looked at the names on the front of the
bus shelter which listed the Māori soldiers who gave their lives in World War One.
There is a gate at Whakarewarewa that memorialises the names of Wahiao and
Tūhourangi soldiers who died in World War One and added to that are the names
of the soldiers who had died in World War Two. These local monuments speak
directly to the sacrifices of locals who left home to fight in far distant countries.
New Zealand has two national days in which we remember war. The first is
ANZAC Day on April 25th and Remembrance Day on the 11th of November which
signifies the 11th minute of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month of
1918 - the end of World War One. There has been a debate about adding a third day

to commemorate the New Zealand Wars. That is a debate that is still in progress.
There is also an open question about whether we should have a specific day to
remember the New Zealand Wars. Some events are very localised and impact only
on those from a small geographical area. When we commemorate the conflict of Te
Kupenga at Te Teko on October the 20th each year, it is an event germane to those
Ngāti Awa from our area. In Whakatāne we commemorate the signing of the Treaty
of Waitangi on the 16th of June because that is when our tipuna signed the Treaty.
Literature and poetry are another means by which war is memorialised. Dr

Vincent O’Malley has written ‘The Great War for New Zealand’ on the Waikato
Wars, Dr Mounty Soutar has written ‘Nga Tama Toa’ regarding C Company. My
book ‘Ake, Ake, Kia Kaha’ regarding B Company will be published in 2018. For
each generation there is a revision of history that comes about because of new
evidence. It also comes about because of the changing attitudes of our population.
A group of historians have significantly redefined the way in which New

Zealanders now see the wars of the 19th century. Michael King, Jamie Belich, Anne
Salmond, and more recent authors like Vincent O’Malley and Monty Soutar, are all
revising history on the basis of new attitudes, new thinking, and new evidence. This
is another way we are able to enshrine our participation in war in a tangible way.
Another way that Māori commemorate war is through hikoi or travelling in the
footsteps of those tūpuna who fought in wars. In 1972 a group of veterans from
the 28th Māori Battalion were invited to Germany by the German Afrika Corps.
The Afrika Corps fought against the New Zealand Division in North Africa. Soldiers
fight wars and are deployed to wars by politicians. They do not necessarily hate
the enemy but if you do not fight them or shoot them first, they are likely to shoot
you! The German Afrika Corps had an abiding respect for the New Zealand
Division and a particular respect for the 28th Māori Battalion. The Germans knew
that whenever the New Zealand Division was opposite their lines that they could
expect a night attack. Very few, if any of the British or Allied Troops, attacked at
night but the New Zealanders did. As soon as an operation was underway at night
and if the Germans did not know who it was they would say “Those are the New
Zealanders coming at us.”
In 1976 and 1977 about six hundred veterans, families and friends, undertook
an ambitious hikoi across the world. It was quite a remarkable feat because people
had to raise money, had to get leave from work, and had to prepare themselves

to go on this hikoi. Many veterans were still alive and for them returning to the
battlefields was an emotional time, as well as for their families. To go with their
tūpuna to the wars they fought and to hear about the battles and experiences for
the very first time was an experience none of the would forget. When veterans
of the 28th Maori Battalion returned home they would only talk about the war at
the pub with their mates. If you were lucky enough to be at the RSA and crept up
behind a group of 28th Māori Battalion veterans, you might hear what they were
talking about but otherwise they did not tell you.
When I studied my Master’s Degree in London I knew more about Prince Charles,
the Cavaliers, the Roundheads and Cromwell. My three children always told me
the thing they most regretted when living in England was travelling with me to
go and see a battlefield. I would stand at the bottom of the road and would point
out where the Cavaliers were and how many charges there were.
I knew more about British history than I knew about the New Zealand Wars.
The question is how do we address the dearth of knowledge about what happened
at home? Colonial Governments had no interest in highlighting the fact that they
had actually gone to war to deprive Māori of their land. In recent times New
Zealanders have been ignorant of the wars that happened in our own country
and did not want to know about it. Yet in 1866-1867, ten imperial regiments were
sent to New Zealand and during the 1860s the largest engaged number of imperial
troops were based here in New Zealand; not in India, not in Afghanistan, not in
the many other hotspots of the world but here in Aotearoa. That is why I do not
understand why we do not address our own history.
Of recent times, the Treaty settlement process, the growth of economic power of
Iwi entities and their assertiveness indicate a shifting willingness of Goverments
to take heed of Māori aspirations when in previous generations they might have
ignored them. The successful conduct by Iwi of their own national commemorations
like Te Ranga and Ōrākau and the pressure brought to bear for Government to
recognise and give effect to our shared history has finally borne fruit.
The Honourable Te Ururoa Flavell, the Minister of Maori Development in the

National Coalition Government (2014-2017) negotiated to start formally recognising
that we had to commemorate the New Zealand Wars. Interestingly consultation
between the Government and Iwi leaders indicated that the day that we should
commemorate the New Zealand Wars was to be the 28th of October because that

is the day the Declaration of Independence of 1835 was signed. There is an open
question on that as to why would we in Ngāti Awa would want to commemorate
the battle of Te Kupenga on some day other than the 26 October?
The Government has provided four million dollars to begin the process of
commemorating the New Zealand Wars with a million dollars each year for four
years. The fund is to be divided into half a million dollars for a national event
and the balance of the fund is to be made available for regional commemoration
events. Te Puni Kōkiri is the agency responsible for administering the fund. I am
the Chairman of the Te Pūtake o te Riri/Wars and Conflicts in New Zealand Fund
that distributes the money. The Committee consists of two Iwi representatives,
Pita Tipene and Kawhia Te Muraahi, and the two Crown representatives, Michelle
Hippolitte the CEO of Te Puni Kokiri, and Paul James who is the CEO of the
Ministry of Culture and Heritage.
We want to fund commemorative events that bring communities closer together

and for them to understand what the New Zealand Wars were about. Our first action
was to look at the name ‘Raa Maumahara’/’Remembrance Day’. We thought it was
too general and so we came up with ‘Te Pūtake o te Riri’ which in a sense is the
basis of anger which includes both war and conflict. In doing so we acknowledged
that not all conflict ends up in war. If you are a community with a historical conflict
between your community and the Crown, you are entitled to come to our fund
and seek some resources to help you explain that to your broader community. I
know that many of the commemorative events of the New Zealand Wars have been
held informally, all funded and sponsored by Iwi and Hapū across the country
over the past few years. This is the first time where the Crown has consciously
acknowledged that it has a role to play.
The New Zealand Government spends tens of millions of dollars commemorating

World War One. I have a real concern about World War Two battles. One of
the famous battles of Crete was at 42nd Street where the Māori Battalion led a
bayonet charge that almost destroyed the leading elements of the 141st Mountain
Regiment. They had been fighting for seven days; they were exhausted, they had
no food, they had no water and they had little ammunition. The Germans were
pursuing the New Zealanders and a small group of Australians. The Germans were
aggressive, they were fit, and they were highly trained. They advanced towards the
New Zealanders and Australians. Shots were fired and the Māori Battalion stood
up, performed a haka and charged. The rest of the New Zealanders stood up,

the Australians rose, and they all charged and pretty much destroyed the leading
elements of the 141st Mountain Regiment.
If you go to 42nd Street now you will see a memorial to the 42nd Street Battle
that was built and sponsored by the Australians. If we do not claim the battlefields
that are ours, someone else will take them away. There are certain battles in places
such as Meleme Airfield, 42nd Street, Tabaga Gap, Orsogna, and Monte Cassino,
where New Zealanders played a major role. These are places and where New
Zealanders carved out an epic reputation for soldiering, for courage and bravery.
If we can make that huge investment in World War One, we can make a significant
investment in World War Two.
Finally, in addition to funding an education programme through our fund, I

see no reason why this should not be expanded and New Zealand battle sites
be recognised through the development of information kiosks and description
boards like they have in other countries. It is about educating ourselves about
ourselves. We need to use this opportunity as a thin end of the wedge to drive
through opportunities to make sure that our collective history belongs to all of us
in New Zealand and is properly acknowledged and accredited.
FIGURES
Fig. 1. New Zealand troops in the trenches, World War I. Royal New Zealand
Returned and Services’ Association :New Zealand official negatives,
World War 1914-1918. Ref: 1/4-009460-G. Alexander Turnbull
Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/22637569
Fig. 2. An intercessional service commemorating the fourth anniversary

of World War I, Etaples, France. Royal New Zealand Returned
and Services’ Association :New Zealand official negatives, World
War 1914-1918. Ref: 1/2-013757-G. Alexander Turnbull Library,
Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23103595

Kelvin Day
CHAPTER 2
WHAKAMAUMAHARA ME TE
WAREWARE: REMEMBERING AND
FORGETTING THE TARANAKI WAR
KELVIN DAY
The New Zealand Wars have been commemorated in a number of ways

over the past 150 or so years. For Pākehā these have ranged from simple
family occasions where medals and photographs of their forebears are
discussed, through to formal expressions of remembrance. These include
books or articles, flags and hatchments hung in churches, memorials,
artworks, signposted battle sites or trails (many of which are now available
online), or the marking of significant battle anniversaries. This chapter
focuses on three battles from the Taranaki War and by tracking the
changing nature and focus of their commemoration gives some telling
insights into societal attitudes of the times. The three discussed are the
Battle of Waireka in the First Taranaki War (1860-61), Te Ngutu o te
Manu during the South Taranaki War (1868-69), and the invasion of
Parihaka (1881).
INTRODUCTION
On the 31st of March 1841, the first shipload of Plymouth Company

settlers arrived at their new home of New Plymouth on the Taranaki
Coast. Drawn from Cornwall and Devon, these settlers were promised
a new beginning and land to farm. However, it was not long before the
Company’s land purchases were being challenged by several Te Ātiawa
hapū. Some hapū members were willing to sell land while others were
not. The so-called Puketapu Feud1 in the early 1850s was just such an
example which saw one part of Puketapu offering land and another
opposed, resulting in deaths on both sides. Concerned Pākehā settlers

persuaded Governor Thomas Gore Browne to station troops in New Plymouth in
1855 to provide settler protection. Further unrest between Iwi and hapū was to
continue intermittingly for the next five years in North Taranaki. It was the offer
of the Pekapeka Block on the left bank of the Waitara River by Te Teira Mānuka
in 1859 to Governor Thomas Gore Browne, against the wishes of paramount Te
Ātiawa chief Wiremu Kīngi Te Rangitaake, that brought things to a head. Colonel
Charles Gold established Camp Waitara Redoubt on part of the disputed land
while Kīngi prepared his own fortifications, the second of which was Te Kohia
Pā, which was ingeniously designed to withstand British artillery bombardment.
BATTLE OF WAIREKA
Following the bombardment of Wiremu Kīngi Te Rangitaake’s Te Kohia Pā

at Waitara on the 17th of March 1860, members of Taranaki Iwi and those to
the south moved to construct a Pā at Ōmata on the southern outskirts of New
Plymouth as a show of support for Te Ātiawa. Known as Kaipopo, the Pā was
quickly constructed on a high ridge using materials found close at hand - fence
posts, wire and weatherboards off a nearby settler house. Following the killing of
five settlers2 at Ōmata, there were increasing fears that New Plymouth was under
threat. In response to this fear a military force was sent out to the Ōmata district
on the 28th of March to bring the remaining settlers back into New Plymouth.
Approximately 120 troops along with some 100 local volunteers and militia under
Lieutenant-Colonel George Murray proceeded out to the district. Having spotted
settlers marching along the beach, Māori left Kaipopo and moved to the Waireka-
nui Stream below.
Following several hours of firing, ammunition on both sides was low. Murray
then made a call which resulted in him receiving severe criticism, which was,
according to orders he had been given, to march his men back to New Plymouth
about 5.30pm. Returning to New Plymouth they were passed by Captain Cracroft
of the HMS Niger with 60 of his men on the way out to the battle. It was then left
to Cracroft’s men to storm Kaipopo, resulting in a number of Māori being killed,
including three prominent chiefs.3 Cracroft’s men did not contact the marooned
settlers or militia before returning to New Plymouth but Māori, hearing the action
at Kaipopo pā, abandoned their positions by the stream which allowed the militia
and settlers to safely return to New Plymouth.
TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI | WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND CHAPTER 2 | 32

Much has been written about this engagement and it is still being dissected and
debated today. But what I want to focus on is how this battle was subsequently
commemorated, especially as this is the only battle from all the engagements of
the First Taranaki War to be commemorated specifically. Hailed at the time as
a heroic victory by the settler militia their ‘brave’ deeds became well and truly
mythologised in Taranaki. For many years following the wars, it seems that no
formal commemoration occurred, probably because Pākehā thought their job was
done and everyone just needed to move on. It would appear that the first attempt
to formally assemble the veterans from the Battle of Waireka was as part of the 50th
anniversary of the arrival of Plymouth Company settlers to New Plymouth in 1891.
The organising committee decided that the “… survivors of the battle of Waireka
will be invited to form part of the procession and march with their colours.” They
paraded and their names were published in the local press.
The ‘first’ official celebration of the anniversary of the Battle of Waireka was
held on the 29th of March 1897. This was a dinner with veterans and invited
guests “after which several speeches were made and reminiscences given.”5 Over
the following two years nothing further occurred. However, the 40th anniversary
was marked with a veteran’s picnic on the ‘scene of the action’ on 29 March 1900.
New Plymouth businesses were invited to close for the afternoon so that as many
as possible could attend. From the press report it is unclear how many of the
public attended but at least forty-one veterans were present [Fig. 1].
On the 42nd anniversary, the Taranaki Herald6 printed a supplement history

of the Battle of Waireka. The next commemoration was the 50th anniversary
which, as would be expected from the previous commemorations, took on a
festive flavour with colours of the Taranaki Rifles flying, band music and local
citizenry acknowledging the Waireka ‘heroes’ as they marched. Fifty-two veterans
assembled on the morning of the 28th of March 1910 in central New Plymouth
where they were photographed and then marched to nearby St Mary’s Church
where a service was held. After lunch the veterans visited the local rifle range
where “the old soldiers indulged in the shooting with a vim.”7 In the evening a
dinner was held. Little occurred in the way of formal commemorations over the
next decade but the 60th anniversary was also marked with a church service at St
Mary’s. Attended by about 30 veterans, the St Mary’s Troop of Boy Scouts formed

a guard of honour. Archdeacon Evans, Vice-President of the Veteran’s Association,
gave an outline of the Battle of Waireka to those assembled.8 It appears that the
75th anniversary was not marked in 1935.
Figure 1. Group of Battle of Waireka veterans assembled for a group photograph, possibly
taken in 1900, in the vicinity of where the battle was fought.
By the time of the centennial in 1960, the New Plymouth Historical Society and
Taranaki Regional Committee of the National Historic Places Trust took the lead
and organised commemorations. In the days leading up to the event accounts
of the Battle of Waireka were published in the local press. On the actual day an
estimated six hundred people were present, including some members of the Māori
community who had been noticeably absent from previous events, along with
military personnel and civic leaders. Interestingly the proceedings were carried
out not on Kaipopo Pā but on the nearby Waireka Redoubt, a Pākehā military site
constructed several months after the Battle of Waireka.

This time a more bicultural approach was taken. Proceedings began with a
traditional wero followed by a welcome from kaumātua George Koea. [Fig. 2] One
of the church leaders, the Rev Mangatītoki Cameron, gave a particularly perceptive
address which was published in full in the two Taranaki regional newspapers as
well as the commemorative programme. Cameron said “racial relations in New
Zealand were not always as they were now, and therefore could deteriorate again.”9
He continued:
Figure 2. Kaumātua George Koea, representing the Māori people, welcoming visitors on
the occasion of the centennial of the Battle of Waireka, 28 March 1960.
“Because we are today one nation let us not be too self-satisfied, much less self-
righteous. Do not misconstrue these words. We are none of us blameless. We
had our intertribal wars. What you called the Maori wars ought to be renamed
the pakeha wars (not British wars). By the same token what you term ‘rebels’
are our heroes; the ‘murders’, reprisal killing; the ‘victory’ our loss.”10 Cameron’s
words were warmly embraced as part of the centennial and were again quoted at
the Te Ngutu o te Manu centennial commemorations in 1968. Both the 125th
and 150th anniversaries passed without acknowledgement although Waireka did
feature in the 150th Taranaki Wars anniversary exhibition held in 2010 at Puke
Ariki in New Plymouth.11

TE NGUTU O TE MANU
I now turn to Te Ngutu o te Manu, the forest stronghold of the great Ngāruahine
warrior and strategist Riwha Tītokowaru, situated in South Taranaki. Tītokowaru
was involved in a number of engagements in the Second Taranaki War, perhaps
most notably at Sentry Hill on the 30th of April 1864 in North Taranaki where
he lost the sight in one eye. During 1867, he led a series of five peace marches
which along with other initiatives, was an attempt to prevent further bloodshed
and work towards a peaceful outcome. However, these proved unsuccessful
largely due to continued creeping land confiscation and he returned to his South
Taranaki stronghold. After luring the colonist army into Te Ngutu o te Manu on
the 7th of September 1868, he and his warriors inflicted maximum impact when
Gustavus Ferdinand von Tempsky was among the twenty killed. Von Tempsky’s
reputation had seen him assume the status of a living legend and his death had a
huge psychological impact on his men and many others throughout New Zealand.
In the course of surveying the Waimate Plains in the early 1880s, Te Ngutu o te
Manu Reserve was set aside. In February 1884 a Domain Board, comprising of
Pākehā settlers, several of whom had actually been present at the final battle,12 were
charged with administering the fifty-acre (twenty hectares) reserve around “the
disastrous spot ... where Von Tempsky fell in 1868.”13 The plan was for ten acres
(four hectares) to be fenced off and “treated in every respect as a cemetery.”14 The
site was obviously seen as valuable and with special significance, but for whom?
Records of the early discussions of the Board show that the significance was not
about it being the strategic stronghold of a Māori military genius and his warriors,
rather it was the place where the seemingly invincible von Tempsky and others
were killed. The concrete monument that sits on Te Ngutu o te Manu today was
unveiled in April 1886 and is the earliest Taranaki Wars memorial in Taranaki.
Also part of the domain at this time was a somewhat less grand monument,
a cross consisting of “two pieces of fern tree nailed together”15 that was said to
mark the spot where von Tempsky was killed.16 The surveyor, Edwin Brookes,
recorded that he and his men were told of the spot von Tempsky fell by Katene,
one of the warriors present, and that they marked it with a ponga cross within a
small enclosure. Later in 1886 the rātā trees that had sheltered Māori marksmen
and that had been damaged by fire, were falling, and the kāinga site was being
cleared, fenced and ornamental trees planted. Six years later it was noted that that
the “old ratas - monarchs of trees - and white pines, which were witness of Von
Tempsky’s fall, are being wiped out to make room for pines of another country.”18

By 1895 it was recorded that the “... grounds which were originally full of Maori
holes ... have been cultivated and levelled ....” 19 The removal of any above ground
vestige indicating that this place had once been a strong Māori village was now
complete. It had been transformed into a very Pākehā looking picnic area, while
the surrounding country side was occupied with “peaceful, smiling, homesteads.”20
By the early 1900s, many of the veterans had died and thoughts were turning
to the 40th anniversary. This was celebrated at Te Ngutu o te Manu on the 7th of
September 1908 where seven survivors who had participated in the battle were
present along with the Hon Robert McNab who “was personally introduced [to
the veterans] and examined the medals worn.”21 [Fig. 3]
It was reported that there were between 1500 and 3000 people present but the
reporter “saw but two Maoris - a youth and a boy ... which was rather singular
when it is remembered it was a British defeat and not a British victory that the
pakehas had assembled to commemorate.”22 It was noted that many “tributes were
paid to Von Tempsky’s memory.”23 The main organiser of the commemoration,
the Rev Klingender, stated:
“It is manifest that the settlers of to-day had not forgotten that the peace and
prosperity was due in a great measure to the sacrifice and work of the men whose
memory they were now honouring.” However, the Rev T.G. Hammond, West Coast
Māori Minister, sounded a warning when he said the gathering “… was a mistake,
because it would have a very bad effect upon the Maori people, and would stir
up bitter feelings.”25
There are no records of any commemoration being held for the 50th or 75th
anniversaries. However, the centennial was marked on the 7th of September 1968.
Also commemorated on the same day was the raid on Turuturumōkai Redoubt on
the outskirts of present day Hāwera which was attacked in the early hours of the
12th of July 1868 by warriors sent by Tītokowaru resulting in the death of several
of the men stationed there. A joint committee, made up of respective Domain
Board and Taranaki Branch Committee of the National Historic Trust members,
were charged with managing proceedings for both events. Among the guests at
Te Ngutu o te Manu were more than fifty descendants of the militia and Armed
Constabulary who were present at the battle along with over two-hundred other
guests. They were addressed by Rigby Allan, Director of the Taranaki Museum.
[Fig. 4] This was followed by the planting of two kauri, a tree that is not endemic

to the Taranaki region. The New Zealand Cross awarded to Inspector John Roberts
was on display along with a range of Māori and Pākehā weaponry. As on previous
occasions it would appear that no Māori spoke at this event26 but there was a
performance from a Māori Concert Group at a concert held in Hāwera later that day.
Allan’s address, which he repeated at Turuturumōkai, focused on remembering

the Māori loss - the loss of their lands, their homes and their economic base. He
noted that the 1927 Sim Commission stated that Māori were not in rebellion against
the Crown, but rather defending what was belonged to them.
He stated that, in 1968, race relations still needed to be worked on. “Let us
continually seek the common ground of our humanity, and our citizenship, let
us learn from one another, let us work for more advances in Maori education, let
us seek more opportunities for Maoris [sic] in more gainful employment.”27[Fig. 5]
The 125th anniversary, in 1993, was not marked in any official way.
Figure 3 — Rigby Allan addressing the crowd assembled for the centennial
commemoration at Te Ngutu o te Manu on 7 September 1968.
TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI:WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND CHAPTER 2 | 38

As part of Ngāruahine’s Treaty of Waitangi Settlement package, in 2015, Te Ngutu
o te Manu Reserve has been passed back from the South Taranaki District Council
to the Iwi. That the signing of Ngāruahine’s Deed of Settlement with the Crown
occurred on the site of Te Ngutu o te Manu in front of a crowd of five hundred
was hugely symbolic in that it returned the whenua and mana of this significant
place back to its rightful owners. What may or may not happen to mark the 150th
anniversary in 2018 is, at the time of writing, still being formulated by Ngāruahine
in conjunction with other interested groups.
Figure 4. Entrance sign to the Te Ngutu o te Manu Domain, 7 September 1968.
PARIHAKA
Parihaka, situated just inland of Cape Egmont, was the centre of a large community
based on passive resistance under the leadership of Te Whiti o Rongomai and
Tohu Kākahi. Actions such as ploughing settler’s fields, pulling survey pegs and
fencing across surveyed roads during the late 1870s in coastal Taranaki, greatly
frustrated the settler Government. This culminated in the invasion of Parihaka by
fifteen hundred military personnel on the 5th of November 1881 when Te Whiti
and Tohu were arrested, women were raped, and taonga were looted. The village
was then dismantled and the people dispersed.
On the 5th of November 1931, a celebratory afternoon tea was held in New
Plymouth to mark the 50th anniversary of the invasion of Parihaka. The local
press reported that forty individuals attended, however only one Māori, Wi Kupe,
was present. Kupe had been arrested at Pungarehu in September 1880 for erecting

a fence across the road and served time in Lyttelton Gaol. The proceedings can
now only be viewed as bizarre. Statements were made as to how the invasion had
led to a “permanent peace between Native and pakehas.”28 The organiser, former
New Plymouth mayor and businessman Richard Cock, told the audience that
the invasion was “... the greatest picnic he had ever been at - a real huge genuine
picnic which everyone seemed to enjoy thoroughly.”29 However, it was not to end
there. A toast was proposed to ‘commerce’, whereby those present did not charge
their glasses with alcohol but milk. Why? Because “milk was the main source
of Taranaki’s great revenue.”30 And this great ‘revenue’ was being made on land
that had been confiscated from its original Māori owners, many of whom were
suffering extreme financial hardship as a result.
The 75th anniversary does not appear to have been marked. By the time the
centennial anniversary came around it was a very different affair. This time Māori
from Parihaka were clearly in the driving seat. Considerable discussion took place
as to what should happen. A suggested ‘re-enactment’ of the 1881 invasion was
quickly dismissed as inappropriate. Leading up to the event a number of buildings
were repaired and painted, including the tomb of Te Whiti. On the weekend of the
centennial over five thousand people
descended on Parihaka, including many
dignitaries and members of Parliament,
a sign of recognition of what was being
commemorated. Interestingly, and
perhaps somewhat tellingly, the local
print media were silent on the speeches
that would have be made. New
Plymouth’s Govett-Brewster Art Gallery
held a major art exhibition in honour
of the event featuring the work of forty-
two artists such as Ralph Hotere, Nigel
Brown, Tony Fomison, Patrick Hanly
and Michael Smither. These works
were subsequently auctioned off and
the money raised was given to the
people of Parihaka. [Fig. 6]
Figure 5 — Cover of the ‘Parihaka Centennial Exhibition & Art Auction’ catalogue.

DISCUSSION
This review of how three engagements of the Taranaki Wars have been
commemorated shows how their form and function has changed over time.
Initially each commemoration was essentially an opportunity for Pākehā veterans
to come together and celebrate their ‘heroic’ deeds. This is, of course, perfectly
understandable. Historian, Vincent O’Malley notes that such commemorations
“could be seen to reflect a nostalgia for the pioneering period that had passed.”31
A theme which ran through the earlier commemorations was that they were all
initially centred on the veterans. “In observing the anniversary of the Battle of
Waireka, there is no desire whatever to gloat over a victory; the object is merely to
remind present and future generations that if necessity arose they should emulate
the deeds of their forefathers.”32
This is not unexpected given that the drivers for these events were actually the
veterans themselves. The events were decidedly monocultural with no apparent
Māori involvement, not surprising given that there was certainly nothing for Māori
to commemorate given the losses, both in people and resources. The ‘group’
photographs, particularly in relation to Waireka, contained no Māori and, unlike
other regions, no single or group images of Māori veterans were taken at any of
these commemorations.33 However, once the Pākehā veterans had passed away
the frequency and nature of the commemorations understandably changed. And
by the time of the centennials the voice of Māori was beginning to be heard. This
was most notable at the centennial of the 1881 invasion of Parihaka where clearly
the people of Parihaka were in control. There were to be no ‘toasts’ with milk this
time around. While a large number of Pākehā were present and made welcome
the proceedings appear to have been conducted according to tikanga Māori.
In their 1990 publication, ‘The Sorrow and the Pride: New Zealand War
Memorials’, historians Chris Maclean and Jock Phillips say that the period between
1907 and 1920 was a time when “the long generation of apathy and lack of concern
in the New Zealand Wars came to an end.”34 They identified catalysts for this
being events such as the South African War which “helped to infuse the Pakeha
population with a new jingoistic spirit of imperialism.”35 Another compelling
reason was that veterans who participated in the wars were beginning to pass
away in greater numbers. During this 1907 to 1920 period, more than twenty
monuments were erected to the New Zealand Wars in various places around the
country. In Taranaki, as in other areas, some of the initiatives for these came from

the veterans. The monument at Te Ngutu o te Manu was driven by the Domain
Board who were predominantly ex-military. The substantial memorial on New
Plymouth’s Marsland Hill to the Taranaki Wars was the result of pressure and
fundraising by veterans.
In Taranaki, it was the late 1950s to the early 1960s that saw further memorialising.
The driver for this was the Taranaki Regional Committee of the National Historic
Places Trust (later to become the New Zealand Historic Places Trust, now Heritage
New Zealand). Through their efforts a memorial plaque was unveiled on the corner
of Sutton and Waireka Roads on the afternoon of the 6th of November 1958. The
unveiling was attended by a number of dignitaries and interested people, along with
one hundred and ten students from three local schools. It is unclear how many
Māori were present but it is known that a Mr and Mrs Ru Mahutonga each spoke.
Mrs Mahutonga, was recorded, condescendingly, as having “made a happy little

speech on behalf of the Maori people” while Mr Mahutonga “recited the Maori
prayer dedicating the plaque and sang an old tribal song referring to the battle.”36
While it was designed to record the Battle of Waireka, it was actually placed some
distance from the actual site of Kaipopo Pā.
It would appear that the actual centennial commemoration of the Battle of

Waireka was nearly missed. An editorial that appeared in the Taranaki Herald
on the 1st of March 1960 noted that the New Plymouth Historical Society had
only just decided to investigate the possibilities of marking the event. A Waireka
Centenary Committee was formed, the President being Mr E.R. (Ted) Andrews, a
keen local historian, former soldier, and a descendant of John Andrews who fought
in the battle. The editorial remarked:
“Not much can be done in the time that is left. Had this been a United States
anniversary, the Americans would have used their flair for interpreting history by
re-enactment, spared no expense and taught history as well as proving one of those
spectacles of which they are so fond.” 37 This sentiment was again expressed by
historian James Belich several decades later in his television documentary series
New Zealand Wars.38
In reviewing these early Taranaki commemorations, it is difficult to gauge Māori

viewpoints. However, Māori journalist, Harry Dansey reflecting four years after
the Waireka centennial event noted:

“My own view was that it was best to let the anniversaries come and go unnoticed,
or, if some ceremony had to be held, that it be a commemoration and not a
celebration. I had seen on March 27, 1960, a commemoration service held on
the site of the Battle of Waireka ... The Waireka service was memorable for a
magnificent address by the Rev. Mangatitoki Cameron ...”.39
Dansey went on to say that Cameron’s address was, “…both admonition and
challenge.”40 That it was received so favourably and reproduced in full in the main
Taranaki newspapers as well as on the souvenir Waireka Centennial programme
suggests that it struck a chord with the general community at that time.
This begs the question – why should we commemorate the Taranaki Wars in the
21st Century? If we are to understand who we are as a nation today then we need
to look back on the past and reflect on how it has shaped us. Many of the issues
that Taranaki is now dealing with are a result of what happened during the Taranaki
Wars. Many of Taranaki’s non-Māori residents are probably still unaware that wars
were fought in the province during the 19th Century. It would, I suspect, come
as a surprise to many that the 1996 Taranaki Waitangi Tribunal report suggested
“that no other Māori group in New Zealand felt the impact of warfare and ongoing
colonial oppression more than the tribes of Taranaki.”41 The Taranaki Wars stripped
Māori of being in control of their own destiny and being economically self-sufficient
which reduced them to a situation which saw them having to rely heavily on the
State and being on the wrong side of the socio-economic ledger.
It is important to remember that due to two pieces of legislation the Crown, in

1865, confiscated 515,974 hectares of Māori land in Taranaki, demonstrating that
the pen is indeed mightier than the sword. It would be fair to say that the bulk
of today’s population are truly unaware of the ongoing effects of this. Academic
Peter Adds42 points out that over time Iwi/hapū structures in Taranaki began to
break down, access to traditional food resources and wāhi tapu were denied, and
speakers of te reo Māori, a fundamental cultural cornerstone, declined to extremely
low numbers. Many were encouraged by their parents to adopt Pākehā ways and
leave te ao Māori behind as they saw little future in the Māori world.
Many Pākehā settlers lost as well – forced to abandon their farms, watch their
houses burn, stock and crops destroyed, as well as families forced apart and
evacuated from the region. Some of these people never returned, their dreams
shattered. The overcrowding of New Plymouth caused a whole raft of issues,

particularly around health and wellbeing. The one thing these settlers did have,
certainly following the First Taranaki War, was the ability to apply for government
insurance to cover their losses.
Over the last eight years or so the way the New Zealand Wars are discussed and
remembered have begun to change again. A number of battle anniversaries have
been marked, particularly in the Waikato and Tauranga regions. In 2014, following
a school visit to the Ōrākau battle site in the Waikato, two Otorohanga College
students were concerned enough about the lack of recognition of the New Zealand
Wars that they started a petition calling for a national day of commemoration. This
quickly gained momentum and was signed by over 13,000 people. This resulted
in a national day being set aside and in March 2018, northern Iwi held a three-
day event to commemorate the Northern War of 1845. At this event Ngāti Hine
rangatira Pita Tipene reminded everyone that the purpose of the commemoration
was to promote greater understanding of the nation’s history, something that was
crucial to developing a national identity. He said “We are no longer a Great Britain
in the south seas. We are our own nation ... we need to hear everyone’s stories and
reconcile what we hear and then move on.” 43
Since 2010 in Taranaki, Te Ātiawa kaumātua Hoani Eriwata has led an annual
commemorative dawn service on the 17th of March. This begins at the Waitara
Military Cemetery and moves onto Te Kohia Pā, the place where the first shots of
the Taranaki Wars occurred on the 17th of March 1860. There is something very
powerful about standing on such sites, where lives have been lost and hearing the
Māori names of those killed in the various battles read out as the sun begins to rise.
Eriwata is clear that the intention of these commemorations is to acknowledge both
sides, hence the inclusion of the Waitara Military Cemetery, and the importance
of continuing the dialogue around the wars. In 2016 the New Plymouth District
Council purchased the parcel of land at Waitara on which Te Kohia sits. That this
site has now been secured opens up important opportunities for Iwi and hapū
to work in partnership with others as to how the site is interpreted and the story
of the wars told.
Recently Heritage Taranaki have developed an app on the First Taranaki War and
are now working on further Taranaki war apps. This is an easy way, using everyday
technology, to tour the landscape and get an understanding of some of the key
events around the Taranaki Wars. It is an important tool in making people aware
of what happened. Remembering the Taranaki Wars, understanding how they

have shaped who we are today commemorating them together and educating the
community about them, will go a long way to achieving a more mature, equitable
and inclusive nation.
ENDNOTES
1
Crosby argues that the term ‘feud’ “is a European appellation that belittles
the severity of these clashes. It does not convey accurately their
complexity, their long duration, or the number of other iwi who
were drawn into the events.” Ron Crosby, Kūpapa: The Bitter Legacy
of Māori Alliances with the Crown (New Zealand: Penguin Random
House, 2015): 151.
2
Three adults: Samuel Ford, Henry Passmore, and Samuel Shaw; and two
boys: William Parker and James Pote.
3
Paora Kukutai (Taranaki Iwi), Paratene te Kopara (Taranaki Iwi), and Te Rei
Hanataua (Ngāti Ruanui).
4
Taranaki Herald, 17 March 1891.
5
6
7
8
9
10
Taranaki Daily News, 28 March 1960.
11
The exhibition was titled: Te Ahi Kā Roa, Te Ahi Kātoro Taranaki War 1860-
2010 Our Legacy - Our Challenge.
12
The Te Ngutu o te Manu Domain Board was constituted on 26 February
1884 and the members of the Board were: Charles Allen Wray,
Lieutenant Colonel John Mackintosh Roberts, James Livingston,
George Francis Robinson and James Charles Yorke.
13
Wanganui Herald, 20 February 1884.

14
Ibid.
15
Hawera and Normanby Star, 12 July 1886.
16
There is a lone reference to “the rata tree from which poor Von Tempsky,
Buck, Palmer, and others were shot mercilessly ... bears a brass plate
with an appropriate inscription”. Nelson Evening Mail, 31 March
1897.
17
E.S. Brookes, Frontier Life: Taranaki, New Zealand (Auckland: H. Brett,
1892): 52.
18
Hawera and Normanby Star, 28 July 1892.
19
Hawera and Normanby Star, 12 August 1895.
20
Nelson Evening Mail, 31 March 1897.
21
Wanganui Herald, 7 September 1908.
22
Taranaki Herald, 8 September 1908.
23
Wanganui Herald, 7 September 1908.
24
Taranaki Herald, 8 September 1908.
25
Hawera and Normanby Star, 7 September 1908.
26
Interestingly there was an address by a Māori speaker, Mr Piko Rangi, at
the Turuturumōkai commemoration.
27
Allan, Rigby “Address by Rigby Allan, Director of the Taranaki Museum,
at the Turuturu Mokai & Te Ngutu o te Manu joint centennial
commemoration on Saturday, 7th September, 1968”, Puke Ariki
ARC2005-330.
28
Taranaki Herald, 6 November 1931.
29
Ibid.
30
Ibid.
31
Vincent O’Malley, “Recording the Incident with a Monument”: The
Waikato War in Historical Memory”, Journal of New Zealand Studies,
19 (2015): 79.
32
33
See image at the 1914 commemorations at Ōrākau in O’Malley: 85.
34
Chris Maclean and Jock Phillips, The Sorrow and the Pride New Zealand War

Memorials (Wellington: GP Books, 1990): 27.
35
Ibid:29
36
‘Report on installation of Bronze Plaque Waireka’, Taranaki Branch
Committee New Zealand Historic Places Trust file, Puke Ariki, New
Plymouth.
37
38
James Belich, New Zealand Wars (Episode Two), National Library,
Landmark Productions 1998.
35
Harry Dansey. “Reflections on Battle Centenaries”, Te Ao Hou, 48 (Sept
1964): 35.
35
Ibid.
40
Peter Adds, “Te Muru me te Raupatu: The Aftermath”. In Kelvin Day (Ed.)
Contested Ground Te Whenua I Tohea The Taranaki Wars 1860-1881
(Wellington: Huia Publishers, 2010): 256.
41
See Adds, Peter “Te Muru me te Raupatu: The Aftermath”.
42
Williams, L ‘NZ Wars commemorations begin with mass haka’ accessed 14
April 2018
43
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-korihi/352189/nz-wars-
commemorations-begin-with-mass-haka
FIGURES
Fig. 1 William Andrews Collis. Group of Battle of Waireka veterans
assembled for a group photograph, possibly taken in 1900, in the
vicinity of where the battle was fought. Collection: Puke Ariki, New
Plymouth (PHO2002-735).
Fig. 2 Unknown. Kaumātua George Koea, representing the Māori people,

welcoming visitors on the occasion of the centennial of the Battle of
Waireka, 28 March 1960. Collection: Stuff.
Fig. 3 Unknown. Rigby Allan addressing the crowd assembled for the
centennial commemoration at Te Ngutu o te Manu on 7 September
1968. Collection: Puke Ariki, New Plymouth (PHO2011-0187).

Fig. 4 Rigby Allan. Entrance sign to the Te Ngutu o te Manu Domain, 7
September 1968. Collection: Puke Ariki, New Plymouth (PHO2011-
0184).
Fig. 5 Cover of the ‘Parihaka Centennial Exhibition & Art Auction’

catalogue. Collection: Puke Ariki, New Plymouth.
TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI | WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND CHAPTER 2 | 48

Vincent O’Malley
CHAPTER 3
HE TINO PAKANGA NUI NO NIU TIRENI

THE ‘GREAT WAR FOR NEW ZEALAND’
IN MEMORY AND HISTORY
VINCENT O’MALLEY
“No te taenga ki te kohuru i Rangiaohia, katahi au ka mohio he tino pakanga

nui tenei, no Niu Tireni”
“When it came to the (time of the) murder at Rangiaohia, then I knew, for the
first time, that this was a great war for New Zealand”
Wiremu Tamihana (1865)
In the early decades of the twentieth century, something strange started

to happen.1 After nearly fifty years of neglect, Pākehā New Zealanders
began remembering the wars fought on their own shores. In part that
could be seen to reflect a nostalgia for the pioneering period that had
passed. Veterans of the wars were reaching their final years and there
was a real desire to capture their stories before it was too late. As Chris
Maclean and Jock Phillips have noted, the early twentieth century witnessed
“an outpouring of pioneer memoirs and local histories as the younger
generation was told about the hard struggles of the noble pioneers.”2 But
there was more to it than that. Now that Māori were no longer viewed
as a threat to the colonial order – and the dark days of the New Zealand
Wars had receded into distant memory – settlers could afford to be
nostalgic about them too, even appropriating Māori motifs for symbols
of nationhood and placing colonial literature in romanticised ‘Māoriland’

settings.3 Remembering the New Zealand Wars, or at least a kind of mythologised
version of these, heavily laced with tales of mutual chivalry and heroism but devoid
of more disturbing elements, became a core part of this process.4
Step forward a century and the nation is in the midst of an extended period
of World War One centennials. There are websites, art exhibitions, plays,
documentaries, dramas, docu-dramas, musical recitals, the opening of a new
national war memorial and books galore – all being funded by the Government,
which set aside $17 million in lottery funding for these purposes.5 Politicians
and members of the public are flocking to the various public acts of remembrance
here and overseas staged in association with these anniversaries, so much so that a
ballot was conducted for admission to the Anzac Day centennial commemoration
at Gallipoli in 2015. 6
The contrast with the 2013-14 sesquicentenary of the Waikato War could not
be greater. When, for example, the 150th anniversary of the battle of Rangiriri
– one of the largest and most significant engagements of the Waikato conflict –
was marked in November 2013, the then Prime Minister was nowhere to be seen.
Neither was the Governor-General. Te Ururoa Flavell was the only Member of
Parliament to attend (according to organisers, John Key was the only other one
to even acknowledge the invitation).7 Key and Jerry Mateparae did attend the
Ōrākau 150th commemoration at the start of April 2014, where the Prime Minister
dismissed calls for a national day of memorial to those who died in the New Zealand
Wars, while not ruling out returning the Ōrākau battle site to public ownership.
He added that most New Zealanders would have known little about the history
of what had taken place there.8 Both the Rangiriri and Ōrākau events received
relatively minimal mainstream media coverage. They probably passed by most
New Zealanders largely unnoticed.
Why does this even matter? Isn’t there something in the common Pākehā refrain
that Māori should just ‘get over it’, or ‘stop living in the past’? Well, by that logic,
the same would apply to World War One commemorations, or indeed to any other
historical events previously considered worthy of remembrance. And as memory
studies scholars have also noted, it is a common argument of those who feel they
have something to hide. It is not consistent with a mature nation facing up to its
past. Remembering does not require guilt or shame, or any other such reaction.
It just requires honesty and a willingness to confront difficult topics. Neil Jarman,
from the Institue for Conflict Research, has argued that “The power of the past,

of a collective memory, to influence the present and the future relies heavily on
the process, or practice, of commemoration, and the selectivity of memory and of
forgetting.”9 What a nation chooses to remember and forget speaks to its priorities
and sense of self.10 By choosing actively to forget the Waikato War we demonstrate
the limitations of our willingness to carve out new national narratives that are
genuinely bicultural and inclusive.
None of this is to suggest that we should not be marking World War One. Of
course, we should. It is not a zero-sum game. Remembering that conflict does
not, of itself, make us forget the New Zealand Wars. Neither is it a question of
drawing some kind of equivalence between the two wars. The Waikato conflict
was important for its own reasons and in its own ways. It was different from the
kind of ‘total war’ that came to characterise the major conflicts of the twentieth
century. But the almost total neglect of the Waikato War by comparison seems
telling. Organisers of the Rangiriri commemoration expressed disappointment at
the lack of funding for the day, and by the almost total absence of parliamentarians.
Te Ururoa Flavell said he was “a little bit embarrassed that I’m the only MP here
today because people from Parliament should understand about days like this.” 11
And it is not just MPs who apparently need a history lesson. As Tom Roa, the Chair
of the Ngā Pae o Maumahara body that oversaw many of the 150th anniversary
commemorations, noted, “I think we need to give more attention to what happened
on our own doorstep…History informs our present and guides our future.” 12
The Waikato conflict of 1863-64 was hardly insignificant. It brought a huge

number of British (and Irish) soldiers to New Zealand, which for a time had more
imperial troops stationed here than almost anywhere else in the empire outside
India. 13 The conflict had a profound influence on the future shape of New Zealand
society, allowing the Government to begin to assert the kind of real control over
the country that had eluded it since 1840. For Māori, any real prospect of power-
sharing or partnership went out the window for at least the next century. Land
confiscations and a long search for justice followed. So why the historical amnesia
with respect to the most significant war fought on New Zealand shores?
It was not always this way. As war clouds loomed over Europe, on the 1st of April
1914 a crowd of up to five thousand people gathered at Ōrākau, a few kilometres
up the road from Kihikihi, to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the most famous
battle of the Waikato conflict. Cabinet ministers, MPs, the head of the armed
forces, multiple dignitaries and a small smattering of elderly Māori and Pākehā

veterans were present for the unveiling of a memorial on the site where Ōrākau
Pā once stood.14 The movement towards memorialisation of the New Zealand
Wars coincided with a revival of militaristic sentiments dating from the time of
the Anglo-Boer War of 1899 to 1902.
As imperial rivalries intensified, and the likelihood of a new conflict in Europe

increased, there was (as Maclean and Phillips have noted) a strong urge to remind
younger generations that men had died in the service of empire during the earlier
New Zealand clashes.15 The implication was clearly that it might be their turn to
do likewise in the near future. The Victoria League, founded in London in 1901,
played a pivotal role in drawing these connections. By 1909 an Auckland branch
of the league had been formed, and local secretary Edith Statham informed Prime
Minister Joseph Ward that their efforts to promote memorialisation might become
“the means of inculcating the spirit of patriotism among our young people.”16
Every effort was made to encourage young and old to attend the Ōrākau event
in 1914. An early-morning train from Auckland to Te Awamutu was organised
for the big day, and free rail passes allocated to veterans to allow them to attend.
The Auckland Education Board granted a special holiday to all children attending
schools in the Waikato and Waipā counties. Schools that found it impossible to take
part in the ceremony were instructed to assemble their children, hoist the national
flag and give a lesson on “the difficulties of early settlement in New Zealand.”17
Newspapers throughout the dominion reported at length on the Ōrākau

‘celebrations’. And for Pākehā New Zealand that was precisely what this was. As
the New Zealand Herald explained, the Ōrākau battle marked “the final acceptance
of the British mana by a heroic and warlike native people”, which had been met
by “a just and generous reciprocity which is everywhere regarded as an example
to the civilised world.” From the time of Ōrākau onwards, the editorial claimed,
there had been “no other country in the world where the native race is so equitably
situated amid a dominant European community.” It added that “This freedom,
this equality, may be unhesitatingly ascribed to the possession by the Maori of the
heroic qualities which make Orakau historic and to the whole-hearted appreciation
of those qualities by the Pakeha people. Thus it is that Orakau was a great moral
victory, a sublime triumph over disaster, a proof of high and noble spirit which has
never been forgotten and has compelled the British race which reverences courage
to acknowledge the Maori as a man after its own heart.”17

Figure 1. The Ōrākau mounument unveiled on 1 April 1914.
This conception of Ōrākau as somehow noble and heroic was reinforced by the
decision to unveil the monument, which had first been erected in about 1912,
not on the 2nd of April 1914, which would have marked the fiftieth anniversary
of British victory at Ōrākau, but one day earlier, fifty years after the defenders of
Ōrākau, though lacking in food, water and ammunition, had nevertheless vowed
to fight on (there had been ongoing discussions within the Pā as to what to do,
though the famous exchange with William Mair came on the final day).19 As one
newspaper editorial noted, the date had been carefully chosen “to indicate that it
is the heroic defence, and not the capture of the pa, which admirers of the Maori
valour wish to celebrate.” 20 [Fig.1]
Something of that view was reflected in the official jubilee souvenir programme,
which was described as being not merely intended to mark the Ōrākau anniversary,
but also “in commemoration of 50 years of peace.” 21 Newspaper headlines echoed
this view, 22 and although a few observers tried to point out that Ōrākau had not
marked the end of the wars (which continued, in various parts of the central North
Island, through until 1872), they were swimming against the tide.23 Fifty years
of peace it was, at least according to the prevailing narrative. But as the Herald
editorial quoted above suggests, this was no ordinary peace.

It was Ōrākau that gave birth to the myth of New Zealand as having the greatest
race relations in the world. And for a land that many Pākehā felt was lacking in
suitable legends, what better tales to immortalise than those that emanated from
Ōrākau? Defence Minister James Allen told the crowd assembled for the unveiling of
the Ōrākau monument that ‘50 years ago Europeans and Maoris fought fights which
went to make history and to create traditions’ which had come to assume great
significance for the generations which followed. He added that those traditions,
were “not alone possessed by the Maoris, but belonged to all New Zealanders.
Pakeha and Maori alike had a right to participate in the glorious tradition of the
courage and heroism and devotion to duty displayed at Orakau.”24 In this way, a
highly sentimentalised version of Ōrākau was openly appropriated by Pākehā for
their own nationalist and nation-building ends.
To this end, rival European authorities bitterly contested whether it was Rewi
Maniapoto or another chief who had famously responded to the British invitation to
surrender on that final day of the battle, when lacking food and water and assumed
to be totally surrounded, by declaring ‘Ka whawhai tonu matou, ake, ake, ake!’ (‘We
shall fight on, for ever, and ever, and ever!’).25 They argued over the words to be
used on the Ōrākau monument and how best to protect the graves of those who
had fallen in battle there. Rewi Maniapoto’s chivalry had earlier been marked in
a monument erected in April 1894 on the site of his former home in the township
of Kihikihi and paid for by the Government. When the rangatira passed away two
months later, he was buried at the foot of the memorial.26
There was also a monument to British troops killed at Rangiaowhia, Hairini and
Ōrākau and buried in the graveyard at St John’s Church in Te Awamutu. It had
been built at Government expense in 1888. But it was only some decades later
that the Government was asked to consider a second monument at St John’s on
the site of six unmarked graves believed to belong to kūpapa. Except that further
inquiries around the time of the Ōrākau unveiling revealed quite a different story.
They were, in fact, the graves of Kīngitanga fighters taken captive by the British at
Hairini and Ōrākau who had subsequently died of their wounds.27
That changed matters considerably. But ‘rebels’ or not, the men were regarded as
dying in what Europeans by the early twentieth century were able to sentimentally
depict as a brave and chivalrous, although entirely hopeless, cause, and so the
decision was made to press on with a memorial.

Figure 2. Detail from the monument to the ‘Maori Heroes’ unveiled at St John’s Church, Te
Awamutu, 11 June 1914.
Still, the suggestion that they be described as ‘heroes’ rather than merely ‘warriors’
was considered a step too far. That decision came too late: ‘heroes’ had been literally
carved into stone in time for the official unveiling on the 11th of June 1914 and
remains the wording on the monument today.28 [Fig.2]
The Te Awamutu memorial was just one of a number of measures under action
or contemplation at this time.29 Months after the Ōrākau unveiling, proposals were
floated for the Crown to resume ownership of the site of the battlefield (which had
been confiscated in 1865 but subsequently sold or granted to military settlers). It
would then become a permanent memorial to those who had fought and died there.
The proposal also involved deviating the road to avoid the graves of some of those
buried at Ōrākau, something which the Waipa County Council rejected outright.
The Government nevertheless indicated that it was willing to consider purchasing

the Ōrākau site as a memorial ground. But war, and the general need for belt-
tightening, intervened, and the matter was allowed to lapse.30 As the Great
War drew to a close, there came renewed interest in New Zealand’s own wars.
Supporters lobbied for a history of the New Zealand Wars to be commissioned by
the Government before the last survivors passed away.31 In 1918 the Government

finally agreed, commissioning James Cowan to write what was originally intended
as a four-volume history of the wars between 1845 and 1872.32 Cowan, a bilingual
journalist who, as the son of an Ōrākau military settler had grown up on a farm
that included at least part of the Ōrākau battle site, spent considerable time
interviewing surviving Māori and Pākehā veterans of the wars. His resulting history
was eventually published over two volumes in 1922 and 1923 to critical acclaim
and came to be seen as the definitive history of the wars for decades thereafter. It
was heavily narrative in approach, full of gripping yarns of heroism and bravery,
often incorporating the perspectives of the Māori and Pākehā veterans Cowan
had interviewed over the years. But it was largely devoid of critical analysis and
interpretation, and in this way did not constitute any kind of threat to the newly
emergent myth of Ōrākau. If anything, the success of his book (with its own
emphasis on the ‘mutual respect’ of former adversaries forged through ‘ordeal by
battle’) may have helped to foster this development.33
Cowan’s work inspired efforts to capture the wars through other mediums.
Pākehā flocked in their thousands to Rudall Hayward’s 1925 silent movie, ‘Rewi’s
Last Stand’, later remade as a popular feature-length talkie.34 Hayward proudly
proclaimed the film’s historical accuracy, pointing out that it was closely based on
Cowan’s work.35 Many of those who appeared in the 1940 version were descendants
of Māori and Pākehā veterans of the Ōrākau conflict.36 But the 1940 film, which
later became part of the School Film Library catalogue and hence was shown to
large numbers of New Zealand children, remained very much in the tradition of
Ōrākau as a chivalrous and noble conflict (even if the death of the central heroine,
Ariana, at the hands of a Forest Ranger hinted at a grimmer reality).37 ‘Today’, an
opening foreword declares, ‘the slowly blending races of white men and brown
live in peace and equality as one people...the New Zealanders.’ Myth prevailed on
screen, and to a lesser extent in print.
But what the success of both Cowan’s book and Hayward’s films did show
is that for many Pākehā at this time, the Waikato War was vital, important and
remembered, even if often in a form of myth reconstituted as history.
Just one thing was missing. The Ōrākau ceremony in 1914 had largely been a
Pākehā affair. An appeal was issued “To the Maori Tribes who fought against us in
the Waikato War’ to “attend to their side of the celebration.” 38 But all of the vital
decisions, including when, where and how Ōrākau would be commemorated (or
celebrated), had already been made and it appears that there was minimal Māori

response to this appeal. Meanwhile, planning for Ōrākau coincided with a period of
heightened Kīngitanga activism. One day before the ceremony, the Herald reported
that the Māori King, Te Rata, and his chief counsellor, Tupu Taingakawa, were
planning to travel to Britain to submit their grievances to their Treaty partner, the
British Monarch.39 This would include a request that an inquiry be held into the
cause of the Waikato War, and that “justice be done to those...unjustly deprived of
their land.”40 As far as the newspaper was concerned, this was evidence of just how
ungrateful Māori had become when it came to the blessings bestowed on them by
‘civilisation’ and European settlement. “They draw old-age pensions with cheerful
alacrity, but some of them still wish to fish without regard to close seasons”, the
paper thundered, “They all use our roads, but they are largely exempt from rating.
Their members assist in making our laws, but some of them contend that the Crown
should treat them as above the authority of our legislature in certain respects.” 41
If attitudes such as these were in any way reflective of mainstream Pākehā opinion,
it was perhaps hardly surprising that many Māori stayed away from Ōrākau. But
the correspondent for the Auckland Star – more than likely Cowan himself – was
more insightful, writing of the Ōrākau gathering that “Numerically the attendance
of natives was not notable. It was hardly to be expected it would be. If you take a
man’s land, and then fight him when he objects, it is hardly likely that he will take
a particularly keen interest when you record the incident with a monument.” 42
In fact, it appears that news of the Kīngitanga deputation to Britain may have
prompted the Government to re-evaluate its own commitment to the Ōrākau event.
It was widely reported that the Governor (who had recently made an historic visit
to Parihaka)43 would be in attendance, along with Prime Minister William Massey.44
But neither man was there on the day. The Governor instead made a surprise visit
to an A & P show in Oxford (Massey was also in the South Island), while plans
to present the colours of the 16th Waikato Regiment (which incorporated ‘Ake!
Ake! Ake! as the regimental motto) during the ceremony were also cancelled.45
But the most obvious absences were on the Māori side. It was especially telling
that King Te Rata and prominent members of the Kīngitanga were not present
for the Ōrākau ‘celebration’, and that Maui Pomare, as the representative of the
Native Race in Cabinet, felt compelled during his speech to the gathering to deny
reports “that the Maori people rather resented the erection of the monument as
celebrating their defeat at the hands of the pakeha.”46 Six surviving Māori veterans
of the Ōrākau battle were in attendance, however, their entry to the ceremony

flanked by a guard of honour from the St Stephen’s Senior Cadets.47 And during
the course of the day, Hari Wahanui, the sole Māori member on the two-person
organising committee ‘representing the Native Race’, made a symbolic presentation
to the Defence Minister.48
Among the gifts handed over were three carbine rifles and cartouche boxes, a flag
belonging to the Taranaki Military Settlers No. 6 Company that had been captured
during fighting, along with an officer’s sword that was said to have been highly
prized by Māori, having been rumoured to have been handed to Rawiri Puhirake
by a dying Colonel Booth at the Battle of Gate Pā, before later being presented
to King Tawhiao.49 Although there were varying stories as to the origins of the
sword in particular,50 it was clear that this and the other articles presented to the
Government were of considerable symbolic value. Allen, in accepting the gifts on
behalf of the Government, declared that there could be no greater evidence of the
healing of wounds. He promised that the gifts would be conserved and protected,
and the memory of their presentation not forgotten.51 By 1921, the flag, the sword
and the carbines had all been lost, the Department of Defence confessing that, after
full and exhaustive inquiries (which also involved the Railways Department and
the Dominion Museum), it could find no trace of any of the items in question.52
(The flag has very recently been located in New Plymouth’s Puke Ariki Museum,
having been found in the General Assembly Library in 1952 by the historian Guy
Scholefield. Unaware of the flag’s provenance, Scholefield had simply handed it
over to the Museum, which was also in the dark as to its origins until alerted to
the backstory by researcher Cathy Marr in 2014).53
Perhaps it was in keeping with the festive nature of Pākehā celebrations around
the Ōrākau anniversary that so little care and attention should have been given
to the items once received by the Government. And a similar attitude seems to
have extended to the few surviving Māori veterans of Ōrākau. In 1919 one of
their number, an elderly Pou Patate Huihi, wrote to Maui Pomare concerning the
“desires of the people in regard to grants made to the survivors of the Orakau
pa.”54 He asked that, now that the Great War was over, he might receive such a
grant. Pomare referred the matter to the Defence Minister, who advised that he
could find no reference to any such undertaking.55 Given that there were only six
surviving veterans as at 1914, any grant would likely have been a matter of a few
hundred pounds per annum at most. But while happy to celebrate Ōrākau, the
Government was not interested in extending practical assistance of this kind to
its survivors (even though military pensions were paid to the Pākehā veterans).56

For Waikato Māori, though, Ōrākau was not something to be celebrated. It
was the place where as many as one hundred and fifty of their relatives had been
killed, including women and children. Most died not during the siege but in a
desperate effort to flee for their lives on the final day. One newspaper account
from 1864 noted that “Women – many women – slaughtered, and many children
slain, are amongst the trophies of Orakau.”57 In fact, this troubling evidence of
atrocities committed was one of the few discordant notes in 1914, with one writer
stating that the soldiers had vowed to “Destroy, the women, so that there shall be
no more of the breed.”58 That prompted one Ōrākau veteran to deny the report,
while nevertheless admitting that “Several women and children were necessarily
killed in the pa, and perhaps some may have been when we attacked the swamp.” 59
For the most part, such a debate was not allowed to intrude into the emerging
Pākehā narrative of Ōrākau as being marked by mutual respect and chivalry.
But the facts pointed to an altogether darker affair. One female prisoner named
Hineiturama was murdered in cold blood before William Mair could save her.60
Another woman, Ahumai Te Paerata (who had famously vowed that if the men
died, the women and children would die too) survived but was wounded in four
places.61 There was nothing noble or glorious about any of this. On the third day
of the siege, and with British sappers about to breach the Pā’s outer defences, the
occupants of Ōrākau made a run for it. Large numbers were killed in the subsequent
British pursuit, the smell of decomposing corpses from the nearby swamp where
many fell lending a foul stench to Ōrākau for weeks afterwards.62
That Māori held to a notably less sentimental view of the war than most Pākehā,
even more than fifty years later, was evident in the exchanges around another
mooted proposal by which to remember the war. As the plan for a road deviation
at Ōrākau was eventually dismissed as too costly and complicated, a suggestion
arose to erect another memorial on the site, this time specifically to mark the graves
of the Māori killed there.63 Added to that, on one side of the existing monument,
the name ‘Rewi Maniapoto’ appeared, without further explanation or description.
Although the proposed second monument was left in abeyance, proposed additional
text for the existing one was by late 1916 being solicited. Eventually a member of
the Te Heuheu family (possibly Tureiti Te Heuheu) supplied an inscription, which,
when translated by the Government read:

Rewi Maniapoto was one of the highest of the chiefs of Ngati-Maniapoto and
Ngati-Raukawa.
He was an upholder (or supporter) of the Kingdom (or Kingship) of Potatau

te Wherowhero and Tawhiao, and at the time of the war waged by the Pakeha
race against the Maori King he fought in the war on the side of the Maori King,
with the result that he was defeated here at Orakau; his tribe subdued; and his
lands taken by conquest.64
Edith Statham, the Inspector of Old Soldiers’ Graves for the Department of
Internal Affairs, had led the charge for a new monument and/or inscription at
Ōrākau, but wrote in response to the translation of Te Heuheu’s text ‘I do not quite
like it, as it does not set forth the main fact that I was anxious to give publicity
to, viz., that Rewi was the Chief commanding the Maori troops and made such a
gallant defence against our men.’ 65
Te Heuheu had disrupted Pakeha myth-making around Ōrākau with awkward

reminders of the Kīngitanga that Rewi Maniapoto had devoted much of his life
to defending, to a war ‘waged by the Pakeha race against the Maori King’, and to
the dreadful consequences of that conflict for the tribes involved. This was not
what Pākehā at the time wanted to hear. They preferred to frame Ōrākau in terms
of a noble and heroic, if ultimately doomed, defence, giving rise to fifty years of
unblemished — and unrivalled — peace and harmony between Māori and Pākehā.
Their imagined Ōrākau was conspicuous for chivalry, gallantry, mutual respect
among contending fighters, before final acceptance by Māori of their subservient
position in relation to the Government. A bland alternative inscription was solicited
from Elsdon Best before the whole matter was quietly dropped.66
In an indication as to just how tone deaf many Pākehā were to Māori feelings at
this time, in April 1922 a Great War memorial was officially unveiled at Mercer.
[Fig.3] It was constructed out of one of the turrets from the Pioneer warship used
to attack local Māori nearly half a century earlier.67 The Mercer turret continued
to be the centrepiece of local Anzac Day gatherings through until the 1990s.68 The
second turret from the Pioneer was in 1926 presented to the town of Ngāruawāhia
and today stands at The Point.69

Figure 3. The Pioneer gun turret at Mercer, unveiled in 1922 as a memorial to those who
served in World War One.
Imperfectly, and even insensitively, remembered as they were, Ōrākau and other
battles, retained an important place in Pākehā imaginations. In 1921 children from
throughout the Te Awamutu area staged a mock re-enactment of the battle on the
site where it had taken place, although so few Māori participated that some of the
Pā’s defenders had to be played by Pākehā children.70 Ōrākau even featured in
New Zealand’s contribution to the Pageant of Empire held at Wembley Stadium in
London in 1924.71 Through the 1920s and 1930s James Cowan played a leading
role in advocating for greater protection of the battle sites. Cowan had previously
been instrumental in ensuring that the land on which the central redoubt at
Rangiriri was built was declared a scenic reserve in 1912 (albeit with a road, later
State Highway One, running through one corner of it).72 In about 1870, his own
father had fenced off and planted blue gums around an area believed to be an
urupā where forty Māori killed at Ōrākau still lay, carefully preserving it, his son
noted, as a sacred or tapu spot. But the Cowan family had long since ceased to
own the land and the fence and trees had disappeared.

Cows were instead grazing on the site. In an article published in the Auckland
Star newspaper on the sixty-third anniversary of the Ōrākau battle, Cowan wrote
that “the forty defenders who were laid in their self-dug trenches deserve at least
the tribute of a fence and a stone.”73 Precedent was on his side, and not just with
the memorial to the Māori ‘heroes’ at St John’s. On the 13th of April 1927, a
memorial gateway to Rangiriri cemetery, where both Māori and Pākehā killed
in the November 1863 battle were buried, was officially opened by the Minister
of Internal Affairs, R.F. Bollard. The gates had cost over £1000 to construct and
followed sustained criticism of Government neglect of the graveyard.74 On the
Ōrākau anniversary in 1935, Cowan took up the same theme, this time in even
bolder terms. Cowan observed that:
In the churchyard at Te Awamutu there are memorials over the graves

of the British and colonial soldiers killed at Orakau. The Government
memorials in various parts of the country usually commemorate
only the British side. The Maoris who were defending their country
from invasion would seem to deserve at least equal honour. It is not
creditable to the pakeha people who now occupy that country that
the ground where the defeated ones fell should be desecrated and
forgotten. 75
The Te Awamutu Historical Society had recently been formed, and Cowan (its
inaugural patron) urged members and other interested locals to take responsibility
for protecting the site. That message was at least partly heeded when in 1937 the
society paid to repair the Ōrākau monument after recent damage to its spire.76 But
within three months of repairs being done, the monument had been damaged
again, both times wilfully. This prompted the Internal Affairs Under Secretary to
posit that such vandalism “surely could only have been caused by some person or
persons mentally obsessed.”77 Police never found the culprit, and so the question
as to whether the attacks had been in some way politically motivated, rather than
merely mindless acts of destruction, was never answered.78
On the 1st of April 1939, Cowan wrote another column for the Auckland Star in
which he declared that residents of the district were not unmindful of the seventy-
fifth anniversary of the Ōrākau battle, with wreaths in memory of the combatants of
both races to be laid at the foot of the memorial unveiled a quarter century earlier.
But still, he reminded readers, there was no protection or acknowledgement of the
nearby wāhi tapu where many Māori defenders of Ōrākau were buried.79 In some

respects Cowan’s own views on the Waikato War had become more forthright.
In a draft chapter on the settlement of Waikato for ‘Settlers and Pioneers’, his
contribution to the official centennial histories project, Cowan compared the
treatment of Waikato Māori with the recent Italian invasion of Abyssinia, while
adding:
I wish the insensitive Englishman of Waikato could have heard the

views of a certain Maori friend of mine on the subject of the raupatu.
The good old man had a sense of humour strongly developed for a
Maori; he thought it was a beautiful joke asking the evicted tribes to
come back and sing jubilee hymns of praise in a Church built with the
timber that they had freely given for it, with their labour, in the district
that had been seized from them. “The pakeha,” he said, “is willing to
let bygones be bygones, but does he offer to give me back my potato
ground?” 80
Officials who had already voiced discomfort at the prospect of the New Zealand
Wars being stressed were not having this; the entire chapter was excised, leaving
Cowan greatly peeved. But Cowan’s attempted deviation from his customary
role of story-teller to a more serious social commentator was not without its own
contradictions, especially given his own celebratory accounts of ‘the pioneering
period’. 81
Even so, with Cowan’s death in 1943, no one with a comparable public profile
remained to advocate for the Ōrākau site and its dead. Times were changing,
but not everyone was up with the play. The committee planning the centenary
of Rangiriri in November 1963 eventually agreed to drop plans for a mock re-
enactment of the battle, when confronted with Waikato Māori complaints that
this was an insensitive way to mark an event that was still a source of great pain
and bitterness for them.82 The programme of events nevertheless featured Pākehā
dressed up variously as either settlers or British troops, along with canoe races, a
Māori concert party, hangi and Māori against Pākehā tug of war.
Meanwhile, the official souvenir programme featured various advertisements,

including one commending Lion Beer for all Rangiriri ‘centenary celebrations’,
while the cover featured the word ‘Tua kana tanga’ prominently.83 Although that
seems to have been intended to mean something along the lines of ‘brotherhood’, a
closer translation might be ‘seniority’ and the associated imagery left no doubt as
to which party was the senior one. On both the battle and rugby fields the Pākehā

is getting the better of the Māori combatant, while the Pākehā hand firmly clasps
and envelops the Māori one it purports to embrace. In these ways, the cover itself
could have served as a painful (and offensive) reminder of the subjugation of the
Waikato tribes. That these messages were probably inadvertent only serves to
reinforce the gulf between Māori and Pākehā sentiments around the Waikato War
by this time. The tone of the speeches continued to emphasise mutual bravery
and respect, within a strong assimilationist ethos. Governor-General Sir Bernard
Fergusson’s message declared that:
In celebrating the Centenary of the Battle of Rangiriri, we are not

harping on what the poet Wordsworth called “old unhappy far-off
things, and battles long ago.”
We are commemorating the gallant men who fought on both sides. We

are rejoicing in the knowledge that the two races concerned now live
harmoniously together, and indeed have fought shoulder to shoulder
in two wars in a common cause. We are pledging ourselves and our
children to be worthy descendants of our ancestors, displaying the
same virtues of courage and devotion.
It is indeed a measure of the degree to which our people have grown

together that Maori and Pakeha can celebrate without rancour but
with pride such an occasion as this. 85
One speaker, a naval chaplain, went even further than this. After lamenting the
loss of life resulting from the Rangiriri battle, he added ‘but we rejoice that there
are now no longer two peoples in this land’.86 Quite what those Māori among
the estimated two thousand-strong crowd would have made of this statement is
difficult to know. In any event, the whole affair appears to have been overshadowed
by the news that reached New Zealand overnight of the assassination of President
Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, prompting prayers for the people of the United States.
When the centenary of the battle of Ōrākau was marked in 1964, guests were
treated to a special screening of Rewi’s Last Stand, a hangi, kapa haka competitions
and a concert featuring Kiri Te Kanawa.87 New plaques were unveiled on the
existing monument and a less than culturally appropriate picnic area built by
the Waipa County Council. Perhaps in tacit acknowledgement of its proximity to
an urupā where many of the victims of Ōrākau lie, the picnic area was recently
removed.88 Yet some Waikato elders wanted no part in the centennial proceedings,
concerned that the whole affair had become something of a circus. So long as

Pākehā continued to use the war anniversaries as an excuse to pat themselves on the
back for their supposedly superior race relations, that attitude was understandable.
The Pākehā narrative of the Waikato War was out of sync with the still largely
ignored Māori story of an unjustified invasion of their homeland, followed by
numerous and senseless killings, confiscations, exile and poverty.
Writing in the Māori Affairs Department magazine, ‘Te Ao Hou’, later that year,
the Māori journalist and commentator (and future Race Relations Conciliator)
Harry Dansey offered an insightful set of reflections on the recent battle centenaries.
He observed that overall:
A sense of being ill at ease in this matter, felt indeed by many, was
manifest as far as I was concerned in a seemingly illogical combination
of sorrow, anger, pride, foreboding and amusement. There was sorrow
that the relationship of the two races...should have once reached
such a stage that no course was left but to kill one another; anger
that Pakeha greed dictated the viciously unjust confiscation of land;
pride in the peerless courage of men and women irrespective of which
cause they espoused; foreboding that those who were arranging
ceremonies would not recognise such sorrow, anger and pride;
amusement, wry though it may have been, at how so many Pakehas
could have lived so long and closely with Maoris and yet brick by
dropped brick demonstrate that they had learned next to nothing of
their neighbours.89
He noted his own view that there ought to have been commemorations rather
than celebrations (as they had been described) of the anniversaries and added that:
It was with some misgivings that I read how Rangiriri planned to hold
a service to be followed by a gala afternoon which included a raft race,
Maori parties performing, people in period costume and all the fun of
the fair. But because the Maori people of the district were participating
I kept my thoughts to myself.
Later, however, when attending a gathering at Turangawaewae Pa,

Ngaruawahia, I was approached by a man of standing among the
Waikato people who was concerned that the hundredth anniversary
of Rangiriri was going to become a ‘circus’, using that word with a

terse English adjective. He asked me to write a story recording the
objection of Waikato elders to the whole proceedings.90
Not all of Waikato objected to proceedings. As Dansey noted, King Koroki

eventually lent his support to the occasion, while those who were opposed largely
remained silent.91
Yet thanks to more militant Māori voices, aided by a new generation of historians,
the Pākehā version of the wars was becoming harder to sustain, and had been all
but discredited by the 1970s.92 The problem was that no new narrative of the
wars emerged (or at least, no new narrative with popular support), and so we
were left with a kind of uncomfortable silence. ‘Don’t mention the [Waikato] War’
became a kind of unspoken mantra and tied in with broader Pākehā discomfort
at the level of Māori unrest, as evident through annual Waitangi Day protests, the
Māori Land March of 1975 and the dramatic Bastion Point occupation of two years
later. When that silence was challenged in ways that mainstream Pākehā opinion
found difficult to ignore, significant controversy arose. ‘The Governor’, a highly
ambitious six-part drama series that screened on TV One in 1977, presented the
Waikato War as an unsavoury land grab, while continuing to laud Māori bravery
at Ōrākau. It was attacked by Prime Minister Robert Muldoon, supposedly for its
excessive expenditure, though probably reflecting deeper cultural unease at its
troubling depiction of the colonial era.93 From the perspective of many Pākehā,
it was easier just to forget the Waikato War had ever happened.
One historian threatened to upset this status quo. But while James Belich’s book
on the New Zealand Wars was hailed as a tour de force by scholars when first
published in 1986, the wider public response to a five-part documentary series
based on the book that screened in 1998 was decidedly more mixed. It drew
a huge audience, but also attracted the ire of many talk-back radio callers and
authors of letters to newspaper editors. 95 Representative of the flavour of many of
the latter was one letter which took exception to what its author believed was the
portrayal of Pākehā as universally ‘wicked, or stupid or cowards, or all of those’,
as against ‘noble and clever and brave’ Māori.96 While some dismissed Belich’s
work as ‘politically correct’ nonsense – “part of continuing propaganda by an
elitist neo-liberal...academic grouping which wants to change society to reflect its
own ideology”, 97 as one correspondent put it – others seized on a particular issue
which they claimed undermined the credibility of the work as a whole. How dare
Belich suggest that Māori might have contributed to the invention of modern-day
trench warfare, these critics complained.98

After this brief bout of excitement, the war was quickly forgotten again. There
was to be no new narrative based on recognition of Māori military achievement
(far less on a frank acknowledgement of British atrocities committed at Ōrākau,
Rangiaowhia and elsewhere). Meanwhile, there has been one positive development.
The sesquicentary of the Waikato War saw local Iwi take a prominent role in
ensuring that the key battles were remembered in a culturally appropriate way.99
They emphasised that their intention was not to demonise the troops who fought
on the British or Crown side, but to honour the memory of all those who fell in
the conflict.
No doubt the formal apology to Tainui signed into law by Queen Elizabeth II
in 1995 for the Crown’s invasion of Waikato has contributed to a greater Māori
willingness to engage in these public acts of remembrance.100 Yet important as
the Treaty settlements process is, it is not an excuse for the rest of New Zealand
to simply forget. We still need to own our history, warts and all. In 2014, there
were no special trains from Auckland, no mass school closures. Just a kind of
awkwardness.
The Waikato War does not fit within a comfortable nation-building framework.
According to the legend, our nation was born at Gallipoli, not Ōrākau. Who wants
troubling introspection when we can have heart-warming patriotism instead? That,
fundamentally, is the reason for the historical amnesia. That stands in marked
contrast with the Ōrākau ‘celebrations’ of 1914, which could be seen as a kind of
pre-Gallipoli foundational narrative, based around the mythical notion of fifty years
of peace and the greatest race relations in the world.101 Those ideas continued to
exert a powerful influence on the way in which the Waikato War was marked half
a century later. But much has changed since the 1960s.
Today, when we can no longer celebrate the Waikato War, the challenge is to
find new narratives that at least allow us to remember it. For some (but certainly
not all) older Pākehā New Zealanders brought up to believe that they grew up in
a country with the greatest ‘race relations’ in the world, confronting the darker
reality of our New Zealand Wars history may be deeply unsettling. John Key’s
2014 insistence that New Zealand was settled peacefully was widely ridiculed at
the time.102 But the sentiments that underlay that statement retain an enduring
appeal in some quarters. We can no longer allow such views to go unchallenged.
A mature nation takes ownership of its history, not just cherry-picking the good
bits out to remember but also acknowledging the bad bits as well, and the Waikato

War features some of the darkest episodes in New Zealand history. It was a
deliberate war of conquest started by the Crown, relying on fabricated evidence
of a supposed Kīngitanga threat to Europeans. It saw a professional standing
army belonging to the world’s sole superpower at the time unleashed on a civilian
population that was heavily outnumbered and did not have the firepower and
technology available to the British. In this asymmetrical war, the British had
armour-plated steamers. Māori had wooden canoes and were outnumbered four
to one. It should have been no contest.103
Under these circumstances the Tainui tribes and their supporters suffered
horrendous casualty rates. Those killed included women and children, some the
victims of clear atrocities. At Rangiaowhia people were deliberately torched to
death inside their whare. At Ōrākau a cavalry was unleashed against the occupants
of the Pā as they sought to flee for their lives on foot. More than half were killed,
including documented cases of female prisoners bayonetted by troops.
Although Europeans later attempted to depict the war as one marked by mutual
chivalry and bravery, there was nothing noble and glorious about any of this. And
it is time that we as a nation acknowledge that fact, confronting the reality of what
actually took place. It may be uncomfortable history for some but it’s a truth that
Pākehā can no longer run from. Owning our past requires guts and maturity. No
one ever said it would be easy, but it is an essential step in the development of
the nation.
And if we look closely enough we might even find a few uplifting aspects to the
story, such as the principled idealism and bicultural vision of Wiremu Tamihana,
Rewi Maniapoto’s insistence on fighting fairly and honourably, even when under
horrendous attack or even the sheer bravery of those few Pākehā who spoke out
against the war at a time when many settlers were baying for Māori blood.104 That
took courage and conviction.
Pākehā who lack awareness of the history of this country also lack the means
to fully understand the present. Māori poverty, for example, makes little sense
without an understanding of the historical context, leaving some to resort to
deficit theories blaming Māori themselves for their predicament. In reality, the
war destroyed a flourishing Māori economy. Sweeping and indiscriminate land
confiscations pushed generations of Tainui people into landlessness and poverty.
And it marked the point at which Treaty of Waitangi was swept aside for the next

century or more. That was felt in multiple ways, including the establishment of
a Native Land Court that further stripped Māori of their whenua, and a native
schools system designed to further the Crown’s assimilationist agenda.105
Without dialogue there can be no reconciliation. We need a national conversation

about the wars fought on our own shores. The purpose of remembering them is
not to sow discord or division but to bind us together as a nation that can honestly
confront its own past. That is not about assigning blame, it is just about taking
ownership of our history. Moving confidently into the future requires a robust
understanding of where we have come from and been.
We commemorate World War One on a grand scale because it provides ready

opportunities to rally around the flag. The Waikato War offers cold comfort for
those seeking reassuring tales of patriotism. Some have argued that it is best
forgotten and that we should let sleeping dogs lie. I beg to differ.
These are stories that need to be told and heard. As the Waitangi Tribunal
has said, “While only one side remembers the suffering of the past, dialogue will
always be difficult. One side commences the dialogue with anger and the other
side has no idea why. Reconciliation cannot be achieved by this means.”106 And
so it is time for New Zealanders to learn about this history that Tainui and other
Iwi have carried alone for so many generations.
It is vital that New Zealanders are in touch with their own history and that is
why the New Zealand Wars (not just the Waikato conflict) should be taught to all
school children. We can debate the practicalities of how that might take place, but
the principle is just common sense. Secondly, I think we could be doing a whole
lot more to protect and promote the actual battle sites. Some of them are in a
pretty disgraceful condition. And allied with that, more information and resources
should be made available so that people, and not just school children, learn about
this history. These are not big asks and they do not require a major allocation of
resources, just a commitment to recognising the importance of this history.
This is our story, our history. It happened here, in this place, relatively recently
in historical terms and it had profound consequences for what New Zealand was
and would become. While it is a history that many New Zealanders have preferred
to ignore until now, the response to my book (‘The Great War for New Zealand:
Waikato, 1800-2000’, launched in 2016), and to the Ōtorohanga College petition

that led to a national day of commemoration for the New Zealand Wars, gives me
hope that we might be entering a new phase.107 It seems that after a long period of
neglect, many Pākehā New Zealand might at last be ready again to remember the
wars fought on our own shores. That is a welcome development and not before
time. Understanding and awareness of this shared and tragic history is essential
if we are to move together into the future as a confident and united nation.
REFERENCES:
1
An earlier version of this chapter was published as ‘“Recording the Incident
with a Monument”: The Waikato War in Historical Memory’, Journal
of New Zealand Studies, 19 (2015): 79-97.
2
Chris Maclean and Jock Phillips, The Sorrow and the Pride: New Zealand War
Memorials (Wellington: GP Books, 1990), 28.
3
James Belich, Paradise Reforged: A History of the New Zealanders from the
1880s to the Year 2000 (Auckland: Penguin, 2001), 209-10; Jane
Stafford and Mark Williams, Maoriland: New Zealand Literature,
1872-1914 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2006).
4
James Belich has argued that a central feature of this ‘suppressive reflex’
was a tendency to downplay Māori military achievement in the wars.
James Belich, The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of
Racial Conflict (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1986), 318.
5
For details on the range of activities being funded see ‘Activities and
Projects’, New Zealand WW100, accessed 23 November 2017, http://
ww100.govt.nz/. This does not include television programmes
funded separately through NZ on Air. One journalist has calculated
that, in total, the Government has committed something like
$25 million to the World War One centenary and associated
events, but only around one per cent ($250,000) on the Waikato
War sesquicentenary, including the Tauranga campaign. Alison
McCulloch, ‘Lest We Remember’, Werewolf, 47 (2014), accessed 23
November 2017, http://werewolf.co.nz/2014/04/lest-we-remember/.
6
Just under 10,000 people vied for the 2000 places allocated New Zealand
for the 25 April 2015 ceremony. ‘Almost 10,000 in Gallipoli ticket
ballot’, RNZ, accessed 23 November 2017, http://www.radionz.co.nz/
news/national/234927/almost-10,000-in-gallipoli-ticket-ballot

7
‘Thousands Show Up to Remember Rangiriri’, 3 News, accessed 23
November 2017, http://www.3news.co.nz/Thousands-show-up-to-
remember-Rangiriri/tabid/423/articleID/322154/Default.aspx.
8
‘Large Crowd Remembers Crucial Battle in Land Wars’, New Zealand
Herald, accessed 23 November 2017, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/
news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11230464; ‘Call for Restitution
as Orakau Remembered’, Waikato Times, accessed 23 November,
http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/9894885/Call-for-
restitution-as-Orakau-remembered.
9
Neil Jarman, ‘Commemorating 1916, Celebrating Difference: Parading and
Painting in Belfast’, in The Art of Forgetting, eds Adrian Forty and
Susanne Küchler (Oxford: Berg, 1999) 171.
10
‘What a nation chooses to remember and forget: The war for New
Zealand’s history’, The Guardian, 18 October 2016, accessed 24
November 2017 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/
oct/18/what-a-nation-chooses-to-remember-and-forget-the-war-for-
new-zealands-history
11
‘Waikato Battle Remembered at Rangiriri’, Waikato Times, accessed
23 November 2017, http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/
news/9421174/Waikato-battle-remembered-at-Rangiriri.
12
‘Relevance of Bloody Battle Felt 150 Years On’, TVNZ News, accessed 8
May 2014, http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/relevance-bloody-battle-
felt-150-years-5718223.
13
Belich, New Zealand Wars, 126.
14
Or at least where at the time it was assumed to have stood: recent
archaeological investigations indicate that the pā was most likely
located approximately seventy metres to the east of the monument
and south of the road. If that is correct, then the old story about
Arapuni Road being deliberately constructed through the middle
of the pā sometime prior to 1914 might no longer hold good.
However, the pā had been levelled by British troops in the immediate
aftermath of the battle, so there remains the distinct possibility that
those who had constructed the road remained under the impression
at the time that they had indeed torn through the heart of the pā. If
that is the case then it does seem one of New Zealand history’s great
ironies – the road of destruction which missed its target. ‘Orakau
Paewai Registration Report’, 2013, Heritage New Zealand, accessed
23 November 2017, http://www.heritage.org.nz/the-register/
details/9615.

15
Maclean and Phillips, Sorrow and the Pride, 29.
16
Kynan Gentry, History, Heritage, and Colonialism: Historical Consciousness,
Britishness, and Cultural Identity in New Zealand, 1870-1940
(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2015) 101; Maclean and
Phillips, Sorrow and the Pride, 101.
17
‘Orakau Celebrations’, New Zealand Herald, 30 March 1914.
18
‘The Fruit of Orakau’, New Zealand Herald, 31 March 1914.
19
The decision to erect the monument appears to have been prompted by
a question asked in Parliament in August 1910. William Jennings,
the MP for Taumarunui, asked Prime Minister Joseph Ward whether
the Government was willing to set aside a small sum in that year’s
estimates to provide for the erection of an obelisk at Ōrākau.
Investigations began soon after and by 1911 a granite obelisk had
been commissioned for erection on the roadside at Ōrākau at a total
cost of £60. AANS W5951 25421 Box 26 CEM-0096 part 1, Archives
NZ.
20
‘ “Ake! Ake! Ake!”’, Timaru Herald, 21 March 1914.
21
Gilbert Mair, Jubilee Souvenir of Battle of Orakau, Fought March 31st, April
1st, and 2nd, 1864, and in Commemoration of 50 Years of Peace, 1864-
1914 (Hamilton: Waikato Times, 1914).
22
‘Fifty Years of Peace’, New Zealand Herald, 2 March 1914; ‘Fifty Years of
Peace’, Auckland Star, 18 March 1914.
23
For example, ‘Battle of Orakau’ (letter to editor), New Zealand Herald, 30
March 1914.
24
‘Orakau Jubilee’, New Zealand Herald, 2 April 1914.
25
See, for example, J.W. Ellis, ‘Rewi Maniapoto the Fighter’, New Zealand
Herald, 14 March 1914; J.W. Ellis, ‘Rewi Maniapoto and Orakau’, New
Zealand Herald, 7 March 1914; Gilbert Mair (letter to editor), ‘”Ake!
Ake! Ake!” and Orakau’, New Zealand Herald, 30 June 1913; Gilbert
Mair, ‘Rewi’s Part at Orakau’, New Zealand Herald, 21 March 1914.
26
Manuka Henare, ‘Maniapoto, Rewi Manga’, DNZB, Vol. 1, 263-65.
27
Maclean and Phillips, Sorrow and the Pride, 35-36.
28
‘Erected by the N.Z. Government in memory of the Maori heroes who
fell in the battles of Hairini and Orakau – 1864 many of whom

lie buried beneath or near this stone.’ St John’s Church Māori NZ
Wars Memorial, NZ History, accessed 23 November 2017, http://
www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/st-johns-church-maori-nz-wars-
memorial
29
Another measure was the famous monument to Rawiri Puhirake, who had
fought in the Tauranga campaign at Gate Pā on 29 April 1864, before
being killed at Te Ranga nearly two months later. The monument was
unveiled on the fiftieth anniversary of Te Ranga on 21 June 1914.
30
James Hislop, Under Secretary, Department of Internal Affairs, 20 August
1914, IA 1 7/4/38, Archives NZ.
31
Gregory Wood, ‘Revisiting James Cowan: A Reassessment of The New
Zealand Wars (1922-23)’ (master’s thesis, Massey University, 2010),
50.
32
Ian McGibbon, ‘ “Something of them is Here Recorded” Official History in
New Zealand’, in The Last Word? Essays on Official History in the
United States and British Commonwealth, ed. Jeffrey Grey (Westport
(Connecticut): Praeger, 2003), 57.
33
‘The wars ended with a strong mutual respect, tinged with a real affection,
which would never have existed but for this ordeal by battle.’ James
Cowan, The New Zealand Wars and the Pioneering Period (Wellington:
Government Printer, 1983), 1: 3.
34
A screening of the original film at Te Awamutu in 1925 was attended by
Te Huia Raureti, said to be just one of three surviving veterans of the
defence of Ōrākau by this time. ‘Veteran of Orakau Sees “Rewi’s Last
Stannd”’, Evening Post, 9 November 1925.
35
Cowan’s book is shown in the first scene, while the opening credits declare
that the film had been written by Hayward ‘From the basis of records
by JAMES COWAN, Official Historian.’
36
Annabel Cooper, ‘”Our Old Friends and Recent Foes”: James Cowan,
Rudall Hayward and Memories of Natural Affections in the New
Zealand Wars’, Journal of New Zealand Studies, 14 (2013): 152-70;
Jennifer Evans, ‘Making of Orakau Battle Film Was Major Event in
District’, Footprints of History, 12 (1994): 20-23.
37
A Forest Ranger comments, soon after Ariana is shot, that, with their hair
cut short, it is difficult to tell the difference between the women
and the men fleeing the pā, echoing an excuse that was used at the

time for the killing of multiple women. But Ariana and the other
women depicted in the film do not have short hair. And in real life
there were other notable differences. It appears that many of the
men wore European waistcoats as a convenient way of storing their
ammunition, something which the women were unlikely to have
replicated. In the film the men wear only piupiu (flax skirts). On
the film generally see: Martin Blythe, Naming the Other: Images of the
Maori in New Zealand Film and Television (Metuchen (New Jersey):
Scarecrow Press, 1994), 39-49; Alistair Fox, ‘Rudall Hayward and
the Cinema of Maoriland: Genre-mixing and Counter-discourses in
Rewi’s Last Stand (1925), The Te Kooti Trail (1927) and Rewi’s Last
Stand/The Last Stand (1940)’, in New Zealand Cinema: Interpreting
the Past, eds Alistair Fox, Barry Keith Grant and Hilary Radner
(Bristol: Intellect, 2011), 45-64; ‘New Zealand Feature Project, Rewi’s
Last Stand’, The Film Archive, accessed 12 May 2014, http://www.
filmarchive.org.nz/feature-project/pages/Rewis.php.
38
‘The Battle of Orakau’, Te Puke Times, 3 March 1914.
39
‘Maori Grievances’, New Zealand Herald, 31 March 1914. King Te Rata got
to meet with King George V in June 1914, but only on condition that
no grievances were raised. Michael King, Te Puea (Auckland: Hodder
and Stoughton, 1977), 74-5; Claudia Orange, The Treaty of Waitangi
(Wellington: Allen & Unwin/Port Nicholson Press, 1987), 228;
Vincent O’Malley, ‘Kingitanga and Crown: New Zealand’s Maori King
Movement and its Relationship with the British Monarchy’, in Crowns
and Colonies: European Monarchies and Overseas Empires, eds Robert
Aldrich and Cindy McCreery (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 2016) 163-76.
40
‘Battle of Orakau’ (letter to the editor), New Zealand Herald, 30 March
1914.
41
‘Maori Grievances’, New Zealand Herald, 31 March 1914.
42
‘”For Ever and Ever!”’, Auckland Star, 2 April 1914.
43
‘At Historic Parihaka’, Evening Post, 19 March 1914.
44
King Country Chronicle, 25 February 1914; ‘Battle of Orakau’, New
Zealand Herald, 23 October 1913; ‘Fifty Years of Peace’, New Zealand
Herald, 2 March 1914; ‘Battle of Orakau’, New Zealand Herald, 19
March 1914;’Personal Matters, Vice-Regal’, Evening Post, 17 March
1914; ‘”Ake! Ake! Ake!”’, Timaru Herald, 21 March 1914.
45
King Country Chronicle, 7 March 1914; ‘Orakau Celebrations, Governor

Cannot Be Present’, New Zealand Herald, 26 March 1914; ‘The
Premier at Fairlie’, Press, 1 April 1914; ‘Mr Massey in South
Canterbury’, Timaru Herald, 1 April 1914; ‘A Great Success’, Press, 2
April 1914.
46
‘Orakau Jubilee’, New Zealand Herald, 2 April 1914.
47
‘Notable Function’, Evening Post, 2 April 1914; ‘”For Ever, and Ever!”’,
Auckland Star, 2 April 1914; ‘Orakau Jubilee’, King Country
Chronicle, 4 April 1914. Six veterans were named in these reports
and a photograph of the group, probably taken at the time of the
ceremony, later appeared in Cowan’s history of the New Zealand
Wars. However, according to Cowan, one member of this group,
Hekiera Te Rangai, though most likely a veteran of the Waikato
conflict, had not fought at Ōrākau. Yet it was Hekiera, wearing the
same clothes as in the group portrait, who appeared in another
photograph, this time shaking hands with a Pākehā veteran of the
war in front of the Ōrākau monument. James Cowan, The New
Zealand Wars, 1: 405.
48
Membership of the various organising committees (ten in all) is set out in
Mair, Jubilee Souvenir of Battle of Orakau. J.W. Ellis, a Pākehā, was the
second member of the committee on which Wahanui sat.
49
A.W. Robin, Quartermaster General, to Colonel T.W. Porter, 6 August
1914, AD 1 23/30/1, Archives NZ.
50
It was often assumed to have also been captured in Taranaki at the same
time as the flag. One version had it that both had been seized during
the February 1869 attack on the Pukearuhe Redoubt, in northern
Taranaki, in which eight Europeans, including the missionary John
Whiteley, were killed by a Ngāti Maniapoto party. ‘Orakau Jubilee’,
New Zealand Herald, 2 April 1914.
51
‘Orakau Jubilee’, King Country Chronicle, 4 April 1914.
52
Minister of Defence to Minister of Railways, 31 August 1921, AD 1 23/30,
Archives NZ.
53
‘Accession No. A96.636’, Pukeariki Museum, accessed
9 May 2014, http://vernon.npdc.govt.nz/search.
do?id=175281&db=object&page=1&view=detail.
54
Thomas Hughes, ‘alias Pou Patate’, to Maui Pomare, 11 July 1919, AD 1
23/30/1, Archives NZ.

55
James Allen, Minister of Defence, to Maui Pomare, September 1919, AD 1
56
In the 1913-14 financial year a total of £29,447 was paid to 1240 military
pensioners (including 128 Māori who had fought on the Crown
side), an average of just under £24 per person. The full pension was
worth £36. ‘Sixteenth Annual Report of the Pensions Department’,
Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1914, H-18, 7.
57
New Zealander, cited in New Zealand Herald, 14 April 1864. The Herald
denounced this allegation as an unfounded ‘calumny’, while the
Daily Southern Cross (12 April 1864) was also outraged. However,
the eyewitness accounts of William Mair and others (discussed
below) prove beyond doubt that atrocities of this nature were
committed at Orakau.
58
‘Battle of Orakau’, Evening Post, 1 April 1914.
59
‘Battle of Orakau’, Auckland Star, 31 March 1914.
60
W.G. Mair, 6 April 1864, Gilbert Mair, Papers Relating to the New Zealand
Wars, MS-Papers-4862, ATL
61
Hitiri Te Paerata, Description of the Battle of Orakau, As Given by the Native
Chief Hitiri Te Paerata of the Ngatiraukawa Tribe, at the Parliament
Buildings, 4th August 1888 (Wellington: Government Printer, 1888),
5-6.
62
William Race, Under the Flag. Reminiscences of the Waikato War, by a
Forest Ranger, 206, qMS-1671, ATL.
63
J. Hislop, Under Secretary, Department of Internal affairs, to E.M. Statham,
Inspector of Old Soldiers’ Graves, 17 May 1915, IA 1 7/4/38,
Archives NZ.
64
Translation of draft inscription, n.d. [c. January 1917], IA 1 7/4/38, Archives
NZ.
65
E.M. Statham to J. Hislop, 15 January 1917, IA 1 7/4/38, Archives NZ. Edith
Statham played a vital role in protecting and marking the sites of
old soldiers’ graves with memorials, including those of Māori who
had fought against the British. See Maclean and Phillips, The Sorrow
and the Pride, 34-38; Jock Phillips, ‘Statham, Edith Mary’, Dictionary
of New Zealand Biography. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New
Zealand, accessed 23 November 2017, http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/
biographies/3s32/statham-edith-mary

66
Best downplayed Rewi Maniapoto’s role at Orakau, and suggested that if an
inscription to him was still considered advisable, ‘It might be stated
that “He was a Chief of Ngatimaniapoto, and a leading man among
the natives who defended Orakau against the British troops in 1864”
– or something to that effect.’ J. Allan Thomson, Director, Dominion
Museum, to Under Secretary, Internal Affairs, 20 January 1917, IA 1
66
‘War Memorial. Mercer’s Tribute to Fallen’, Auckland Star, 3 September
1921; ‘The Mercer Memorial. A Unique Structure’, Pukekohe and
Waiuku Times, 26 April 1922.
68
‘Pioneer’ Gun Turret and War Memorial’, Heritage New Zealand, accessed
24 November 2017, http://www.heritage.org.nz/the-list/details/7647
69
‘Maori War Relic’, New Zealand Herald, 18 March 1926.
70
Unlabelled newspaper clipping, 21 April 1921, James Cowan Papers, MS-
Papers-11310-114, ATL.
71
‘Pageant of Empire’, New Zealand Herald, 29 July 1924.
72
James Cowan to General Manager, Tourist Department, 25 September
1908, ABWN W5021 7610 Box 816 361 part 1, Archives NZ. As part
of the Waikato Expressway project, this section of State Highway
One was in 2016 diverted away from the Rangiriri pā reserve and
the land returned to the Kīngitanga. Shannon Haunui-Thompson,
‘Rangiriri Pā Returned After 1863 Invasion’, RNZ, accessed
23 November 2017, http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/te-manu-
korihi/311348/rangiriri-pa-returned-after-1863-invasion
73
‘Graves of Orakau’, Auckland Star, 2 April 1927 (with handwritten marginal
note from James Cowan), in IA 1 7/4/38, Archives NZ.
74
‘Memories of Rangiriri’, Auckland Star, 14 April 1927; ‘Rangiriri Memorial’,
New Zealand Herald, 14 April 1927; ‘Rangiriri NZ Wars cemetery
arch’, NZ History, accessed 23 November 2017, http://www.
nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/rangiriri-nz-wars-cemetery-arch
75
‘Orakau’, Auckland Star, 2 April 1935, in IA 1 7/4/38, Archives NZ.
76
‘Historical Society’, Te Awamutu Historical Society, 19 March 1937, in IA 1
77
J.W. Heenan, Under Secretary, Department of Internal Affairs, to H.A.
Swarbrick, Honorary Secretary, Te Awamutu Historical Society, 9
September 1937, IA 1 7/4/38, Archives NZ.

78
F.S. Dyson, District Engineer, to Under Secretary, Department of Internal
Affairs, 22 September 1937, IA 1 7/4/38, Archives NZ.
79
‘After 75 Years’, Auckland Star, 1 April 1939, in IA 1 7/4/38, Archives NZ.
80
James Cowan, ‘The Settlement of the Waikato’ [October 1939], Cowan
Papers, MS-Papers-0039-54D, ATL.
81
See Chris Hilliard, ‘James Cowan and the Frontiers of New Zealand
History’, New Zealand Journal of History, 31, no. 2 (1997): 230-32;
Chris Hilliard, The Bookmen’s Dominion: Cultural Life in New
Zealand, 1920-1950 (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2006),
77-80.
82
‘Centenary Plan Opened Up Again’, Auckland Star, 11 October 1963;
‘Rangiriri Centenary: Handshake Solves Any Difficulties’, Waikato
Times, 16 October 1963.
83
The Battle of Rangiriri Centenary, 1863-1963: Souvenir Programme (Rangiriri,
1963).
84
My thanks to Basil Keane for pointing this out.
85
A Message from His Excellency Brig. Sir Bernard Fergusson, in The Battle of
Rangiriri Centenary, 5.
86
‘Races Pay Homage to War Dead’, New Zealand Herald, 25 November 1963.
87
Orakau Commemoration, 1864-1964: Kihikihi Centenary (Te Awamutu: Te
Awamutu Jaycees, 1964).
88
Paul Diamond, ‘Ōrākau: Ka Maumahara Tonu Tātou’, The Meeting Place
– A New Zealand History Blog, accessed 24 November 2017, http://
themeetingplacenz.blogspot.co.nz/2014/05/orakau-ka-maumahara-
tonu-tatou.html.
89
Harry Dansey, ‘Reflections on Battle Centenaries’, Te Ao Hou, 48 (1964):
34-35.
90
Harry Dansey, ‘Reflections on Battle Centenaries’, Te Ao Hou, 48 (1964): 35.
91
King Koroki, who was in poor health by this time, did not attend the
anniversary, instead sending his daughter Piki, who in 1966 became
Queen Te Atairangikaahu. ‘Tribute Paid at Centenary of Orakau
Battle’, New Zealand Herald, 1 April 1964.
92
As indeed had the view that New Zealand had the greatest ‘race relations’
in the world. Although Keith Sinclair in 1971 published the text

of a short talk that assumed such superiority over other former
settler colonies, it was seen as a sign that Sinclair was himself out of
step with the new histories emerging from a younger generation of
historians such as Alan Ward. Keith Sinclair, ‘Why are Race Relations
in New Zealand Better Than in South Africa, South Australia or South
Dakota?’, New Zealand Journal of History, 5, no. 2 (1971): 121-27;
Vincent O’Malley, ‘Unsettling New Zealand History: The Revisionism
of Sinclair and Ward’, in Texts and Contexts: Reflections in Pacific
Islands Historiography, eds Doug Munro and Brij V. Lal (Honolulu:
University of Hawai’i Press, 2006), 154-65.
93
See Trisha Dunleavy, ‘”Magnificent Failure” or Subversive Triumph? The
Governor’, in Making Film and Television Histories: Australia and New
Zealand, eds James E. Bennett and Rebecca Beirne (London: I.B.
Tauris, 2012), 67-72.
94
Annabel Cooper, ‘Televisual Memory and the New Zealand Wars: Bicultural
Identities, Masculinity and Landscape’, European Journal of Cultural
Studies, 14, no. 4 (2011): 449-50.
95
Paul Diamond, ‘Potshots Fired Over Belich’s Wars’, Evening Post, 8 July
1998.
96
Letter to editor, ‘Doco’s Whites are Stupid, Maori Clever’, Evening Post, 3
July 1998.
97
Letter to editor, ‘Series Part of Campaign’, Sunday Star Times, 28 June 1998.
98
See, for one of the more scholarly critiques along these lines, John M.
Gates, ‘James Belich and the Modernist Maori Pa: Revisionist History
Revised’, War and Society, 19, no. 2 (2001): 47-68. Gates’ view was
itself critically analysed. See Lorenzo Veracini, ‘’Revising Revisionist
History: The “Maori Achievement” and Recent Historiographical
Developments on the “New Zealand Wars”, Electronic Journal of
Australian and New Zealand History, accessed 12 May 2014, http://
www.jcu.edu.au/aff/history/articles/veracini.html.
99
As David Green noted, this was almost a mirror image of 1913-14, when
Pākehā worthies had called almost all the shots when it came to
planning for the jubilee. Green, quoted in McCulloch, ‘Lest We
Remember’.
100
Tainui negotiators had asked that the Queen personally deliver the
apology. But that was a bridge too far for Crown officials (and
without constitutional precedent). And so the compromise was that
she would sign the Waikato Raupatu Claims Settlement Bill, which

included the apology, into law during a visit to New Zealand to
attend a Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Auckland.
The royal connection remained an important one to Waikato Māori
and early in 2014 there were reportedly high hopes that the Duke
and Duchess of Cambridge would attend the 150th commemoration
of Ōrākau. However, their itinerary ultimately saw the royal couple
arrive in New Zealand one week after the Ōrākau gathering. ‘Queen
Apology Improper – Graham’, Dominion, 3 July 1995; ‘High Hopes of
a Royal Stop at Orakau Centenary’, Waikato Times, 3 January 2014.
101
See also Charlotte Macdonald, ‘The First World War and the Making
of Colonial Memory’, Journal of New Zealand Literature, 33, no. 2
(2015): 15-37.
102
Chris Bramwell, ‘Peaceful settlement’ view challenged, RNZ, accessed 23
November 2017, https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/political/260174/
peaceful-settlement-view-challenged
103
Vincent O’Malley, The Great War for New Zealand: Waikato, 1800-2000
(Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2016), ch.11.
104
See Vincent O’Malley, ‘A Tale of Two Rangatira: Rewi Maniapoto, Wiremu
Tamihana and the Waikato War’, Journal of the Polynesian Society, 125,
no. 4 (2016): 341-57.
105
O’Malley, Great War for New Zealand, 600-01.
106
Waitangi Tribunal, Turanga Tangata, Turanga Whenua: The Report on the
Turanganui a Kiwa Claims (Wellington: 2004), 740.
107
See Joanna Kidman, ‘Young Kiwis Shatter Silence About Our Difficult Past’,
Newsroom, accessed 23 November 2017, https://www.newsroom.
co.nz/@future-learning/2017/08/16/42900/young-kiwis-shatter-
silence-about-our-difficult-past; Vincent O’Malley and Joanna
Kidman, ‘Settler Colonial History, Commemoration and White
Backlash: Remembering the New Zealand Wars’, Settler Colonial
Studies (published online 22 January 2017), accessed 23 November
2017, http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/220147
3X.2017.1279831

FIGURES
Fig. 1. The Ōrākau mounument unveiled on 1 April 1914. Photograph by
Vincent O’Malley, 2015.
Fig. 2. Detail from the monument to the ‘Maori Heroes’ unveiled at St John’s
Church, Te Awamutu, 11 June 1914. Photograph by Vincent
O’Malley, 2015.
Fig. 3. The Pioneer gun turret at Mercer, unveiled in 1922 as a memorial

to those who served in World War One. Photograph by Vincent
O’Malley, 2015.

Che Wilson
CHAPTER 4
THE WHANGANUI EXPERIENCE

RESISTANCE AND COLLABORATION
ARE VALID FORMS OF SURVIVAL
CHE WILSON
Taku tūranga ake ki runga rā

Kaore ia rā aku tapuwae… 1
These words capture the sentiments of the kuia Hinerua II2 as she
mourned the passing of her son in a pre-European battle. She had a
premonition that her son had fallen in battle and composed this waiata
tangi to describe the pain she felt as she knew her son had been killed.
This waiata tangi was then revived following the Battle of Tataraimaka
in Taranaki in 1861 when Whanganui went to assist Taranaki and were
slaughtered as a result of being too eager and not adhering to their role of
distracting the enemy. There are many examples of laments that remind
us of the deeds of the past and the key is to learn and try not to repeat
any mistakes. For these laments are in fact a form of commemoration,
legitimate to our culture and similar across the world.
Ko Ruapehu te maunga
Ko Whanganui me Whangaehu ngā awa
Ko Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi me Ngāti Rangi ngā iwi
Ko Whanganui te iwi whānui
Remembering the actions of the past, including the military actions of

our tūpuna around Aotearoa in the 1800s, has gained momentum and
Te Pūtake o te Riri is a result of this heightened attention. However, I am
unsure how much is known about the Whanganui experience during

the 1860s and especially how Whanganui followed both the path of resistance
and the path of collaboration. Indeed, there may be more known about our path
of collaboration as Dr Monty Soutar argues that the origin of the word kūpapa
originates in Whanganui!
As a snapshot, there were two battles within the Whanganui rohe:

1. The Battle of Moutoa – 14 May 1864; and
2. The Battle of Ohoutahi – 24 February 1865.
Both battles were against ourselves as Whanganui and are possibly more
challenging to talk about because it is easy to highlight the evil Crown rather than
confront our own challenges, although the Crown were behind both battles. There
were also skirmishes in Pīpīriki in 1865 and Whanganui Kūpapa also went to the
aid of the Crown under the leadership of Taitoko Te Rangihiwinui (Major Kemp
[Fig.1] or Te Keepa) in Taranaki and Whanganui who were part of the pursuit of Te
Kooti around the North Island including leading at the Battle of Te Pōrere in 1869.
Figure 1. Te Rangihiwinui (Major Kemp)

It is difficult to know how to share through the mixed emotions of the experience
of our tūpuna when my father’s lines descend from Te Rangihiwinui and his
followers and my mother’s lines come from Matene Rangitauira (leader of the Pai
Mārire or Hauhau supporters). Added to this, Matene Rangitauira’s granddaughters
were all married to descendants of Kūpapa to ensure peace was maintained
between future generations. It is through this web of interconnectedness that my
grandmother’s older sister, Rumatiki Wright, passed down through her whānau
a number of quotes related to the conflict period of the 1860s including the title
of this paper, “Resistance and collaboration are valid forms of survival.”
Survival is captured beautifully in the processes associated with tangihanga and

the importance of grieving and letting go. In letting go, we can live another day to
ensure that the trauma associated with loss does not eat away at us so much that we
then lose perspective. This is also captured in the quote of Te Rangihiwinui when
he vested the remaining Whanganui lands into trust to ensure that there would be
no more loss in 1897. These words are memorialised as he passed within a year
of making the following statement to John Balance and James Carroll:
“Te mōrehu whenua, te mōrehu tangata.”

“The remnants of the land (following our loss and loyalty to the Crown) are left
to sustain those that have survived our tragic experience.”
This is even more important because as collaborators, Whanganui supported the

Crown and though we were paid inland from other tribes, including Orimakatea
in Taranaki for services rendered, they were then punished with the loss of our
principal mountain and source of identity when Ruapehu was gifted by our
whanaunga and neighbouring tribe.
Returning to collaboration, it is my assertion that Whanganui as well as other

Kūpapa tribes made the decision to collaborate rather than resist as a result of
the inter-iwi conflicts of the 1810s and 1820s. Traditionally, Whanganui would
use its natural landscape to protect itself. The lower river is open and liable to
attack and therefore when the lower river was threatened they would then return
upstream to the rugged hill country and gorges of the upper Whanganui River.
This is known as ‘te koura puta roa’, where like the crayfish, the people would
retreat to the protection of its lair – the natural surrounds and protection of their
river. Once in the safety of this area, you can use ladders to get to the safety of pā
and big protected flats and can easily use rocks and logs to roll off cliffs to swamp
the raiding parties and then attack them.

However, with the advent of the musket and a change in combat, we suffered
great loss and we were able to convince the Āmiowhenua raiders for the Far North
to finish our battle at Kaiwhakauka in the upper river area near Whakahoro.
After being chased up river, we were able to negotiate a one-on-one battle between
our best warriors, Te Hāmārama for Whanganui and Tūwhare for the Far North, to
finish the battles and skirmishes. Tūwhare was injured and fled and Whanganui
was able to regroup and maintain peace. But both the various conflicts with the
Far North tribes, Ngāti Raukawa and Ngāti Toa, impacted our view on the new
style of combat and I maintain was a key driver for the lower river people choosing
the path of collaboration. Added to this, the establishment of the port city of
Whanganui meant constant and direct contact with settlers and the exposure to
both opportunities and threats.
There were other key events in the late 1850s and early 1860s that led to
Whanganui taking two paths. Whanganui co-hosted the 1856 Pūkawa Hui to
establish a Māori King with their close whanaunga, Ngāti Tūwharetoa. This
promoted independence and utilising a single voice to protect and challenge
the settler Government. Added to this, in 1860 Whanganui hosted the Kōkako
Hui, a hui to bring its neighbouring tribes together to confirm boundaries and to
cease the selling of land and encouraging leasing. Kōkako is between Waiouru
and Taihape and included the tribes of Tūwharetoa, Kahungunu, Ngāti Raukawa,
Rangitīkei and Whanganui. These events, as well as interaction with settlers and
the impact the Government were having on the loss of land, meant that Whanganui
were brewing for a fight. Sadly, it came to pass that this fight would be with each
other as Whanganui.
There were those that had been exposed to the opportunities that the new people
had brought who were principally based in the lower river and those that had been
poisoned with arsenic in their flour and sugar they purchased who were based
in the upper river. Therefore, on the 13th May 1864, these two parties gathered
and agreed to meet the next morning on the 14th of May 1864, at an island on
the Whanganui river known as Moutoa based near the settlement of Rānana.
The Battle of Moutoa was led by Te Rangihiwinui (Major Kemp) for the Kūpapa
forces and Matene Rangitauira who led the Pai Mārire contingent. Rangitauira
had commissioned the building of the waka, Teremoe [Fig.2], and led his people
to Hiruharama and then to Tāwhitinui, immediately across from Moutoa. At 7am
on the morning of the 14th, both parties were in place and Kereti Te Hiwitahi (a

member of the Kūpapa party) had arrived earlier to lay down a whāriki and start
the battle with one shot to the heavens and one to the ground.
This exposed him and he was shot, becoming the ‘ika mātahi’ and his people
then understanding the purpose of the whāriki, used it to roll him in and carried
him away. By 9am, tensions had risen again and then around fifteen minutes later
Matene Rangitauira swam across the river and was shot and injured. Te Mooro,
a relative of Rangitauira and a member of the Kūpapa contingent, dived in to the
river and swam over to check if Rangitauira was alive. Rangitauira was alive and
once Te Mooro got to him, Rangitauira handed over this patu pounamu and said
to his cousin:
“From horizon to horizon shall always be ours…”
Te Mooro was then renamed Te Mooro Rukuwai to remember the act of diving in
to the river and swimming over to kill Rangitauira. Rangitauira’s waka, Teremoe,
then became a trophy of war for the Kūpapa and was taken by Hipango and is
now based at Te Papa Tongarewa. Also, Hipango later married the daughter of
Rangitauira’s second-in-command.
Figure 2. Te Rangitauira’s waka, Teremoe
It is said that the Battle of Moutoa is when the ‘river ran red with blood, where
father fought son, where brother fought brother, where cousin fought cousin.’
This quote is clear for me as Rānana is the place on the river where I would always

visit during my childhood from my home in the mountain and we were always
reminded of the battle and how we fought ourselves. This tragic experience was
based on a lie, where settlers and missionaries informed the lower river tribes that
their upper river relatives where going to Whanganui to fight them because they
were unhappy with their lower river relatives allowing the settlers to live in peace.
However, the reason why Rangitauira had raised a battle party was because they
had been poisoned by settler traders and they wanted to kill the settlers not their
relatives.
This battle was memorialised in the Moutoa Flag and a kaioraora (a derogatory
chant) ‘Tērā ngā tai ka tangi haere kei Whanganui’ composed by Uira that challenges
the Kūpapa for what she saw as betrayal. A second flag known as the Moutoa-
Ohoutahi Flag was made to commemorate the Battle of Ohoutahi in 1865. At
Ohoutahi, the famous lower river chief, Hipango, was killed.
Of more importance are the peace accords and how Whanganui then named
any new wharepuni after events to help the people navigate and pursue peace
rather than naming after ancestors. Whiri Taunoka 3 at Hiruharama is named for
Hori Kingi Te Anaua (Te Rangihiwinui’s uncle) tying the taunoka shrub to mark
a boundary for peace. Te Ao Mārama near Pīpīriki was built to commemorate
peace and then the settlement was later renamed Te Ao Mārama to emphasise
the importance of peace. Te Mōrehu4 at Rānana was named to remember Te
Rangihiwinui’s famous words to John Balance and James Carroll. These names
are all reminders of peace and war and therefore commemorate the challenges that
we as Whanganui faced by choosing both the path of resistance and collaboration.
Moving to the battles where Whanganui participated elsewhere as part of the

greater Kūpapa forces, the Taranaki Wars resulted in Whanganui receiving land
near Waverley for services rendered. However, generations later, Ngāti Rangi
kaumātua, Mark Tūmanako Gray, led a small group of people to officially go
through the Māori Land Court to gift their shares in the block back to Ngā Rauru.
At this Court sitting held at the local marae at Waverley, Te Wairoaiti, the kaumātua
of Ngā Rauru, present, Raupō McGregor, noted in te reo that Whanganui did not
fight in Taranaki and that instead they came to gather resources and today we
again gather resources. This was her way of saying that the past is the past and
generations later we have found a way to heal the past. Again, this demonstrates
commemorating past battles in a different way to western memorials.

The Battle of Te Pōrere near Lake Rotoaira at the foot of Mount Tongariro and on
the banks of the headwaters of the Whanganui river is intriguing. This battle was
won by the Kūpapa, although Te Kooti escaped. The reason that it is interesting
is because Tūwharetoa, close whanaunga to Whanganui, were hiding Te Kooti.
Whanganui were part of a contingent that pursed Te Kooti around different parts of
the country but within fifteen years of these pursuits, they then welcomed Te Kooti
into the tribe as a prophet and he opened several wharepuni in the Whanganui
area and at Ngā Mōkai Marae, in Karioi at the foot of Mount Ruapehu, he named
the wharepuni, Te Pou-o-te-Tikanga-a-Te-Kooti-Rikirangi. Again, a wharepuni is
used to commemorate both battles and prophets.
Today I think about the limited memorials to our two paths of survival, both
resistance and collaboration, and the best way Whanganui celebrates both paths
today is through its annual wānanga, Te Tira Hoe Waka o te Awa o Whanganui,
where uri paddle from the upper reaches to the sea, learning about all components
of our tribal fabric including the paths of resistance and collaboration. This is a
Māori way to remember the past where we learn at Marae Kōwhai in the upper
reaches about the Pai Mārire and where we occasionally hear the Pai Mārire karakia
still being conducted. From Pīpīriki to Rānana, we are reminded of Ohoutahi and
Moutoa and at Koriniti we remember the challenges to Te Rangihiwinui by his
own supporters who had lost respect for the settlers. From Parikino to Kaiwhaiki,
we are also reminded about those tūpuna that left the river to support Parihaka
and return with their teachings. This wānanga celebrates and commemorates
our diversity as a people of Whanganui and does it in a Māori way rather than
through European forms of remembering. This helps us to live our history each
year and helps us to find peace with ourselves for resistance and collaboration
are valid forms of survival.
REFERENCES
1
Waiata tangi of Ngāti Kurawhatia, Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi
2
There are eleven generations between this kuia and the author.
3
This wharepuni is based at the lower marae, Hiruharama.
4
This was originally Te Rangihiwinui’s whare rūnanga, Huriwhenua, built in
the 1880s and based at Kauika Marae, Rānana. It was used to call

tribes together to actively challenge the Crown. In the early 1900s it
had become dilapidated and was renovated and renamed Te Mōrehu
after his famous saying. In the mid-1980s it was moved to the top
marae and stands next to the Ruaka Hall and can been seen from the
main road as you drive through Rānana.
FIGURES
Fig. 1. Te Rangihiwinui (Major Kemp) Whanganui Regional Musuem
Fig. 2. Te Rangitauira’s waka, Teremoe. Te Papa

Buddy Mikaere
CHAPTER 5
PUKEHINAHINA (GATE PĀ)

BUDDY MIKAERE
On the 29th of April 1864, just over two hundred Māori faced off against
seventeen hundred Pakehā on a grassy hillside just outside of Tauranga.
The fight that followed is largely remembered as a Māori victory, even
though during the night they abandoned the battlefield. But it is also
most remembered as one of the worst losses suffered by an imperial force
at the hands of ‘natives’ in the entire history of the British Empire. The
Pakehā army that arrived that day consisted of a mix of soldiers, sailors and
marines, supported by what was at that time, the biggest artillery battery
that they had ever assembled in Colonial New Zealand. The soldiers were
mostly the veterans of Crimea and the Indian campaigns who had arrived
on vessels directly from those battlefields and they were reinforced by the
marines and sailors from the warships that had brought them here. This
‘mixed’ force of British troops was supported by a reserve force of some
six hundred men of the newly formed Waikato Militia. The Militia had in
its ranks both locals and many recruits from Australia who were attracted
to New Zealand by promises of land in return for military service. When
the battle was over the following morning there were 111 British dead
and wounded while it was estimated that approximately twenty Māori
had been killed and an unknown number wounded.
This small piece of our history is not particularly well known because
the New Zealand school curriculum, for many generations, has not been
concerned with New Zealand history but thankfully that attitude is
changing with school children themselves calling for more teaching about
the New Zealand Wars. It is a pity it never happened before now because

many opportunities have been missed by us to ask ourselves the question “What
lessons can we learn today from that rainy afternoon in 1864 and what does it
mean for us now?” Largely driven by the revival of ANZAC Day remembrances,
our attitudes to our past wars have changed dramatically and you can see that
clearly in Tauranga. For example, every year the Māori ANZAC Dawn Service
circulates around the various marae in Tauranga, and since 2014, they have all
started with a tribute to the 1864 events at Pukehinahina which is something that
never happened before.
When I was a kid growing up, the war dead were remembered as noble and
glorious heroes who lay down their lives to preserve our freedom. But there is a
subtle change happening now; I think what we are seeing is an increasingly sobering
sadness at the realisation of the waste of millions of lives and an often-expressed
resentment at our blind loyalty to the inept leadership of the British Empire that
threw so many New Zealand lives away; especially in the First World War. It is the
price we have paid for what, in retrospect, seems relatively meaningless.
On a much smaller scale, the same can be said in relation to Gate Pā. There is
no glorious victory to celebrate but there is a sadness derived from hindsight and
a regret that no one in Tauranga, on either side, found an opportunity to broker
a resolution that did not involve fighting. However, we all know that by 1864 the
die was well cast. Largely through the machinations of colonial politicians driven
by settler land greed and confidently riding on the back of relatively easy victories
in the Waikato fighting, it was determined to punish Tauranga Māori for sending
soldiers to fight in the Waikato and for providing supplies. But more attractive was
the prospect of a further opportunity to obtain more Māori land under pernicious
legislation such as the 1863 Native Settlements Act which provided for confiscation
of Māori land as punishment for rebellion. For Tauranga Māori, our homes were
invaded by an army that seemingly turned up from nowhere in large numbers and
with equipment and arms of which we had never seen the like of before. We were
left with little choice but to fight.
So why should this battle, relatively minor in the affairs of the Empire, be of such
importance and why should the conflict be regarded as something other than a
brief engagement on a wet and muddy April afternoon in 1864? While the British
troops ended up being in command of the battlefield the day after the fight, there
is nothing in their reports that suggest they saw themselves as victors. They clearly
saw Pukehinahina as a defeat, but in the shock of that loss, there was a legend born

about the conduct of the Māori participants, so much so that in subsequent years
the aftermath of the battle was thought by Māori and Pakehā alike to be worth
remembering and even in some cases celebrated. To the Victorian mindset of the
time it is this ‘legend’ that gave the battle a special meaning. It is a meaning that
has been preserved and which has filtered down to us over the decades to give our
commemorations of the battle a unique place in our shared history.
The foundation for the legend can be attributed to Henare Taratoa from Ngāti
Raukawa who was a Christian lay reader convert living in Ōtaki with Octavius
Hadfield and who had trained at St John’s College in Auckland. He had returned
to Tauranga and was largely responsible for formulating a ‘Code of Conduct’
which was contained in a letter sent to the British Commander saying “This is
how we intend to conduct the fight that is coming. People who surrender will be
treated with care and respect. We will not attack women and children. If a soldier
carried away by his fears runs to the house of the priest, we will not go there, and
he will be safe.” The Code finished with the biblical quotation from the book of
Romans “If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if they thirst, give them drink.” This
was something that Victorian Pakehā viewed as being distinctive because, until
that point, they had been fighting against a people who had no hesitation about
cutting off the heads of the dead or wounded and treating them in a traditionally
savage fashion. There was none of that behaviour at Gate Pā and Pakehā came to
admire this greatly. Evidence of this can be found in a stained-glass window in
Lichfield Cathedral in Staffordshire, England, dedicated to the wars in New Zealand.
The window had been commissioned by Bishop Augustus Selwyn who had spent
years in New Zealand and had been chaplain to the British troops in the 1860s.
Colonel Henry Booth, one of the officers leading the assault on the Pā, was
shot and badly wounded and left dying out on the battlefield in the night calling
for water. At great personal risk someone from the pa went out to take water to
him. Some stories say it was a woman, Heni Te Kiri Karamu, who performed this
kindness which gave real meaning to the biblical injunction – the code they were
fighting under - to give the enemy drink. Others say it was their tūpuna who
carried the water or even Henare Taratoa or the leader of the Māori side, the chief
Rawiri Puhirake.

Figure 1. ‘For his enemy.’ – An episode of the Māori War.
I grew up in rural Waikato in a little place called Wiltsdown which is between

Putāraru and Tokoroa. My father was working in the sawmills and my whānau
have two homes; one was in Hauraki and the other in Tauranga. Most weekends
we went back to Tauranga to see our whānau there. The school that I went to in
Lichfield, Putāraru, decided one year that they would travel to Tauranga. They
went to find out about what happened at Pukehinahina and when they came
back we had a re-creation of the battle on the rugby field. The version that I was

taught that was that in our Pā, all us Māori people were to die bravely (around
the dead-ball line) and the Pakehā would march around winners. This is how I
thought it was until I went to college in Tauranga and being taken to the 100th
centennial commemoration of the battle. That sparked an abiding curiosity for
me to find out what really happened on that day in 1864; it is something that has
interested me all my life.
In 2011 I moved back to Tauranga and in 2014, the 150th anniversary of

Pukehinahina-Gate Pā was due. I determined that I would support my Tauranga
Moana people to mark the occasion and directed my energies towards making sure
it was a commemoration that would be remembered for a long time. We did the
typical kiwi thing which was ‘to form a committee’, on this occasion a charitable
trust, and we handpicked a handful of people. We needed a lawyer, an accountant,
affluent people in the local community, a priest or a minister, some people who
had military connections, and we needed representatives from the three Tauranga
Iwi. Together these people formed the Pukehinahina Charitable Trust and they
were responsible for most of the organising of what happened for the anniversary.
The Trust started with looking at the site of the battle itself and working with
the local council, devising a plan of how we could revamp the whole reserve.
There had already been some work done with information panels or story boards
erected but other elements such as the site pathway was incomplete as it did not
go up the top of what was left of the battlefield. New pathways and routes that
were wheelchair accessible were placed and an ātea kōrero platform at the top
was built where St George’s Church now stands. The idea behind the ātea was
that it would be a place where people could gather and discuss or reflect on what
had happened there.
As is common with many of the battle sites once the battle was over, the first thing
Pākehā did was put a highway through the middle of a pā. This is what happened
at Gate Pā and at Rangiriri and Ōrākau in the Waikato. The main trenches at Gate
Pā would have been where the highway is now. We believed it was important to
have a sightline to our maunga, Mauao (Mt Maunganui), which sits at the entrance
to the harbour. Since the 1960s to 2014, trees had been planted on the battlefield
reserve so many had to be taken down to clear the view. Some of the timber being
worked on by the carvers for the anniversary.

The Trust wanted to involve the local community as much as they could and one
way this was achieved was by engaging with local businesses to carry out some of
the work. For example, all of the concrete came from one of the local firms and
we had the voluntary help of many workers from some of the construction firms
to erect the newly carved pou. The Trust wanted to ensure that people going past
the site in the future would know that this was a special place. Eight pou were
erected. A waharoa and a boardwalk helped guide people visiting the battlefield.
Figure 2. Pukehinahina pou being installed
A new flagstaff was erected behind the old concrete block memorial that was the
only thing standing on the site previously. We also had many people approach
the Trust and say “How can I help? What can I do?” One man who specialised in
building models built a huge model of the entire battlefield which was then placed
in the airport terminal in Tauranga so the people travelling could learn about the
commemorations the Trust was planning.

Figure 3. Pou depicting Waitaha ancestor Hakaraia
One hundred Pukehinehina flags were made but as they sold in the first week,
the Trust had another hundred made. At the ANZAC Day commemorations
at Huria Marae, Tauranga, we were flying the Pukehinahina Flag. I had invited
the Turkish Embassy to send someone to give a kōrero and they advised me to
contact Ali who runs one of the local kebab shops. He and his family arrived at
the marae in the morning. Ali was stressed so I enquired “What is the matter?” He
said “You have got the wrong flag up! That’s not the Turkish flag!” I responded,
“That’s our flag!” and he said “Thank goodness for that! What can I do to fix it?”
I said “Don’t worry about it. This is the start of a new relationship between you
and us Ali. When you see a Māori person come to your shop you say “Kia ora,
haere mai, cheap kebabs!” Our interaction with Ali is a good example of building
relationships with the most unlikely of people within the community, as they all
have something to contribute.

Figure 4. The Pukehinahina battle flag
The Trust also worked closely with the armed constabulary group who were
based in Napier. They have a collection of cannons and coehorn mortars that are
the very weapons used at Pukehinahina. We formed a relationship with them and
asked them to bring their guns to Tauranga, which they did. When they fired
the mortars, it created another attraction for the local schoolchildren. We turned
up one day at the bank, near the Pukehinahina, with the cannon and a lady said,
“Excuse me, what are you doing?” We said “Well we’ve come to rob you! It will
take us a while to load it.” Fortunately, she got the joke and we said “We thought
we would just display it in the foyer of your bank” to which she agreed. We now
had made another friend and when we needed to borrow some money to pay for
some tupara (double-barrelled shotguns) that were made in Italy, we went to the
same bank!
The Trust also wanted to include activities for children. A lady who lives at
Matapihi was quite happy to write a book for children on the battle. She then
attended every school within a ten-mile radius of Pukehinahina and gave readings
to all the schoolchildren. A senior and secondary art competition was held and
the two girls who won the secondary school section won with a painting that is
a combination of the Pākehā side with General Duncan Cameron who led the
troops at Pukehinahina and the Māori side with one of the chiefs, Hori Ngatai,
who fought in the conflict.

Figutre 5. The winning senior student art competition entry by Kate Harris and Ana Morris
The Trust also organised a poetry competition for adults and for schoolchildren
with Poet Laureate Vince O’Sullivan judging the entries. While he was in Tauranga,
we also approached him to read some of his own material and another event for
Tauranga was created. We also held speech competitions for schoolchildren and an
exhibition of all the drawings and photographs that came from that time was held
in a church after being kindly sponsored by one of the community organisations.
On the night before the battle in 1864, the local missionary Archdeacon Alfred
Brown had a dinner at ‘The Elms’, the mission station in Tauranga. He hosted a
dinner for all the visiting officers from the army and the navy. Ten of them turned
up for dinner and the next day nine of them were dead. The Trust decided to
organise a commemoration dinner which was successful and very well attended
with one of our speakers being Willie Apiata V.C. Two ladies had travelled from
England as their ancestor, Surgeon William Manley, had been at Gate Pā and won

the Victoria Cross for risking his life to help the wounded. The evening was a
pleasant juxtaposition with Willie being there; an echo of his own V.C. awarded
in similar circumstances.
Of all the times the Trust asked for assistance, only on one occasion was our
request was denied. We asked the Government if they would extend an invitation
on our behalf to Prince Harry to attend the dinner. The answer we received was
“No.” But, in the absence of the Prince, Major General David Cullen, here on a
training exercise with the Ghurka Regiment, spoke. The event also had a good
contingent from the navy present. The navy has always been heavily involved in
what happens in Tauranga because quite a few sailors were killed at Pukehinahina
and were buried in the local Mission Cemetery and neglected for many years.
Most times when navy vessel came into Tauranga, they sent a work party to tidy
up the urupā.
On the 29th of April, 2014, 150 years since the Battle of Gate Pā, the
commemorations proper started with a memorial service at dawn in the cemetery
where most of the British casualties were buried. A section of the urupā is set aside
for the unknown Māori recovered from the battlefield. The number of people who
arrived and tried to crowd into this little urupā was overwhelming, but somehow,
they all fitted in. The New Zealand Army Band is one of the star outfits and a
showpiece of the Army. This professional group of musicians provided most of
the music at all the formal events throughout the commemoration week.
We had various events involving the Army Band; they gave a concert in the middle
of town, they played at the dawn service, they played at the dinner the night before
and on the day they were the band that took part in the re-creation of the British
Army’s march up Cameron Road to Pukehinahina. The Army Band was not the
only musical item at the commemorations, as the New Zealand String Quartet also
came and gave a performance of music from the 1860’s in the amazing acoustics
of Tamateapokaiwhenua at Huria Marae. We had never had that type of music
before at the Marae and it was pleasing to introduce our mokopuna and children
to classical music and local music buffs to the Marae!
The commemorations also served as a huge event for our kapa haka people, so
much so that they started training a year out from the actual day. They composed
their own haka and waiata for the occasion. Tauranga Moana had seen previously
what had happened in Tainui when they commemorated their past conflicts with

the Crown. Our kapa haka people viewed it as a competition and said “We want
to organise a thousand-person haka.” I said “Well we only have funding to feed
five hundred” and they said “Don’t worry. We will house and feed them.”
Figure 6. Wero and haka at Pukehinahina
The muskets they were holding were tupara (double barrelled shotguns). The
Trust had managed to get a hold of the original specifications for those weapons
that are an English design but manufactured in Italy. They were quite expensive
to purchase. Members of the haka group said “When you get the tupara in your
hand, you feel that there is a connection between you and your tupuna and how
they must have felt at Pukehinahina.” The haka group stood there on the hill,
watching the parade coming towards them. I have never seen people so emotionally
affected. Apart from the Tauranga Moana haka people, we also had a contingent
from Tainui. There was a bit of banter going backwards and forwards because
when you look at the original map of Pukehinahina, there is the main Pā and there
is a little redoubt further down the slope and a gap in-between the two. The kōrero
from Tauranga Moana is that the gap is where Tainui were supposed to be, but
they never turned up. So, when they arrived on this day, our people said “Ah you
fellas are here. Ka Pai! A bit late but never mind.”
When I look back over the events concerning Pukehinahina, I think about my
ancestors. My Great Great Grandfather carried his musket at Gate Pā. His children,

my Great Grandfather, and his children again, that is my Grandfather’s generation,
were all raised in the aftermath of what had happened at Gate Pā. After Gate Pā
and the battle at Te Ranga, which followed in June 1864 where Māori suffered a
heavy defeat, the Crown then brought into effect the Native Land Settlement Act
of 1863 which confiscated Māori land as ‘punishment for the rebellion’ and our
ancestors were termed to be ‘rebels in rebellion’ with the land being confiscated.
Ngai Tamarawaho, our hapū which has in our rohe the main Te Papa Peninsula
in Tauranga, lost all our land - 50,000 acres. We were pushed to the outskirts
of Tauranga and the lack of land turned us into squatters on the lands that had
been formerly ours.
There are many stories about Pākehā families who knew that we were not
supposed to be there but who let us carry on living there in return for help with
farming and labouring help. My Grandfather and his generation were poorly
educated, living in dirt floor hovels and shacks in the ground, feeding themselves
from their gardens and whatever else they could find from the bush and from the
beach. They suffered health problems derived from their living conditions and
with no access to medical facilities. It was just a life of grinding poverty. It was
not that they were lazy or lacked a work ethic; employed or not they worked dawn
till dusk every day in a way that would put any modern-day labourer to shame.
I think about what my Grandfather and his relations lacked; they did not have
land, they did not have a presence, they did not have the opportunities, and so
having large families just became a way of life because the more hands you had, the
more workers you had to tend and gather. For my whānau we are four generations
now from the time of Pukehinahina, but we have been subjected to the same arrested
social and economic development of many other Tauranga Moana families. When
we remember Gate Pā, it is more about what happened to us afterwards that is at
the front of our thoughts.
In a way what happened in 2014 was the start of a new journey. Tauranga over
the last thirty years has changed quite dramatically. When I was a kid there was
a clear hierarchy of Tauranga families, whether they be Pākehā or Māori. They
were old families who had been there forever, who knew the stories, who knew
the history, who interacted satisfactory (not brilliantly) but got on okay. In the
last thirty years we have seen an influx of people from outside Tauranga who have
no idea about our history. Many do not know and do not care but by the same
token there are many who really want to know about the place they have decided
to call home.

We say if you want to belong here and be part of us, you need to know this story
and then you will know us. I can remember one letter to the editor saying “These
commemorations are the most horrendous waste of money I’ve ever seen. Why do
we need parades? Why do we need these new pou? Why do we need musicians
coming in to play music?” I believe that fortunately, people who think that way
are in the minority. I think the universal support the community gave to the 2014
commemorations effectively shut those people up. I think we need each other and
the story of Gate Pā provides our community with a perfect opportunity every year
to effect that a reconciliation of the old and the new; of the past and the present.
Figure 7. Live firing of a coehorn mortar
FIGURES
Fig. 1. ‘For his enemy.’ – An episode of the Māori War. Lithograph, Wilson &
Horton, Auckland, 1895 published in Auckland Weekly News; A
Māori warrior takes water to a mortally wounded Colonel Booth.
Fig. 2. Pukehinahina pou being installed (Buddy Mikaere photograph)
Fig. 3. Pou depicting Waitaha ancestor Hakaraia (Buddy Mikaere photo)
Fig. 4. The Pukehinahina battle flag
Fig. 5. The winning senior student art competition entry by Kate Harris and
Ana Morris (Buddy Mikaere photo)
Fig. 6. Wero and haka at Pukehinahina (Sarah Web photo)
Fig. 7. Live firing of a coehorn mortar (Sarah Tulloch photo)

Judge Layne Harvey
CHAPTER 6
A NGĀTI AWA EXPERIENCE

LAYNE HARVEY
INTRODUCTION
This is a perspective of the Ngāti Awa experience of the New Zealand

Wars, in particular, the events of 1864-1867.1 It is not the Ngāti Awa
experience - no one can lay claim to that. Our perspectives may differ and
may vary and that is the richness of our genealogies, of our histories, and
of our recollections over time. What then does it mean to ‘commemorate?’
The dictionary definition is “Something to remind people of an important
person or event” or “To remember officially and give respect to a great
person or event, especially by a public ceremony.” Whenever we discuss
former events, it reminds us of that history; of what was, of what might
have been, and of what is still before us. When we talk about past events
it is not always in a polite way, or with fond memories, or with positive
recollections.
How are the past events of Ngāti Awa relevant? They include the raupatu
committed against Ngāti Awa and the trials of 1866, the Compensation
Court hearing of 1867, the building of Mātaatua and Hotunui wharenui
between 1875 and 1878, the Native Land Court hearings that were held
between 1881 and 1895, the establishment of the Ngāti Awa Trust Board
in 1980, the lodging of the Ngāti Awa Raupatu Claim in 1988 and the
subsequent hearings of the Waitangi Tribunal in 1994-1995, the enacting
of the Ngāti Awa Settlement Act in 2005, and the creation of Te Kupenga
and Ngāti Awa Te Toki in more recent years. Whenever we talk about
these things we are commemorating them and we are reminding ourselves
of them, even the unsavoury aspects.

BACKGROUND
What happened to Ngāti Awa did not just happen in a vacuum or in a void.
Three crucial events took place in 1860: the first Taranaki War started with Te Teira
wanting to sell land and Wiremu Kīngi Te Rangitāke opposing the action. 2 The
second event of 1860 was the death of King Pōtatau and the succession of his son
Tāwhiao.3 The third event from 1860 was the Kohimārama Conference.4 The latter
development was a common Crown strategy - when something is happening that
you do not like, set up an alternative. When the Kīngitanga was established, one
of the first actions of Governor George Grey was to establish the rūnanga system
as an alternative to the Kīngitanga.5 Remember it was Governor Grey who said
that he would not fight the King but would rather “dig around him until he falls.” 6
Following 1860 there was another series of events that led to the actions
committed against Ngāti Awa by the Crown. In July 1863, Imperial Forces crossed
the Mangatāwhiri stream with the Battle of Ōrākau taking place less than a year later.
The Battle of Pukehinahina (Gate Pā) occurred soon after Ōrākau. The conflict at
Te Kaokaoroa at Matatā affected our own district directly in the same month, April
1864, and the Battle of Moutoa in Whanganui took place following that. The Battle
of Te Ranga occurred in the month of June 1864, and then the Reverend Volkner
was killed at Ōpōtiki the following year. That was the background, swirling around
the Central North Island, immediately prior to the events that affected Ngāti Awa. 7
WAR IN THE EASTERN BAY OF PLENTY: 1865
Hemi Te Mautaranui Fulloon was a Ngāti Awa descendant of the famous chief
Te Mautaranui and through this ancestor he was also connected with Te Urewera.
Fulloon was a Government agent and it is said was appointed a Militia Captain by
Governor Grey. His actions and subsequent death would have a profound effect
on Ngāti Awa and the tribes of Mātaatua.
In July 1865, over a year after the defeat at Te Kaokaoroa where Ngāti Awa and
Tairāwhiti forces were repulsed in April 1864 with heavy casualties, a ‘rūnanga’
was held at Tauaroa Pā on the east bank of the Tarawera River. 8 At that hui an
aukati was laid down stretching from Cape Runaway to Taranaki. Horomona,
himself from Taranaki, had arrived in the district during this period and had gained
support for the Pai Marire movement from within sections of Ngāti Awa. Fulloon
and his companions then sailed to Whakatāne to report on developments and

thus breached the aukati and as a result were killed aboard their vessel, the Kate.
The Government then authorised troops, supported by loyalist forces of over five
hundred men, to arrest those responsible.
Figure 1. Ruakete
The fighting continued through September and October 1865 when a final
stand was taken by Te Hura Te Taiwhakaripi, chief of Te Rangihouhiri II hapū of
Ngāti Awa and his forces, at Te Kupenga on the banks of the Rangitāiki River. It
is important to stress that the only reason the Crown forces went to Te Kupenga
is because that is where Te Hura ended up following the attacks at Matatā and
Otamāuru near Whakatāne. Finally, on the 20th of October, he surrendered his
forces and over thirty members of his hapū and those with him were arrested and
taken to Ōpōtiki for court martial. Following that they were then sent to Auckland
to be tried for their lives. 9

THE TRIALS, EXECUTIONS, IMPRISONMENT AND CONFISCATIONS
In January of 1866 the proclamation for the confiscation of Ngāti Awa lands was
issued. The area covered was some 440,000 acres from Ōtamarākau, across the
Waitahanui Stream, along the coast to the Haparapara River, a vast swathe that
incorporated the traditional lands of most of the Iwi of Mātaatua. Some land was
‘abandoned’ which meant the Crown did not want it retained. Some land was
‘returned to rebels’, for example, the Pokerekere Block was returned to Te Tāwera
hapū. A large area of some 87,000 acres was given to loyalist forces in return for
their military service. 10
Te Hura Te Taiwhakaripi and those with him were tried in Auckland in March
1866. 11 All of the tīpuna who were imprisoned from Taiwhakaea II, Te Rangihouhiri
II and Hikakino, were found guilty of murder, either being directly involved or
by being accessories. Mikaere Kirimangu of Te Rangihouhiri II and Horomona
from Taranaki were executed, long with three whānaunga from Te Whakatōhea
including Mokomoko. Most of the others convicted by the Supreme Court served
terms of imprisonment.
Figure 2. Mikaere Kirimangu Figure 3. Horomona

Three died in prison from disease: Tamati, Hepeta Te Tai, the younger brother
of Te Hura, and Rāwiri Paraharaha. It is also said that for those who were marked
for execution, Te Hura held a tangi for them while they were still alive because
there would be no opportunity to do so afterwards. Following the executions
there would be no ceremony, no internment, and no observance of traditional
rites. Some were buried standing up and had lime poured over them to aid the
decomposition process. Finally, they were encased in concrete. The Waitangi
Tribunal found that such conduct was an added insult, not allowing for a proper
burial. Those Ngāti Awa men who were executed or who died in prison were not
returned to their hapū until 1988, some 122 years later.12
Following the trials, executions and imprisonments were the Compensation Court
hearings. 13 Whenever raupatu is inflicted on a district, be it Taranaki, Waikato,
Wairoa and the Bay of Plenty, the Crown would implement a process involving the
Compensation Court. That body was designed to examine the customary rights
of those who had their land confiscated and return any land wrongly taken or
provide compensation. It is important to remember that by this time, Te Hura has
Figure 4. Rāwiri Paraharaha

Figure 5. Confiscated Land
been imprisoned and his brother Hepeta has died, leaving the pōtiki, Te Metera.
He stated at the Compensation Court that the land from Matatā to Ōtamarākau
belonged to Ngāti Awa. He was supported by Ngāti Whakaue, Ngāti Rangitihi,
Ngāti Pūkeko, Te Pahipoto and Ngāti Hokopū. However, as foreshadowed, 87,000
acres was confiscated and given to various groups in return for military service. Of
the Pokerekere Block of 1,800 acres returned in 1874, today in 2017, some 1,670
acres is still in the ownership of Te Tāwera hapū.
In short, despite everything, we have held on to this land. As the Tribunal said,
the land wars also inflicted on Ngāti Awa what was an even greater punishment
than the loss of land to military settlers; the loss of their kaingā and most fertile
lands to their traditional foes. 14 It was a shattering event for those hapū, who
largely disintegrated under the strain.
THE FIRST ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS OF THE WARS: MĀTAATUA AND

HOTUNUI
How then do we “commemorate” these events? In 1874, the principal chief of

Ngāti Awa, Apanui Te Hāmaiwaho, his son Wēpiha Apanui, and the Ngāti Pūkeko
leader, Hohāia Te Matatehokia, devised a plan to build a great carved house, to

reunify the tribe. They said, “Let us build a house and we will call it Mātaatua.” 15
That was in 1875. Soon after, the whare Hotunui is built as a wedding gift when
Mereana, the sister of Wēpiha Apanui, married Wirope Taipari of Ngāti Maru of
Hauraki. Interestingly, when the houses were finished, they were painted in a
multi-coloured style. That style became famous under Te Kooti when he oversaw
the construction of wharenui after the amnesty granted to him in 1882 following
the intervention of Rewi Maniapoto. Those wharenui, including Te Tokanga-nui-a
Noho, Kōkōhīnau and Te Whai o-te-Motu, all pay homage to our ancestors and
their exploits, not only from that time, but from before then.
By fate, both Mātaatua and Hotunui eventually ended up in museums in the

1920s where they became severely damaged by well-intentioned but incompetent
curators. There was a time when the custom in museums was that all Māori meeting
houses would be painted red or brown, regardless of their original paint scheme.
For many, a childhood memory remains going to Hotunui in the Auckland Museum
when it was painted brown. Then in the mid-1980s, the museum staff decided to
strip the paint back and restore the traditional colours. One of the earliest photos
of Mātaatua is from 1879 and the most noticeable feature of that image is that the
carvings are on the outside. Ngāti Awa did offer to send our own tohunga to assist
with reconstructing the whare correctly but like so many requests it fell on deaf
ears. Tribal leaders we appalled at this infraction.
In his later years, Gilbert Mair recorded that when the error was discovered,
several high-ranking chiefs of Ngāti Awa died soon after.16 In the context of
commemoration, within the roro (porch) of Hotunui there is a carving to Te Hura
Te Taiwhakaripi, the person who was at the centre of the event surrounding the
death of Fulloon that ultimately lead to the raupatu.
When Hotunui was being carved in 1877 and 1878, the tribal artisans decided
to include a monument, a memorial pou to Te Hura. It had been assumed that he
must have died by 1878. Invariably, within Ngāti Awa, it was not the practice to
carve a pou of someone who is still alive, but he was so honoured. A newspaper
report from The Waikato Times confirmed that Te Hura attended the tangi of the
leading chief of Ngai Te Rangi, Hori Tupaea, at Rangiwaea Island in 1881, well after
the house was opened. 17 An earlier report from 1879 had him attending what was
described as a “Kingite meeting” along with Te Hurinui Apanui as representatives
of Ngāti Awa. So he became immortalised and remains to this day part of Hotunui.

THE NATIVE LAND COURT’S RECORDS OF COMMEMORATION
Another example of paying homage to someone who offended the Crown was
through the Native Land Court processes. When the Te Aitanga a Māhaki leader
Wi Pere was ‘captured’ by Te Kooti in 1868, following the latter’s escape from Te
Wharekauri and return to Turanga-nui-a-Kiwa, he and Wi Pere had an understanding
that only they recognised.18 So when the settlement of the vast 214,000-acre Tāhora
lands was being finalised Wi Pere included in the list of owners the name Te Turuki
Te Rangipātahi, knowing that court officials would not recognise the name. If “Te
Kooti” was not included in the ownership list, then the Crown would be none the
wiser. It is the same as including a pou as a memorial to someone who is still alive
and whose actions caused great upheaval within their homelands, like Te Hura.
Another way we commemorate the New Zealand Wars, consciously or otherwise,

is in evidence before the Native Land Court. This is because our tīpuna talked about
the conflict during those hearings. For example, before the 1865 war commenced
Te Rangitūkehu, one of the senior chiefs of the Iwi, wanted to build a flour mill.
He raised money at Rangitāiki and he then came to Whakatāne to raise more. But
all the records surrounding that initiative had been lost because of the ‘war’. In
1894, Te Hurinui Apanui, the leader of Ngāti Awa, confirmed in Court that when
‘the late war’ commenced the documents relevant to the mill project were lost.19
Timi Waata Rimini of Ngāti Whakahemo also referred extensively to the actions
of his whānaunga in supporting the Taranaki Wars and being caught at Waitōtara
in South Taranaki. 20
The lands that were absorbed by the Native Land Court included Putāuaki,
cut in half by the confiscation line: the Putāuaki No.2 Block sits outside the
confiscation line, while the balance, Matatā 59 Block is located within the
confiscation boundaries. The hearings concerning these lands, Matahina, Te
Pokohū, Putāuaki and Te Haehaenga, all referred, directly or indirectly, to the
events of the 1860s. 21 During the hearings our tīpuna referred to the New Zealand
Wars. The Court recorded who did what during that turbulent period, with some
surprising revelations. People who might have been described as arch rebels later
confirmed that, on the contrary, they joined the militia against other ‘rebel’ tribes.

ATTEMPTS AT REDRESS IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
When else did we talk about the New Zealand Wars to commemorate them?
The first twentieth century attempts at redress by Ngāti Awa included a series of
petitions to the Sim Commission of 1922. The petitions of Te Hurinui Apanui,
Pouawha Meihana of Ngāti Pūkeko, Wire Duncan for Nga Maihi and Te Raupauna
Te Hura, a descendant of Te Hura Te Taiwhakaripi, all sought redress for the
confiscations. 22 The Government’s response was that as Ngāti Awa were rebels
and the petitions centred on the land that was taken from people who were not
rebels the Crown could not now discern who was rebel or loyal. Therefore, the
Commission contended, no action would be taken. Before then, the first petition
from Ngāti Awa was to Prince Alfred, Queen Victoria’s son, in 1867.
As soon as our tīpuna were imprisoned, Ngāti Awa asked for their release. Ngāti
Awa also held hui with Michael Joseph Savage, the first Labour Prime Minister in
1935. Then in the 1950s tribal representatives met with Tipi Ropiha, the first Māori
Undersecretary of Māori Affairs to discuss redress. He advised the Government
that as there was no suitable land available then the claim could not be settled.
Unlike other Iwi affected by raupatu, Ngāti Awa never had the advantage of a
tribal trust board until 1988. The reality was that a trust board was the central
coordinating authority for Iwi to receive resources and to advocate at Government
level. Without the leadership of a trust board, tribal development would languish.
There was little progress for Ngāti Awa after the 1960s until the trust board was
established in 1980. It is also important to underscore that Ngāti Awa created
our own tribal authority, not the Government. Hirini Mead went to see Sir James
Fletcher who was influential in this district and he told him about the delays
that the Iwi were experiencing. Sir James responded “Why do you need the
Government? Just do it yourselves.” So Hirini Mead, Eruera Manuera, Āniheta
Rātene and Matarena Rēneti, amongst others, decided to create a charitable trust
for the Iwi at a tribal meeting held at Puawairua Marae in 1980. 23
When the Board was established it had four objectives. The first was to settle our
raupatu claim. The second aim was the return of the Ngāti Awa station. The third
goal was the return of Mātaatua Whare, and the fourth purpose was the return
of Putāuaki maunga. One of the leading kaumātua of the time, Āniheta Rātene,
developed the concept of the bed, the blanket and the pillow. The bed symbolised
the lands confiscated, the blanket represented the Ngāti Awa farm, and the pillow
embodied Ngāti Awa claims to Kawerau and Matatā. 24

THE CLAIMS SETTLEMENT PROCESS: 1988-2005
Ngāti Awa filed the raupatu claim in 1988 after the Government allowed historical
claims to be heard dating back to 1840. The claim process for Ngāti Awa enabled
access to funding, expertise and research on a scale unprecedented. This is one
of the advantages of going through the claim process via the Waitangi Tribunal;
much research is commissioned that was previously not available.
Vast amounts of historic material saw the light of day once again, after lying
dormant for generations. Not only did Ngāti Awa absorb information about what
the Crown did to the Iwi and our hapū, but we also learnt as much about ourselves,
our hapū, and how we interconnect. The entire process raised the awareness of
the people and their consciousness as to these events, slowly over time. With
the leadership of the Rūnanga managing the Tribunal process, it added to our
cohesiveness as a tribe. 25 The entire process represented a form of commemoration
for the Iwi since the events of the nineteenth century became central to the business
of the tribe recommencing as it did in 1988.
Then came the Ngāti Awa Claims Settlement Act 2005, following a period of
negotiation that began in 1995. This was the first time the Crown confessed to
their great wrongs against us by apologising and then signing a detailed historical
account of what they did to Ngāti Awa. The settlement provided some redress
to enable the Iwi to rebuild aspects of our identity, incrementally. The placing of
pou at significant sites including Te Kaokaoroa, Te Kupenga, Kaputerangi and at
Puawairua Marae also helped reinforce not only past events but our own sense of
identity. All through the period of the last thirty years, the revival of hapū wānanga,
sometimes facilitated through Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi, kept raising
awareness for our people about these events, thus, commemorating the New
Zealand Wars through a wider tribal and community audience.
TE KUPENGA AND NGĀTI AWA TE TOKI
Te Kupenga 2016 was the first Ngāti Awa commemorative event of the New
Zealand Wars. Te Kupenga Heritage Committee is a grassroots initiative, a group
that decided to continue to revive our traditional arts with a marae-based focus for
wānanga and hapū hui. It grew out of the support of our own people based on
other commemorations at Te Tarata, Ōrākau, Pukehinahina and Ruapekapeka. The
Committee had three objectives: to honour our history, to unite our people, and to

teach future generations. Quite simply it was another way that we commemorate
the events of the 1860s. Kaumātua and community support was evident from
the outset. Initially, the group was informal, but as time went on and the need to
access funding to support these events increased, formal structures were developed.
Figure 6. Ngāti Awa Te Toki 2017
The Ngāti Awa Te Toki Festival was established as another grassroots initiative
in 2012. This festival showcases the revival of performing arts and in 2017 is the
third event held since 2012. The themes invariably include our tribal histories
and background, including the events of the raupatu. Kapa haka and performing
arts as a medium facilitates knowledge transfer amongst our own people with the
result that their interest and awareness of these events is revived. The retelling of
those stories in our own words, in our own way, also enhances our tribal cohesion.
Some of the groups participating have never had a haka team since 1866 and
therefore it demonstrates the impact these events can have, the whole notion of
commemorating, of reabsorbing, of re-learning, of immersing ourselves in that
history.
CONCLUSION
Should we continue to commemorate these events? We all have a responsibility

to keep our tikanga and our culture alive and relevant. This includes the retelling
of our histories through our reo and our waiata, whakapapa, whakatāuki, and
through symbols and monuments. Then these past events never die. It includes
the many great historical wrongs perpetrated against us and while often painful,
they are histories that must be told. The claims process really did provide Ngāti

Awa a ‘jumpstart’ because it enabled us to access funding and expertise and the
resources to delve back into our past. That responsibility we all share requires
that we are not passive bystanders. We need to be writing our own histories with
our own voice. That includes material where appropriate in the local curriculum
with the support of Iwi, parents and principals. That is an ongoing conversation
and sometimes you must persist so that our own people can gain access to these
resources.
Despite all our history, despite the trauma of raupatu and the decades of
dispossession and disempowerment, in 2017, we are doing things. We are relearning
our histories, our customs and reo. We are graduating our people from Te Whare
Wānanga o Awanuiārangi and other institutions to act as guides and agents of
transformation and change. We are celebrating our performing arts through
the Ngāti Awa Te Toki Festival. We are reliving the events of the New Zealand
Wars through our Te Kupenga commemorations and by supporting those of our
whānaunga from around the motu. In the end, each generation must leave those
that follow stronger, more assertive, knowledgeable and confident than those that
came before them. Only then will our survival be assured and our future more
certain.
REFERENCES
1
For Ngāti Awa generally see Te Ara – The Encyclopedia of New Zealand
Māori Peoples of New Zealand: Nga Iwi o Aotearoa (Bateman
Publishing, Wellington, 2006): 149; Harvey, L “Ngāti Awa – Ngāti
Awa i ēnei rā” (2007) Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand
<www.teara.govt.nz>.
2
Waitangi Tribunal, The Taranaki Report – Kaupapa Tuatahi (Wai 143, 1996).
3
David McCann, Whatiwhatihoe – The Waikato Raupatu Claim (Huia
Publishers, Wellington, 2001).
4
https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/36360/kohimarama-conference-1860.
5
“Further papers relative to Governor Sir George Grey’s plan of Native
Government. Report of Officers” [1862] I AJHR E-09 at 21.

6
Rahui Papa and Paul Meredith, ‘Kīngitanga – the Maori King Movement
– Tawhiao, 1860-1894’, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New
Zealand<www.teara.govt.nz>.
7
Waitangi Tribunal, The Ngati Awa Raupatu Report (Wai 46, 1999): 30.
8
Te Rangihouhiri II hapū lost over 30 men: Evidence of Te Hura, Judge
Arney’s notes of proceedings and evidence of R v Te Hura Te Tai and
Others, JC22-3B AG66/968, NA Wellington at 416–419, 471–477.
9
The trials were reported extensively in the New Zealand Herald (13 March
1866) vol III, Issue 726; (28 March 1866) vol III and Issue 729; (30
March 1866), vol III, Issue 741.
10
Waitangi Tribunal, The Ngati Awa Raupatu Report: 82.
11
Ibid: 71.
12
Ibid: 76.
13
Compensation Court ‘Te Awa a Te Atua’, 3-19 December 1867 Waitangi
Tribunal Raupatu Document Bank above n 66 at 46795-6; Te Roopu
Whakaemi Korero o Ngati Awa: An investigation into the alienation of
Lot 63 above n 59: 21-22.
14
The Ngati Awa Raupatu Report: 82.
15
Hirini Mead, Layne Harvey, Pouroto Ngaropo and Te Onehou Phillis
Mataatua Te Whare i Hoki Mai (Huia Publishers, Wellington, 2017).
16
Ibid: 21.
17
Waikato Times, 19 March 1881.
18
Alan Ward. ‘Pere, Wiremu’, Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first
published 1993. <www.teara.govt.nz>.
19
5A Whakatane MB 343-344, 1 March 1895.
20
Ibid: 10.
21
Preamble, Ngāti Awa Claims Settlement Act 2005.
22
AJHR, 1928, G-7: 21
23
Preamble, Ngāti Awa Claims Settlement Act 2005.
24
Ibid.
25
Waitangi Tribunal The Ngati Awa Raupatu Report: 131.

FIGURES
Fig. 1. Ruakete
Fig. 2. Mikaere Kirimangu
Fig. 3. Horomona
Fig. 4. Rāwiri Paraharaha
Fig. 5. Map showing Confiscated Land Te Moananui a Kiwa (in the Bay of
Plenty)
Fig. 6. Ngāti Awa Te Toki 2017

Haare Williams
CHAPTER 7
TE RIRI A TE KOOTI
HAARE WILLIAMS
‘Haere hoki atu

Te Whakahau Te Rongopai
I runga i te aroha me te ngawari’
THE PROPHECY
Ko Nukutere ko Nukutere
Ko Tawhiti, ko Tawhiti
He Atua He Atua
Ko te Pakerewha.
Tis Nuketere, Tis Nukutere

Tis distance, tis distance
A god, a god
Tis the Pakerewha!

TE TOIROA
Three years before James Cook sighted the East Coast at Tūranganui-a-Kiwa in
1769, Te Toiroa predicted the birth life of [Te Kooti] Te Arikirangi. He told that two
boys would be born within the Ngāti Maru tribe to fathers who were close kin.
One would die. Should it be the junior survive, all would be well but the child
of the senior line would have the powers for both great good and bad. The child
of Te Turuki died and the younger child of Te Rangipatahi, lived. That child was
named Arikirangi by Te Toiroa. Fearing his son’s powers, Te Rangipatahi buried
him alive in a kumara pit but Te Kooti escaped and was adopted by Te Turuki. In
another of his songs, Te Toiroa linked the God of the white-man with the name of
the second child, in an ambiguous line:
“Tiwha-tiwha te po “Dark and gloomy is the night

Ko Te Pakerewha Tis the Pakerewha
Ko Arikirangi tenei ra Tis Arikinui this day
Te haere nei.” Making his way hither.”
In 1825 when Arikirangi was nine he was taken by sea by his mother, Turakau, to
see Te Toiroa, then ninety-four years of age and who lived in Mahia. As he stepped
out of the canoe, still ankle deep in water, Te Toiroa came forth and placed his
hand on the young head of Arikirangi saying:
“My son, I see you on a raupō raft drifting across Papahuakina;

You were weeping. You rounded the point heading towards Ahuriri. Not
long, I saw you return, you had with you a church
Your hands upraised.”
At the time of these utterances they did not make sense but can now be seen as
predictions in the light of later events.
OHIWA
I grew up in remote New Zealand on the shores of the Ohiwa Harbour near
Opotiki. For the first twelve years I was the son of grandparents at Karaka, a
valley that looked out onto Hokianga Island. The Island has to this day held
a kind of religious awe for me, something that still bubbles within. My koro,
Rimaha, a tohunga of Ringatū, gave the Island a wide berth when we went fishing

or gathering kaimoana, something I never understood then as a child, especially
when I saw other kids in late summer swimming and gather tasty ripe peaches,
figs and plums which grew wild on the Island. To my annoyance, those children
would also gather firewood to roast mussels and pipi.
I grew up with a dual sense of history. At home and on the marae, Te Kooti was
a revered hero, a patriot, and a prophet. At school however, Te Kooti was reviled
as a monster and a source of shame. Those of us who took leave from school from
the 11th to the 13th of each month became the butt of pungent sarcasm from both
teachers and Pākehā classmates. For me, those harrowing experiences and the
imposition of western heroes did not blemish the place of charismatic leaders like
Tūtakangahau, Tamaikoha, Kenana and Te Kooti.
Today I still find a plethora of misinformation and misinterpretation of Te Kooti

and Ringatū by both Māori and Pākehā commentators. As a broadcaster for eleven
years I had the rare distinction of speaking with Ngā Pou o Te Haahi, some of the
pillars of Ringatū and its founder, including Paora Delamere, Sir Monita Delamere,
Robert Biddle, Wiremu (Pākehā) Tarei, Hare Reneti, Pitau and George Brown, John
and Hoera Ruru, Maaka Jones, Heni Sunderland, Niko Tangaroa, Whakahuihui
Vercoe and others.
From Rimaha and Wairemana, in our raupō-constructed wharemoe at Karaka,

I heard through many narratives the unusual prediction of the birth of Te Kooti
through to his lasting legacy. I also heard the use of a strange language (kupu ke)
Te Kooti used in prophesies (kupu whakaari). Another lesson was the precision
and completeness with which he planned a spectacular escape from custody in
the Chatham Islands. The stories of Te Kooti and the Bible, unbeknown to me,
were already shaping my life in those cognitive years at Ohiwa. I knew Te Kooti
as a kind of mythical hero who loomed large in the lives of my grandparents and
the environment in which I grew up in.
My physical nourishment was matched by the spiritual substance I received

through the scriptural-based waiata of Te Kooti such as ‘The Songs of David and
Solomon’. Ringatū writings were inspirational texts as I grew a love of languages,
poetry and narratives. Those early childhood years were formative years which
exposed me to the regularity in which Māori history was told that explains a Māori
view of New Zealand history according to the values, constraints, and changes,
in my years.

I grew up knowing that Te Kooti was no ordinary human being. He was an
extraordinary leader who led a life full of paradoxes as a sea captain, a professional
trader, a prisoner, a general, and a prophet who spoke of the power of forgiveness.
For that his church continues to inspire ‘te tira hōu’, the young who are today
reclaiming their ‘Māoritanga’. Te Kooti was caught up in the inexorable turn
of events of the nineteenth century in the wake of the European settler lust for
Māori land.
TE KOOTI AT TŪRANGANUI-A-KIWA
Heni Sunderland of Manutuke once recalled in an interview “Another story

Te Kooti once told historian James Cowan was how he acquired his name – that
documents and notices bore the phrase “By order of the Court” and he chose the
name because it had a ring of authority and power about it.” “Te Kooti” is the
transliteration of ‘The Court’ or ‘The Courts’. The irony of the appellation must
have amused him.
Te Kooti became involved in the commercial and trading economies in Auckland

and in other settler centres as the owner of two trading ships, the MV Henry and
the MV Te Whetuki, which undercut the monopoly of captains John Harris and
George Reade. Te Kooti welcomed Christianity because he saw a close relationship
between it and Māoritanga. But it was not to last long as he soon became openly
antagonistic towards settlers in general when he saw the loss of land and language
and the arts and the worst he feared was the loss of the mana of rangatira.
Sunderland further describes the successes of Te Kooti. “By operating two trading
schooners between Poverty Bay, Auckland, and other centres, he brought prosperity
to his Te Aitanga-a-Mahaki and Rongowhakaata hapū. He had enemies who plotted
against him.” Colonel Thomas Porter (who was a guard during the internment
of Te Kooti at Wharekauri and who would go on and become Editor of the Otago
Daily Times) wrote “He was rather a nuisance to some of the Māori establishment
as well as the traders, [with] stories about him making off with other chiefs’ wives.”
In his later years, Te Kooti maintained that his trading rival, Captain Reade, had
aroused feeling against him, and that Te Kooti could well have been the victim of
a cruel propaganda campaign led by the Captain. Naturally his successes caused
some irritation amongst settlers in the East Coast and the hysterical fears suggested
that he was a Hauhau despite fighting alongside British troops at the siege of
Waerenga-a-Hika on the 18th of November 1865. What does seem likely is that

he was seen as a possible source of trouble following the legislative confiscation
of Rongowhakaata and Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki tribal lands and, in accordance with
Sir Donald McLean’s instructions as Minister of Native Affairs, Crown officials
needed to get such troublemakers out of the way.
TE KOOTI APPREHENDED
After Waerenga-a-Hika, Te Kooti was arrested on suspicion of having sympathy

with the Hauhau, a movement that was sparked in Taranaki under Kereopa Te
Rau and spread like wildfire through the North Island. The movement nurtured
the festering pain caused by the appropriation of large tracts of land in Taranaki,
and later Bay of Plenty, Waikato and Tūranganui-a-Kiwa. Paratene Ngata in his
diary, now held by the Gisborne Museum, wrote: “We travelled all night, a warm
and moonlight night and at about 3.00 am we were joined by Pākehā and Māori
soldiers sent to meet us. About 8.00 am we arrived at Waerengahika. Te Kooti was
apprehended and held in a room of the Bishop’s residence. My soldiers took turns
to guard the prisoner until 22 November 1865 when the Hau Hau surrendered.”
In spite of repeated requests to Donald McLean to be brought to trial, Te Kooti

was shipped off with Hauhau prisoners to the Chatham Islands in 1866. At his
pardon at Otewa (near Te Kuiti) in 1883, Te Kooti wrote to Governor George Grey
“This is the month [February, 1867] when fighting broke out between Hau Hau
and the government commenced. I would not accept the Hau Hau god. We fought
and the Hau Hau was defeated. Next morning, I was arrested by the Government
party and was put in gaol. I asked those in command, ‘What was the reason I am
arrested by you’, but they would not answer me.”
“Te Kooti’s younger brother was with the Hau Haus in a Pa at Pukeamionga. Te
Kooti did his part at Waerenga-a-Hika against the Hau Haus until the Pa surrendered.
Then, seeing that Pukeamionga would be the next place attacked by the troops
and urged on by fraternal regard, he resolved to go and fetch his brother out from
amongst the rebels. He went accordingly with Putere, who has all along been a
staunch ally of the Government, got his brother out of the Pa and returned to
his own place.” Months afterwards, and when all was again peaceful, enemies of
Te Kooti laid information against him, asserting that his object in going into the
Hauhau Pā was not to get his brother but to carry ammunition to the enemy.
Te Kooti was at once arrested and kept prisoner for a time at Kohanga Karearea
where, without any examination or investigation into the merits of the charge
laid against him, he was summarily packed aboard a Government steamer and

deported. George Brown of Te Karaka explained “He and my tipuna Tamihana
Teketeke were sent to Te Wharekauri to die because how could you escape from
a place like that?”
It was during his time in bondage that the spirit of Te Kooti “…was aroused
by the Arch Angel Michael” that eventually led to the emergence of the Ringatū
Haahi. Ringatū, the upraised hand, was not to ward off bullets as was the popular
opinion of the time but “In praise of God.” With Ringatū, Te Kooti wanted to
place Christianity within the Māori cultural realm. The traditional mode of the
oriori (lullaby) was used to teach the scriptures from Genesis to Revelations. The
teachings and services were all committed to memory in te reo Māori.
Figure 1. Carved House Te Tokanganui-A-Noho, Te Kuiti
Of buildings for worship, Robert (Boy) Biddle of Kutarere states “Te Kooti
believed that the wairua of the ancestors resided not inside a church but inside
the whare tipuna, therefore he instructed his followers not to build separate houses
for the sacraments of worship.” Sir Monita Delamere of Opotiki added “Te Kooti
discouraged the building of churches, but there is a small church house at Omaio

built for Ringatū, very much against the wishes of Te Kooti. The church today
is falling into decay, used for gambling, and a shelter for animals and spiders, in
keeping with a prediction of Te Kooti.”
As Te Kooti developed his rituals for Te Haahi, so the spirit of prophecy was
revitalised. Exile sharpens this tradition and also engenders writing (in the form
of letters), but more importantly, compels the people to record their history in their
time in separation. Te Kooti recorded his experiences in a little black pocket book
which is now held by the Alexander Turnbull Library. Te Kooti wrote “February
21 1867: This was the month in which my sickness increased. Then the spirit of
God aroused me saying, ‘Arise, I am sent by God to heal you, that you may preach
the name of His people who are living as captives in their land.’” At this time, Te
Kooti was dying suffering from tuberculosis and was feverish, coughing blood
and separated from the other prisoners to die. Wikitoria, the wife of Te Waerehi,
was placed to care for him.
THE HOLY SACRAMENTS
The holy sacraments of Ringatū are expressed on the twelfth of each month
and as well on the first of January and the first of July. The late Wiremu Tarei of
Te Teko told me “The Twelfths celebrates the 12 May 1868 when the Covenants
of the Faith were revealed to Te Kooti at Te Wharekauri. Te Kooti also received
his pardon on the 12th of February 1883. In Scriptures, the Twelfths recall the
twelve disciples, the twelve tribes of Israel (Genesis 46:15), and the twelve fruits
of the tree of life (Genesis 32:22).
The first of January and the first of July are the pillars of the Ringatū seasonal
changes derived from Exodus 40:20, the gathering for the feast held in remembrance
of the Passover or the deliverance of the people of Israel from slavery. This practice
is based on Leviticus 23:24, to commemorate the commencement of the cycle of
renewal coming out of death and thus marks the redemption of the land to God
at the beginning of spring. The harvest of the first fruits is derived from Exodus
34.22 and Deuteronomy 26:2.”

THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY
Hapati are held on Saturdays to bring the children into Te Haahi where they
participate fully in services. It is an all-day service which begins with the first
ringing of the bell at 4.00 am when everything is closed off for ‘Te Kati’. From
then until the end of the day at about 4.00 pm, no one is allowed in or out. No
one is permitted to participate in any other activity apart from worship for the
mind, spirit and the body. At the end, a service is held marked by a hakari in the
late afternoon, the festival feast. In my childhood days, no food was consumed
to give effect to fasting and meditation. Tarei added “This culture clash led the
guards at Te Wharekauri to think that Te Kooti practiced Hau Hau. The hymns,
psalms and lessons are chanted to the melodies of a pre-European style, sounding
nothing at all like European hymns. In fact, a Pākehā can be excused for thinking
them pure witchcraft. Actually, these are the sounds of a deeper Christian faith
and in a deeper Māori faith in God.”
THE DELIVERANCE
Te Kooti told his followers that the Government would send two ships to
Wharekauri and God would empower him to take them back to New Zealand.
On the 1st of July 1868, the prisoners, led by Te Kooti, overpowered their guards
and commandeered the Rifleman, a schooner, in which they made their spectacular
get away. According to Thomas Porter “He told them to look for the signs which
would indicate that their day of deliverance had arrived. It would be a day of
fine-mist and drizzle. On that day, there would be two ships out on the bay. The
third sign was the onset of fog then heavy rain and the fourth was a loud clap of
thunder directly overhead. “
When the first of the signs occurred, the men were instructed to go to the beach,
as was the practice, and gather bundles of wood for the guards. The bundles
were to be bound tightly and carried into the barracks and stacked snug, leaving
little space for movement. When the fourth sign occurred, the guards were to be
seized and tied.
The instructions from Te Kooti were clear; that there was to no bloodshed in the
uprising. “I told my people to neither steal from nor assault any person.” Everything
went to plan but unfortunately one guard was killed when he managed to throw a
tomahawk at Tamihana Teketeke. Teketeke killed the guard instantly, against the

instructions of Te Kooti. Four days later, on the 5th of July, the prisoners made
their landfall at Whareongaonga near Young Nick’s Head. After unloading the
schooner, the Rifleman, and taking what was owing to his people, the ship and
crew were set free. The official report of the escape recorded that 163 men, 64
women, and 71 children accompanied Te Kooti.
MATAWHERO
Heni Sunderland referred to the Matawhero Incident that took place in the early
hours of the 10th of November 1868 as “…[being] the Māori way of carrying out
justice where my own grandfather, Ihimaera, fell victim while trying to evacuate his
people and Pākehā friends. Matawhero is utu, not revenge.” Te Kooti clearly used
surprise, intelligence and secrecy, as he did at Te Wharekauri, to gain advantage
over those who betrayed him and took possession of his land at Matawhero. Thirty-
eight carefully selected Māori and Pākehā people were picked out and killed in an
overnight raid. This was not random killing. After the killings, a service was held
when Te Kooti instructed his followers to dismount, sing, and read from Psalm
53:10 that “Those who live by the sword, shall die by the sword.” Tom Smiler of
Te Whanau a Kai had this to say “What happened at Matawhero need not have
happened, if only the authorities had listened to Te Kooti.” Author Witi Ihimaera
in his novel, The Matriarch (1986) recounts the events of Ngatapa that followed
Matawhero:
“After Matawhero, Te Kooti and his followers headed for the sanctuary of Te
Urewera and King Country in amongst Ngāti Maniapoto where he and his people
were given refuge under Rewi Maniapoto and Te Taonui Wahanui. They made
for the Ngatapa. On the evening of the 5th of January 1869, the defenders of the
Pa lowered themselves by vines over the steep north cliffs and escaped. Although
around two hundred and seventy were subsequently captured in the bush, one
hundred and twenty males were stripped and shot.”
PARDONED
Te Kooti was eventually pardoned at Otewa in February 1883 and given six
hundred acres of marginal scrubland at Wainui on the shores of the Ohiwa Harbour.
Te Kooti never returned to Tūranganui-a-Kiwa, which became a recurring theme
in his in songs and poems, an example of which is his oriori ‘Pine Pine Te Kura’.

Sunderland states “Haere hoki atu whakahautia Te Rongopai i runga i te Aroha,
me te Ngawari” (I urge you, return upon the good word of The Gospel, with Love
and with Peace). She added “Our people here built the Te Rongopai meeting-
house at Waituhi for Te Kooti’s expected return but only the fantail you see there
that flits and soars inside Te Rongopai returned. The Ringatū faith is strong and
getting stronger and like the fantail it keeps coming back and the peoples’ spirit
now soars above.”
DEATH
While sheltering at Ruatahuna, he uttered one of his famous predictions:

‘Although you go in pursuit of me, even with the Governor, I will not be captured
by you, nor will I be killed by you, and it will simply be an accident that I shall die’.
Te Kooti was mortally injured at Karaka when the spring-cart he was travelling in
tipped up and injured both his legs above the knees. He died three days later on
the Hokianga Island on the 17th of May 1893.
CONCLUSION
For me, the story of Te Kooti continues to stimulate the mind and awaken the
spirit. His church has endured as an altar to one man who stood firm against
overwhelming odds to keep his faith and for the survival of his people, culture,
and language. Survival took more than ordinary courage for he was a man caught
up in the abrasive encounters between Māori and Pākehā over the land wars of
the nineteenth century. Whatever the circumstances of the arrest of Te Kooti at
Waerenga-a-Hika in 1865, one certainty is that he was never given an opportunity
to answer for any case against him.
Despite a life so full of cruel paradoxes, the ultimate of ironies says Biddle was that
“Te Kooti was not opposed to the rule of law, nor was he opposed to government.
He wanted his people to be open and forgiving.” Te Kooti found peace in forgiveness
and when he received his pardon from Captain John Bryce in 1883 at Otewa, he
declared his peace with Pākehā forever.
“My peace is righteousness, truth, honour and the glory of God on all men; my
peace is from God and the Covenant of David, my promise is the promise of the
Queen. And your peace sir, is only on the tip of your tongue.” Te Kooti also found
peace and strength in Christianity. This theme was reflected in his teachings. He
told his people, “If you cannot be Ringatū, return then to the parent church; the

Catholic Church or to the Anglican Church for your salvation and redemption.
But, never ever compromise your cultural heritage.” He was a military man, a
successful trader, an inspirational renaissance man who raised his followers out
of the darkness of uncertainty and fear. He was a sea captain, but most of all, for
me he was the Moses who delivered his people from the infirmity of bondage
and went out into the wilderness with his followers seeking ‘The Promised Land’.
In any colonial conflict, the first casualty of war is the truth. It is no longer in
the interest of our nation’s future to continue the misinformation over our colonial
past. Let us go out on the offensive against those who assault the truth and facts.
There are many distortions as we here continue to provide misinformation about
New Zealand’s history. Hacking, fake news, information bubbles – all these and
more have become so prevalent in recent times, alarmingly so by those, like Reade,
seeking wealth and power. Being honest about our history does not make us
dishonest; it makes us human, it makes us care about a safe and secure future for
our kids. Being honest makes us learn, belong, succeed and grow.
FIGURES
Fig. 1 Carved House Te Tokanganui-A-Noho, Te Kuiti, Alexander Turnbull
Library

Joanna Kidman
CHAPTER 8
REMEMBRANCE, DENIAL AND THE

NEW ZEALAND WARS:
THE ROAD TO RĀ MAUMAHARA
JOANNA KIDMAN AND VINCENT O’MALLEY
‘One day there will be a backlash – the fact that people like me who tend to
be non political are protesting probably indicates that the backlash will come
quite soon.’ 1
In 2014 a group of young students from a secondary school in a small

town in the central North Island decided to start a petition to Parliament
calling for a national day of memorial for the victims of the New Zealand
Wars fought between Māori and the Crown in the mid-nineteenth century.2
From these modest origins has emerged a national debate about how, why
and whether New Zealanders should remember the wars fought within
New Zealand. This chapter considers the ensuing debate through the
lens of public submissions to Parliament on the petition. A particular
focus is on the nearly three-quarters of submissions that rejected and
opposed the petition. It situates these within wider Pākehā unease at
the unravelling of settler colonial forms of national identity since the
1970s, and the emergence of more contested and conflicted patterns of
group identification. As older myths and conceptions concerning New
Zealand’s history began to be systematically dismantled, many Pākehā New
Zealanders found these developments deeply troubling. The backlash that
followed was one that harked back to what some Pākehā saw as simpler,
more homogenous and harmonious times.
137 | Chapter 8 TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND

Otorohanga College
students presenting a
13,000 signature petition
to Parliament
THE ŌTOROHANGA COLLEGE PETITION
During the summer of 2015 a group of young people and their supporters
delivered a 12,000-signature petition to the New Zealand Parliament calling for a
statutory day of recognition for the ‘New Zealand Land Wars’.3 They also called
for this troubled period of New Zealand’s history to be officially included in the
secondary school curriculum. The organisers were a group of Māori and Pākehā
students from Ōtorohanga College, a rural secondary school in the Waikato
district, who mounted the petition after a school visit early in 2014 to Ōrākau
and Rangiaowhia, the sites of two particularly brutal clashes that took place one
hundred and fifty years earlier as part of the Waikato War (1863-64).
The largest of the New Zealand Wars, the Waikato conflict, saw over 12,000
Imperial troops and their colonial allies attacking a heavily-outnumbered civilian
population bereft of the artillery and other advantages available to the invading
force. Under these circumstances, the Waikato tribes and their allies, who had
coalesced around a Māori King in 1858, giving rise to allegations of subverting
British sovereignty, suffered heavy casualties, sometimes (as at Ōrākau and
Rangiaowhia) in highly controversial circumstances. Rangiaowhia, for example,
was considered a place of refuge for women, children and the elderly as a result
of which the attack on the settlement, early on a Sunday morning in February
1864, was condemned by Waikato Māori as ‘kōhuru’ (murder). A hut deliberately
torched by troops as its occupants were burnt alive added to the outrage.4
TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND Chapter 8 | 138

Meanwhile, at Ōrākau, more than half of the defenders were killed, most after
attempting to flee for their lives on foot when breaking out from their fortified
position after three days without food, water or ammunition. Among their number
were female prisoners bayonetted in cold blood. Survivors of the war retreated
south to an area that became known as the ‘King Country’, leaving the Government
to confiscate over 1.2 million acres of more valuable land in Waikato.5 A once
thriving Waikato Māori economy was destroyed almost overnight and generations
of tribespeople condemned to lives of poverty as a result. Illness, disease and
starvation were ever-present threats in the years immediately following the war but
the longer-term legacy of the conflict was no less painful for the Waikato tribes. 6
Yet this history was little known or acknowledged outside the descendants
of those attacked. The story of the conflict is not widely taught in New Zealand
schools; many of the historic sites have been obliterated to make way for roads
and others that survive are not even signposted.7 When the sesquicentenary of
the Waikato War was marked in 2013-14, the occasion passed by most Pākehā
New Zealanders largely unnoticed. That was perhaps not surprising given that,
according to one estimate, Government spending on the sesquicentenary was
less than one per cent of the equivalent budget earmarked for World War One
centenary commemorations.8

During the school tour, local Māori elders joined the group, which numbered
186 students aged between 15 and 18 years, teachers and community members,
and recounted tribal memories of the violence that had been waged against their
forebears. The trip had been organised by teachers at the College, some of whom
had strong associations with local Iwi in the area.
Their initiative in taking the students to these historical sites was also a relatively
unusual one. Various versions of New Zealand history are taught in secondary
schools but there is no formal requirement to do so and it is left largely to schools
and individual teachers to decide what, if anything, will be included.9 As a result,
in a high-autonomy and non-prescriptive curriculum environment, New Zealand
history is infrequently taught in great detail and the more difficult and violent
aspects of New Zealand’s colonial past are often omitted from school learning
programmes.10 In this respect, the decision on the part of the Ōtorohanga College
teachers to join forces with local Māori to talk to the students about the conflict
was an original way of tackling some of the public silences surrounding those
events. Most of the young people had little previous knowledge about what had
taken place and the visit made a profound impression on them. As Leah Bell, one
of the petition organisers, later wrote,
[t]he tragedy of the NZ land wars explain [sic] an important part of

why we are, who we are, and how we came to be. […] Since that on-
site history lesson, things have developed within our college that we
never imagined, had never thought about, and probably believed were
impossible. None of us know exactly how the idea of a petition to
the House of Representatives for a remembrance day was born, as in
whose idea it was, but on that day in Ōrākau we, along with others,
were launched into action.11
It was, Bell later recalled, ‘shocking to hear that there were massacres half an
hour from where you live, not that long ago’.12
In the weeks following the school visit, the young people began to organise the
key objectives of the petition, which included a call for national day of remembrance
for the New Zealand Wars and for the subject to be taught in schools; the latter was
an idea the Ministry of Education was to firmly oppose when the petition eventually
reached a Parliamentary Select Committee.13 Three central aims behind the petition

were identified when public submissions were called for, these being to ‘raise
awareness of the Land Wars and how they relate to local history for schools and
communities’; to introduce these ‘local histories into the New Zealand Curriculum
as a course of study for all New Zealanders’; and to ‘memorialise those who gave
their lives on New Zealand soil with a statutory day of recognition’.14
The petition quickly gained support from other young people in the region and
news of the students’ activism spread more widely as the organisers, working closely
with Māori tribal and local community groups, made astute use of social media,
such as Facebook,15 and sought hard-copy signatures at community events. As the
petition gathered momentum, several national and regional organisations, schools
and communities also stepped forward in support. Others had previously floated
the idea of a national day of commemoration, including during the 2014 gathering
to mark the 150th anniversary of the Ōrākau battle that was attended by the Prime
Minister; but it was the petition that became a rallying point for those seeking to
promote greater public engagement with the wars fought in New Zealand and for
broader awareness of the history underpinning the modern Treaty of Waitangi
claims settlement process.16
PRESENTING THE PETITION TO PARLIAMENT
In December 2015, the Ōtorohanga College students, Waimarama Anderson,

Leah Bell and others, along with a large contingent of supporters from around
the country and flanked by television cameras and media crews, took the petition
to Wellington where they formally presented it to Parliament. The petition was
passed to the Māori Affairs Committee for consideration and a call went out for
public submissions. While the petition organisers’ actions were widely supported,
a nationwide debate was sparked about how the New Zealand public remembers,
and forgets, the devastating nineteenth century assaults that were waged by the
Crown against Māori people in the forging of the New Zealand nation.17
A small but vocal response was swiftly mounted by individuals and organisations
who lobbied and campaigned against the petition. While the number of people in
this camp was modest in comparison with the petition’s 12,000 supporters, their
heated opposition is an indication of deeper anxieties in New Zealand settler society
that are triggered when public silences surrounding the violence at the heart of
the colonial nation-building enterprise are broken. Sociologists Blee and Creasap
argue that conservative or right-wing social movements often coalesce when people

perceive their relationship with the nation-state and their status within it as being
under threat from other groups. In settler contexts, the politics of white backlash
often become highly ethnicised as attempts are made to curtail the visibility of
those who challenge cultural beliefs or public silences about the colonial past
and it is for this reason that we explore the anatomy of this particular backlash. 19
By the deadline in late April 2016, a total of 189 written submissions had been
lodged; 49 supported the petition; 138 opposed it; and, two submissions were
unclear or ambiguous.20 Those in favour of the petition generally used discourses
of reconciliation and healing to make their case arguing that widespread ignorance
about New Zealand’s colonial history has contributed significantly towards ongoing
tensions between Māori and Pākehā New Zealanders in the present. Susan
Healy, who identified herself as a Pākehā supporter of the petition, wrote of the
colonisation of New Zealand,
I think that there has been suppression of this history and it has brought
harm to Pakeha and Maori and the nation as a whole. For all of us to
have a respect for and awareness of the tangata whenua [indigenous
people] of our area and awareness of their long relationships into the
land, will build our sense of relationship to the land, and increase our
sense of pride and identity through that relationship. Knowing the
history of the struggles over land since colonisation is another means
of embracing our history and working for true reconciliation. 21
Supporters of the petition also pointed out that the wars had had a major impact
on the development of New Zealand and were therefore of historical importance. A
national day of memorial, and teaching the history of these wars in schools, would
from this perspective provide appropriate acknowledgement of the significance of
these conflicts. In this way a renewed national identity would be forged through
bicultural reconciliation.
THE PETITION’S OPPONENTS
Those who opposed the petition, on the other hand, were unconvinced by this
view of the past and expressed strongly worded concerns that New Zealand’s history
was being radically rewritten to support the views of interest groups associated
with the Treaty claims process:

One reason for my opposition is the way documented and factual
New Zealand’s [sic] history has been rewritten through the Treaty of
Waitangi settlement process and historical revisionism which is to
support a particular ideology. The revisionist historiographies coming
out of the Waitangi Tribunal include half-truths, misinformation and
propaganda.22
Many of these submitters contended that revisionist histories were promulgated

by groups within Māori society, described variously as ‘separatists’, ‘radicals’,
troublemakers’ and cultural ‘elites’, who they claimed were motivated by ‘greed’,
‘ignorance’, power or a desire to foment civil unrest. As one person wrote,
New Zealand is being ruined by the deceitful rewriting of history

by elite Maori and those who seek to change the facts in exchange
for money. It is driven by greed and nothing to do with the average
person on the street. Someone needs to stop the lies.23
These opponents perceived the petition as being deeply divisive. Many within
this group expressed a strong conviction that Māori historical narratives have been
disproportionately favoured and indulged by successive Governments and as a
result Māori now hold the ‘whip hand’ of representational power. In this respect,
they followed the line taken by many other conservative social movements that
reject political explanations of civil disharmony and social break-down in favour
of ‘reductive culturalist’ accounts.24 Associate Professor Alana Lentin suggests that
this is a form of culturalisation that eschews historical or political interpretations
of social and political unrest and focuses instead on dissatisfaction with state
‘diversity’ initiatives or politics. As one opponent of the petition wrote,
Surely it is long overdue that we take a rational approach to how

we spend our tax dollars and what we celebrate in public holidays?
This constant and relentless barrage of demands by these people is
blatantly obvious to all it seems but those in salaried positions in state-
run departments. New Zealand is not a pluralistic society and there is
no room for this continued lurch into apartheid.25
Many other opponents of the petition expressed similar views and were especially

vocal about the possibility of future unrest. Their concerns centred on the belief
that Māori ‘separatists’ were introducing historical narratives that promoted cultural
values and practices that would undermine the possibility of a uniform or cohesive
national culture and identity:
New Zealand’s history is increasingly losing touch with the facts (and
qualified historians) and is increasingly based on activists’ opinions.
This is very evident in the emotional language and creative stories now
being used in the re-telling of the land wars history.
Separatists seem to be using such stories to drive racial wedges between

citizens and support more claims for race-related Government hand-
outs. It is not in New Zealand’s interests to give separatists any more
airtime. As a nation, we need to stop supporting these constant and
creative efforts to stir up trouble. Our country has done so much that
is right, we need to start praising that. New Zealand needs to look to
the future and commit to uniting and celebrating our country and all
its citizens. 26
These opponents of the petition sought to assert a ‘colour blind’ version of

national identity that rejected what they saw as apartheid-style categorisation
into Māori and Pākehā subgroups. It was time, they asserted, to stand together
as one people and one nation (a call echoing the name of one of the leading anti-
Treatyist organisations, the One New Zealand Foundation). In fact, a number of
the petitions were couched in similar, and in some cases near identical language,
reflecting an organised campaign on the part of prominent anti-Treaty advocates. 27
While this helped to produce a greater number of submissions against the petition
than were received in its favour, the relatively small number of petitions overall
serves as a reminder of the marginal or fringe status of these groups within New
Zealand. Don Brash may have taken anti-Treatyism mainstream with his 2004
Ōrewa speech (discussed below). But a decade or more later proponents of the
same views struggled to gain any real traction for their stance.
Several submitters argued that the petition was based on factually inaccurate
versions of history and that the conflicts of the nineteenth century were more a
matter of the Crown quelling tribal rebellions that threatened the rule of law. As
one submitter wrote (employing language echoed in many other submissions):

A “land wars” day in New Zealand would be a misnomer and
inappropriate. A more apt name would be “tribal rebellions day”
signifying how those tribes fighting the Crown were in rebellion,
refusing to recognise the Crown’s sovereignty, as ceded by the chiefs
under the Treaty of Waitangi. It would be both inappropriate and
a travesty to memorialise those in rebellion against the Crown as
recognised under the Treaty. 28
Ironically, many historians tend to also reject or question the ‘land wars’ label as
an outdated one, preferring to follow the lead of James Belich (and, much earlier,
James Cowan) in describing these conflicts as the New Zealand Wars, since land
was only one of the factors behind the wars. 29
But this is one of the few points of (coincidental) common ground, with the
anti-petition submitters steadfastly rejecting the last fifty years’ historiography
as unreliable and tendentious ‘revisionism’. And so, the idea that Māori did not
cede sovereignty under the Treaty, but rather understood the Crown to have been
granted a more limited ‘kāwanatanga’ (governance) role is ignored, as is the notion
that there was no rebellion against the Crown.30 Although an official commission
of inquiry had partly endorsed this latter view as early as 1927 (concluding, for
example, that Taranaki Māori ‘were treated as rebels and war declared against
them before they had engaged in rebellion of any kind’), 31 anti-Treatyism of the
kind reflected in the submissions opposing the petition is grounded in a selective
reading of a small number of sources and not on a comprehensive grasp of the wider
history.32 That kind of selectivity is helpful in this instance, given the difficulty
involved in branding an early twentieth century royal commission of inquiry as
part of a ‘politically correct’ campaign of historical revisionism.
A number of the submitters were themselves confused about the battles waged
during the colonial era, with several mixing up the Musket Wars that took place
between 1818 and the 1830s with the later New Zealand Wars.33 Their confusion
over the nature of the conflicts ironically served to highlight the need for precisely
the kind of changes to the education curriculum that the petitioners were calling
for (although an analysis of biographical information contained in the anti-petition
submissions suggests that a disproportionately large number came from older
Pākehā males).34

Others drew on a familiar, if discredited, rationale for settler colonial actions
in the nineteenth century, creating a false equivalence between the New Zealand
Wars and the earlier supposed conquest of mainland Moriori by ethnically distinct
Māori colonisers.35 Benevolent settler colonisation was also a focus of some of the
submissions, again contrasting this with pre-contact Māori society. In this regard,
several submitters made a point of mentioning Māori cannibalism.36 According
to one submission:
When Europeans arrived and settled in this country they brought

with them 2 thousand years of knowledge and culture. They found
one of the worst, most savage and primitive tribal mob of cannibals
ever seen anywhere. Indeed, these tribal misfits were still beating each
other over the head well into the twentieth century.37
Objections were also raised on what might be described as practical grounds.

Some submitters feared that creation of a national day of commemoration would
open up fresh wounds and grievances, giving rise to a further round of calls for
compensation and settlement. Others argued that Waitangi Day or Anzac Day was
the appropriate time to acknowledge the New Zealand Wars or pointed to the cost
and inconvenience involved in creating another public holiday, and some submitters
argued that it was time to look forward, rather than living in the past.38 A variant
on this involved highlighting the difficulties involved in establishing precisely what
had happened during the New Zealand Wars when there were so many contrary
accounts of particular events, while others accused those in favour of the petition
of in effect being guilty of the sin of presentism for wanting to impose the values
and standards of today on another era.39
A NEW ZEALAND WARS DAY
Prior to the Māori Affairs Committee reporting back on the petition organised by
the Ōtorohanga College students, the Government decided to jump the gun and
make its own announcement. On the 19th of August 2016, New Zealand’s then
Deputy Prime Minister, Bill English, announced that a national day of remembrance
(Rā Maumahara) would be set in place. In a speech to Waikato-Tainui on the day
that the Crown returned a portion of the Rangiriri battle site back into Māori
ownership, English told those assembled that,

The time [has come] to recognise our own conflict, our own war, our
own fallen, because there is no doubt at Rangiriri ordinary people lost
their lives fighting for principle in just the same way as New Zealand
soldiers who lost their lives fighting on battlefields on the other side
of the world.40
It was soon clarified that this would not be a public holiday and that the selection
of the day would be a matter for negotiation with Iwi leaders from those tribes
involved in the New Zealand Wars in the nineteenth century. Mindful of avoiding
placing the focus on a single war or battle, tribal representatives indicated their
preference for a date that is not the anniversary of any particular engagement but
rather would be set aside to remember all of the conflicts within New Zealand.41
This would not displace local commemorations of significant events, such as
Parihaka Day (5th of November), marking the anniversary of the 1881 invasion by
the Armed Constabulary of the Taranaki settlement of Parihaka, where prophets Te
Whiti-o-Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi had led a campaign of non-violent resistance
to land confiscations.42
In October 2016 it was announced that the 28th of October had been selected
as the date for the national day of commemoration.43 As Iwi representatives had
previously signalled, it did not mark the anniversary of any battle. Instead, this
was the date in 1835 when northern rangatira had first signed the Declaration of
Independence (He Whakaputanga), asserting the sovereign authority of Māori
over New Zealand. In this way, the date serves as a reminder of the autonomy and
authority that Māori fought to protect during the New Zealand Wars.44
The backlash has continued, although opponents of the petition have struggled
to gain widespread support for their views. In 2016 a new organisation known as
‘Hobson’s Pledge’ was founded to ‘arrest the decline into irreversible separatism’.45
Meanwhile, a petition was launched by Muriel Newman, a member of a conservative
think-tank, with the aim of opposing the day of commemoration. It had only limited
success in gaining any significant momentum (as, indeed, has the Hobson’s Pledge
organisation). Despite a target of 12,000 signatures that would symbolically give
it a similar level of support to the original Ōtorohanga College petition, at the time
of writing it had attracted fewer than 1800 names. 46
Meanwhile, on the 28th of October 2017 the first Rā Maumahara was held, with
the focus of the inaugural commemorations being Ruapekapeka, the site of the final
battle of the Northern War (1845-46). Radio New Zealand commissioned a special

documentary, ‘Stories of Ruapekapeka’, while a small gathering was also held on
the spot.47 Ceremonies were also held in Hamilton and Te Awamutu to remember
the Waikato War.48 Other events and gatherings also took place in different parts
of the country, including talks, exhibitions and displays. From these relatively
low-key beginnings, the day is likely to grow in significance over time, allowing
New Zealanders an opportunity to reflect on, discuss, and commemorate, the wars
fought here. If many New Zealanders have welcomed these developments, for
others they have been deeply troubling, challenging long-cherished and deeply-
ingrained myths about the history of their country.
THE PĀKEHĀ BACKLASH
For much of the twentieth century, Pākehā liked to boast that they lived in a
nation with the greatest ‘race relations’ in the world.49 That view was reinforced
in school text books such as the widely-distributed ‘Our Country’s Story’ (1963),
which claimed that there was ‘no country in the world where two races of different
colour live together with more goodwill towards each other’.50
Reconciling such a viewpoint with the grim reality of state-directed invasion of

Māori communities, followed by sweeping land confiscations, in the mid-nineteenth
century required a degree of national myth-making. From the early twentieth
century New Zealanders were encouraged to believe that the heroism and chivalry
both sides were said to have demonstrated during the New Zealand Wars had
eventually provided the basis for better, rather than worse, relations between Māori
and Pākeha. As the journalist James Cowan wrote in his hugely influential 1922
history of the wars, these had ‘ended with a strong mutual respect, tinged with a
real affection, which would never have existed but for this ordeal by battle’.51 And
so, somewhat perversely, with the benefit of hindsight many Pākehā in the first
half of the twentieth century saw the New Zealand Wars as a cause for celebration,
even appropriating heavily mythologised versions of them as part of the national
narrative.52
But as historians and Māori activists started to cast these wars in an altogether
more negative light by the 1970s, this older myth became much more difficult to
sustain. Now that it was no longer acceptable to celebrate the wars, many Pākehā
became distinctly nervous whenever these were mentioned. An ‘uncomfortable
silence’ instead descended over the topic, at least within mainstream Pākehā circles,
and when this was challenged in ways that middle New Zealand deemed disquieting,
significant controversy often resulted.

This backlash against revisionist accounts of New Zealand history fuelled
responses to (and reflected) wider public unease at developments since the 1970s,
including the establishment of the Waitangi Tribunal in 1975 as a permanent
commission of inquiry charged with investigating Māori claims under the Treaty of
Waitangi and its empowerment a decade later to consider historical claims dating
back to 1840. Critics came to dub this the ‘grievance industry’ or the ‘Treaty gravy
train’, a process they believed was aimed at securing taxpayer money for tribal
groups through spurious claims invented with the assistance of historians and
lawyers. The Tribunal has been forthright in its approach to the past. In its 1985
Manukau Report, for example, the Tribunal concuded that ‘all sources agree that
the Tainui people of the Waikato never rebelled but were attacked by British troops
in direct violation of Article II of the Treaty of Waitangi’.53 Although many Pākehā
came to at least accept (even if grudingly) the necessity for such a claims process
when confronted with the Waitangi Tribunal’s stark findings, for the hardcore who
rejected it outright, support for their stance was to be found in an alternate view
of the nation’s past. This ‘anti-Treatyist’ viewpoint claimed to uncover the true or
suppressed history of Māori and Pākehā relations.54
Far from having valid historical claims against the New Zealand Crown, Māori
had, these critics argued, actually received special treatment.55 In this conception,
the settlement of New Zealand was almost uniquely benevolent, and those who
challenged such a view only needed to look across the Tasman Sea to Australia,
where the Aboriginal population had by contrast been treated appallingly.56 This
served to underline the supposedly virtuous nature of settler colonialism in
New Zealand – a view notoriously reinforced in an article that asked why ‘race
relations’ in New Zealand were better than in South Africa, South Australia or South
Dakota.57 From this stance, Māori who queried their status as the beneficiaries of
benevolent colonialism were simply being ungrateful, or denying the facts of history,
especially when their ‘miserable’ and ‘barbaric’ lives prior to British intervention
were contrasted with the enlightened and kind treatment they received afterwards,
in effect (as these writers believed) lifting Māori out of their wretched pre-contact
existences. British settler colonialism, they maintained, ‘saved Maori, not only from
themselves, but from some other less humane coloniser’.58
The notion of Māori as privileged has gained support from other quarters and
at times has been adopted by politician’s intent on running populist, dog-whistle
campaigns. In January 2004 the then leader of New Zealand’s National Party
delivered a blistering speech to members of the Orewa Rotary Club in which the

official Leader of the Opposition attacked what he characterised as race-based
privileges for Māori, combined with a ‘Treaty grievance industry’ constructed on
the basis of a distorted and politically correct version of the nation’s history. Don
Brash’s call for ‘one law for all’ struck a chord with many disgruntled voters, and
National, previously languishing in the polls, recorded an immediate and dramatic
leap in support in the aftermath of the Ōrewa speech. Soon, a rattled Labour
Government was promising its own crackdown on any policies that supposedly
‘privileged’ Maori, even though they more or less consistently ranked near the
bottom of a broad range of socio-economic indicators.59 In the context of the time
that kind of inconvenient empirical evidence mattered less than the perception
that Māori were a uniquely privileged people.
For many Pākehā New Zealanders an emphasis on historical Māori grievances,

and even on ethnic or racial differences, cut across an imagined national identity
that was both harmonious and homogenous (in much the same way that, as Dr
Paulette Regan has shown, exposure of the true horrors of Canada’s residential
school system on First Nation communities cut across foundational myths as to
the peaceful settlement of that country).60
And that was reflected in the ongoing resistance of many non-Māori New
Zealanders to even identify or accept being labelled as Pākehā (a long running myth
had it that the term originally meant ‘white pig’ or ‘bugger off’).61 Even statisticians
came under pressure from those insisting that ‘we’re all New Zealanders’. In the
2006 census a ‘New Zealander’ category was added to the ethnicity question, even
though this is not a meaningful ethnic category (in previous censuses respondents
who had written in ‘New Zealander’ under the ‘Other’ category were classed as
‘New Zealand European’, Pākehā not having made its way into the forms either,
except fleetingly in 1996). 62
For some Pākehā, deliberately mispronouncing Māori place names is almost a

point of honour. Politicians courting a particular segment of the voting populace
sometimes appear to do likewise in order to signal their own alignment with its
values. Television and radio newsreaders attempting to articulate Māori place names
correctly have historically generated considerable correspondence to newspaper
editors in recent decades.63 And proposals in 2009 to correct the meaningless
city name ‘Wanganui’ – a legacy of early settler efforts to commit the local Māori
pronunciation of the place name to paper – were met with such an outcry from
those who argued that the misspelling was the way they had always spelt it that

the Government opted for a compromise solution allowing both this and the
linguistically correct ‘Whanganui’ to be used according to preference (before in
2015 eventually ruling that the latter was the sole correct and official name).64
Meanwhile, many Pākehā have called for Waitangi Day to be replaced by Anzac
Day as the national day. Whereas Anzac Day is perceived as a straightforward
celebration of heroic sacrifice and other desirable national traits, the Waitangi
anniversary is seen by many Pākehā as divisive, complicating efforts to celebrate
the nation through awkward reminders of a more troubled past. As Associate
Professor Sarah Maddison has noted in relation to Australia, the collective guilt that
awareness of such a past conjures can lead some members of the dominant group
to forms of outright denial. In this way, ‘a seemingly unproblematic desire to feel
good about the group or nation to which one belongs can lead to the development
of explanations and justifications for immoral and unjust actions in the past’.65
Although New Zealand has not experienced its own, full-blown ‘history wars’, for
Pākehā troubled by reminders of past internal conflicts, proposals to memorialise
these in various ways, including a national day of commemoration, constituted
yet another front on which it was necessary to push back against the assault on
older, simpler and more rosy conceptions of national identity. Enough is enough,
they declared.
FORGING NEW NATIONAL IDENTITES
Although the number of people actively opposing the petition was small, their
views can be seen to carry more weight than this might otherwise imply. References
to Māori cannibalism, and to the ‘primitive’ nature of pre-contact Māori society,
in some of the submissions could be seen as representative of the extreme end
of a Pākehā backlash against developments in New Zealand society over the past
forty years that have seen Māori viewpoints and interests accommodated to a
limited extent after more than a century of marginalisation and dispossession.66
If many New Zealanders have welcomed this trend, and supported moves such
as the payment of limited redress to Māori tribes in compensation for historical
land losses and other breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi, for others these actions
have been deeply discomforting.67 While 55% of respondents to a 2011 survey
agreed with the statement that the Treaty of Waitangi ‘is New Zealand’s founding
document’, for example, 21% disagreed and a further 24% gave a neutral opinion
(on a sliding scale of one to five).68 For some (but certainly not all) older Pākehā

brought up to believe that they lived in a land of racial harmony, the movement
towards recognition of Māori interests has been especially troubling.
In this respect the petition organised by the Ōtorohanga College students could
be seen at least in part as pitting Māori and Pākehā youth against older white
(and predominantly male) New Zealanders. In their lifetimes, many of the latter
had witnessed a period of bewildering change in New Zealand society generally,
as old certainties and consensus gave way to a time of conflict and turmoil. In
these circumstances, it was hardly surprising if some yearned for a return to the
imagined simpler days of their own youth. By contrast, today’s young people,
more comfortably bicultural and accepting of diversity and difference, highlight
the emergence of new and more nuanced national identities based in part on an
honest reappraisal of the realities of settler colonialism in nineteenth century
New Zealand. Unsettling settler colonial narratives of the past, both within New
Zealand and elsewhere, requires a ‘deeper historical consciousness’ that confronts
those realities.70
The Ōtorohanga College students remind us that young people may be agents
for that change provided they can gain some exposure to the history that often
lies hidden beneath the comforting myths.
REFERENCES
1
Paul Howes, Submission to Māori Affairs Committee: Petition of Waimarama
Anderson and Leah Bell. Wellington, New Zealand: New Zealand
Parliament. Posted 4 May 2016, https://www.parliament.nz/mi/pb/
sc/submissions-and-advice/document/0SCMA_EVI_51DBHOH_
PET68056_1_A502590/paul-howes (accessed 26 October 2016).
2
An earlier version of this chapter was published as ‘Settler Colonial History,
Commemoration and White Backlash: Remembering the New
Zealand Wars’, Settler Colonial Studies (published online 22 January
2017), http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/220147
3X.2017.1279831
3
In the interests of full disclosure, the authors of this paper were both
signatories to the Ōtorohanga College petition but did not make
submissions on it.

4
Vincent O’Malley, The Great War for New Zealand: Waikato 1800-2000
(Wellington: Bridget Williams Books, 2016), 294-300.
5
David McCan, Whatiwhatihoe: The Waikato Raupatu Claim (Wellington: Huia
Publishers, 2001), 51-58.
6
O’Malley, The Great War for New Zealand, 369-80.
7
Vincent O’Malley, ‘What a nation chooses to remember and forget: the
war for New Zealand’s history’, Comment is Free, The Guardian, 18
October 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/
oct/18/what-a-nation-chooses-to-remember-and-forget-the-war-for-
new-zealands-history (accessed 25 October 2016).
8
Alison McCulloch, ‘Lest We Remember’, Werewolf, 23 April 2014, http://
werewolf.co.nz/2014/04/lest-we-remember/ (accessed 27 October
2016).
9
Mark Sheehan, ‘The Place of New Zealand in the New Zealand History
Curriculum’, Journal of Curriculum Studies, 42 (2010): 671-91.
10
Mark Sheehan, (2011) ‘“Little is Taught or Learned in Schools”: Debates
over the Place of History in the New Zealand School Curriculum’, in
Tony Taylor and Robert Guyver (eds), History Wars and the Classroom:
Global Perspectives (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing,
2011), 107-24.
11
Leah Bell, ‘A Petition to Remember the NZ Land Wars’, Human Rights
Commission, New Zealand, posted 10 September 2015, https://
www.hrc.co.nz/news/petition-remember-nz-land-wars/ (accessed 13
October 2016).
12
Libby Wilson and Rachel Thomas, ‘College students petition for a national
holiday to recognise Land Wars’, http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/
politics/72303304/College-students-petition-for-a-national-holiday-
to-recognise-Land-Wars (accessed 25 October 2016).
13
The Ministry of Education opposed the petition’s aim of requiring that
the ‘New Zealand Land Wars’ be incorporated into the school
curriculum noting that the National Curriculum ‘sets the direction
for schools and kura [Maori immersion schools] and provides
them with guidance as they design their own curriculum […]
Requiring schools and kura to teach a specific subject would be
contrary to the spirit and underlying principles of the National
Curriculum and would erode the autonomy of Boards of Trustees

to determine the content and context of their teaching and
learning programmes.’ Ministry of Education (New Zealand),
Submission to Māori Affairs Committee: Petition of Waimarama
Parliament. Posted 4 May 2016, https://www.parliament.nz/
resource/en-NZ/51SCMA_EVI_51DBHOH_PET68056_1_A499701/
dc8abddd17013eeecbd1ccdd0a3701247d0a0c56 (accessed 13
October 2016).
14
New Zealand Parliament official website, ‘Petition of Waimarama Anderson
and Leah Bell” https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/sc/make-a-
submission/document/0SCMA_SCF_51DBHOH_PET68056_1/
petition-of-waimarama-anderson-and-leah-bell (accessed 13 October
2016)
15
A Facebook page about the petition was set up at: https://www.facebook.
com/NZLandWars and a webpage about the petition was also placed
on the Ōtorohanga College website (http://www.otocoll.school.
nz/landwarspetition.html). At the same time, one of the students
blogged about the campaign on the New Zealand Human Rights
website (https://www.hrc.co.nz/news/petition-remember-nz-land-
wars/)
16
On the prior efforts to promote a national day of commemoration, see
‘Rā Maumahara – the Journey to a National Commemoration’,
https://www.tpk.govt.nz/en/whakamahia/te-putake-o-te-riri-wars-
and-conflicts-in-new-zeal/ra-maumahara-the-journey-to-a-national-
commemorati (accessed 27 November 2017.
17
As Green Party politician, Marama Davidson, commented, ‘Their incredible
work put this issue firmly on the political agenda of this country,
stimulating discussion and debate’. Green Party (New Zealand)
official website, https://blog.greens.org.nz/2016/08/26/a-national-
day-to-commemorate-nz-land-wars/ (accessed 13 October 2016).
18
K.M. Blee and K.A. Creasap, ‘Conservative and Right-Wing Movements’,
Annual Review of Sociology, 36 (2010), 269-86.
19
See for example, Julie E. Phelan and Laurie A. Rudman who discuss the
structure of public backlashes in their paper, ‘Reactions to Ethnic
Deviance: The role of Backlash in Racial Stereotype Maintenance’
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99, no. 2 (2010): 265-81.
For discussion about white backlash in settler- colonial contexts
see Anne O’Connell, ‘An Exploration of Redneck Whiteness in

Multicultural Canada’, Social Politics, 17, no. 4 (2010): 536-63; and,
A.L. McCready, ‘Redressing Redress: The Neoliberal Appropriation of
Redress in the Anti-Native Backlash at Caledonia’, English Studies in
Canada, 35, no. 1 (2009): 161-90.
20
Submissions to the Māori Affairs committee of the New Zealand Parliament
are published online by date at: https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/
sc/scl/m%C4%81ori-affairs/tab/submissionsandadvice. Submissions
concerning the petition of Waimarama Anderson and Leah Bell are
dated 4 May 2016.
21
Susan Healy, Submission to Māori Affairs Committee: Petition of
Waimarama Anderson and Leah Bell. Wellington, New Zealand: New
Zealand Parliament. Posted 4 May 2016, https://www.parliament.
nz/resource/en-NZ/0SCMA_EVI_51DBHOH_PET68056_1_
A505309/238e91a4bf0caa813645f97e7c9cbe6a4d847fdc (accessed
13 October 2016).
22
Tom Johnson, Submission to Māori Affairs Committee: Petition of
A504772/64d2a59b6f243e8ceb47252536ec0110a22ec861 (accessed
13 October 2016).
23
Rick Mooney, Submission to Māori Affairs Committee: Petition of
Zealand Parliament. Posted 4 May 2016, https://www.parliament.nz/
beb76ce61cd1a83094a19dce4e5a130eef5a46aa (accessed 13
October 2016).
24
Alana Lentin, ‘Post-race, Post Politics: The Paradoxical Rise of Culture After
Multiculturalism’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 37, no. 8 (2014): 1268-85.
25
Charles Russell, Submission to Māori Affairs Committee: Petition of
Zealand Parliament. Posted 4 May 2016, https://www.parliament.nz/
a2682a8cbde03bb1349207f759064323e32979e0 (accessed 13
October 2016).
26
Fiona Mackenzie, Submission to Māori Affairs Committee: Petition of

A502509/536314ac1854afe3757baecb3cc987fd3df134b9 (accessed
13 October 2016).
27
See, for example, Mike Butler, ‘Tribal rebellions day indoctrination not
wanted’, New Zealand Centre for Political Research, 20 March
2016, http://www.nzcpr.com/tribal-rebellions-day-indoctrination-
not-wanted/ (accessed 26 October 2016); Mike Butler, ‘Submit
against land wars day’, Breaking Views blog, 18 March 2016, http://
breakingviewsnz.blogspot.co.nz/2016/03/mike-butler-submit-
against-land-wars-day.html (accessed 26 October 2016); ‘Land
Wars Commemoration Day Submissions’, KIwi Frontline Forum,
25 March 2016, http://kIwi-frontline.proboards.com/thread/370/
land-wars-commemoration-day-submissions?page=1 (accessed 26
October 2016). Multiple submissions commented that ‘Land Wars
Day’ would be a misnomer, and that it would be more accurate to
describe it as a ‘Tribal Rebellions Day’, aping the language of some of
the online posts encouraging opponents to make submissions on the
petition before the deadline in April 2016.
28
Dr Tom Johnson, Submission to Māori Affairs Committee: Petition of
Zealand Parliament. Posted May 4, 2016, https://www.parliament.
nz/en/pb/sc/submissions-and-advice/document/51SCMA_
EVI_51DBHOH_PET68056_1_A504772/dr-tom-johnson (accessed
26 October 2016).
29
James Belich, The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial
Conflict (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1986), 76-80.
30
On the Treaty see Claudia Orange, The Treaty of Waitangi (Wellington: Allen
& Unwin/Port Nicholson Press, 1987).
31
Appendices to the Journals of the House of Representatives, 1928, G-7, 11.
32
Richard S. Hill, Anti-Treatyism and Anti-Scholarship: An Analysis of Anti-
Treatyist Writings (Wellington: Treaty of Waitangi Research Unit,
Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies, Victoria University
of Wellington, 2002), 2.
33
On the former see R.D. Crosby, The Musket Wars: A History of Inter-Iwi
Conflict 1806-45 (Auckland: Reed Books, 1999); Angela Ballara, Taua:
‘Musket Wars’, ‘Land Wars’ or Tikanga? Warfare in Māori Society in the
Early Nineteenth Century (Auckland: Penguin Books, 2003).

34
Of the 138 submissions lodged against the petition, three were made on
behalf of organisations (including the Ministry of Education), a
further three were made jointly by males and females, and the gender
of eight more submitters was unknown. Of the balance, 108 came
from males and 16 from females.
35
The Moriori are the indigenous people of Rēkohu (the Chatham Islands).
A popular myth concerning the Moriori has it that they were a
distinct group of Melanesian (or mixed Melanesian-Polynesian)
people who had occupied mainland New Zealand first before being
all but wiped out (save for a small remnant on the Chatham Islands)
by invading Māori from Polynesia. Although the theory had been
largely discredited in academic circles by the 1920s it endures to this
day in much popular thought as a way of legitimising the European
settlement of New Zealand. See Peter Clayworth, ‘“An indolent and
chilly folk” : The Development of the Idea of the “Moriori myth”’
(PhD diss., University of Otago, 2001).
36
Archaeological evidence suggests that the incidence of cannibalism in the
pre-contact period was much more limited than more sensationalist
accounts sometimes suggest. Ian Barber, ‘Archaeology, Ethnography,
and the Record of Maori Cannibalism Before 1815: A Critical Review’,
Journal of the Polynesian Society, 101, no. 3 (1992): 280-284.
37
Charles Russell, Submission to Māori Affairs Committee: Petition of
EVI_51DBHOH_PET68056_1_A504829/charles-russell (accessed 26
October 2016).
38
Les Ryan, Submission to Māori Affairs Committee: Petition of Waimarama
Parliament. Posted May 4, 2016, https://www.parliament.nz/en/pb/
sc/submissions-and-advice/document/0SCMA_EVI_51DBHOH_
PET68056_1_A504624/les-ryan (accessed 26 October 2016).
39
Denis M. Smith, Submission to Māori Affairs Committee: Petition of
EVI_51DBHOH_PET68056_1_A504746/denis-m-smith (accessed
26 October 2016). None of the opponents of the petition used the
familiar historical term ‘presentism’ but that was the essence of some
of the arguments advanced.

40
Māni Dunlop, ‘NZ Wars Day: From Street Petition to Government
Goal’, Radio New Zealand, 20 August 2016. http://www.radionz.
co.nz/news/national/311482/nz-wars-day-from-street-petition-to-
government-goal (accessed 13 October 2016).
41
Libby Wilson, ‘When and where: planning to remember the NZ Wars’,
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/84624987/when-and-where-
planning-to-remember-the-nz-wars (accessed 25 October 2016).
42
See Hazel Riseborough, Days of Darkness: Taranaki 1878-1884 (Wellington:
Allen & Unwin/Port Nicholson Press, 1989).
43
Elton Rikihana Smallman, ‘National Day to Remember the New Zealand
Wars to Start in 2017’, http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/85915559/
national-day-to-remember-land-wars-starts-in-2017 (accessed 15
December 2016).
44
However, some critics have expressed concerns that selecting this date
to mark the New Zealand Wars might end up overshadowing the
Declaration of Independence. Heeni Brown, ‘Taurua Opposes
Date for New Zealand Wars Commemorations’, http://www.
maoritelevision.com/news/regional/taurua-opposes-date-new-
zealand-wars-commemorations (accessed 15 December 2016).
45
Hobson’s Pledge website, http://www.hobsonspledge.nz/ (accessed 25
October 2016).
46
New Zealand Centre for Political Research website, http://www.nzcpr.com/
land-war-petition/ (accessed 13 October 2016).
47
‘NZ Wars: The Stories of Ruapekapeka’, https://www.radionz.co.nz/
programmes/nz-wars (accessed 27 November 2017).
48
Elton Rikihana Smallman, ‘The slow build to remember our nation’s
wars’ https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/98261916/The-slow-build-
to-remember-our-nations-wars (accessed 27 November 2017); John
Boynton, ‘NZ wars about “coming to terms with our past”’, https://
www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/342571/nz-wars-about-coming-to-
terms-with-our-past (accessed 27 November 2017).
49
Richard S. Hill, Maori and the State: Crown-Maori Relations in New Zealand/
Aotearoa, 1950-2000 (Wellington: Victoria University Press, 2009),
22.

50
K.C. McDonald, Our Country’s Story: An Illustrated History of New Zealand
(Christchurch: Whitcombe and Tombs, 1963), 148.
51
James Cowan, The New Zealand Wars: A History of the Maori Campaigns and
the Pioneering Period (Wellington: Government Printer, 1983, original
ed. 1922), vol. 1, 3.
52
O’Malley, The Great War for New Zealand, 15.
53
Waitangi Tribunal, Report of the Waitangi Tribunal on the Manukau Claim
(Wellington: Waitangi Tribunal, 1985) 17.
54
Hill, Anti-Treatyism and Anti-Scholarship.
55
Peter N. Meihana, ‘The Paradox of Maori Privilege: Historical Constructions
of Maori Privilege circa 1769 to 1840’ (PhD diss., Massey University,
2015).
56
For a useful critique of the ‘good/bad imperialism’ binary see Deborah
Montgomerie, ‘Beyond the Search for Good Imperialism: The
Challenge of Comparative Ethnohistory’, New Zealand Journal of
History, 31, no. 1 (1997): 153-68.
57
Keith Sinclair, ‘Why Are Race Relations in New Zealand Better than in South
Africa, South Australia or South Dakota?’, New Zealand Journal of
History, 5, no. 2 (1971): 121-27. This is not to suggest that Sinclair,
one of New Zealand’s leading historians in his lifetime, could be
considered an anti-Treatyist. However, his work failed to keep step
with the new historiography of New Zealand settler colonialism that
had begun to emerge by the 1970s. See Vincent O’Malley, ‘Unsettling
New Zealand History: The Revisionism of Sinclair and Ward’, in
Doug Munro and Brij V. Lal (eds), Texts and Contexts: Reflections in
Pacific Islands Historiography (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press,
2006), 154-65.
58
Meihana, ‘The Paradox of Maori Privilege’, 15.
59
Jon Johannsson, ‘Orewa and the Rhetoric of Illusion’, Political Science, 56
(2), 2004, 111-29. For the full text of Brash’s speech, see ‘Nationhood
– Don Brash Speech Orewa Rotary Club’, http://www.scoop.co.nz/
stories/PA0401/S00220.htm (accessed 15 December 2016).
60
Paulette Regan, Unsettling the Settler Within: Indian Residential Schools, Truth
Telling, and Reconciliation in Canada (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010).

61
Vincent O’Malley, The Meeting Place: Māori and Pākehā Encounters, 1642-
1840 (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2012), 13.
62
Statistics New Zealand, Profile of New Zealander Responses, Ethnicity Question:
2006 Census (Wellington: Statistics New Zealand, 2007); Tahu
Kukutai and Robert Didham, ‘In Search of Ethnic New Zealanders:
National Naming in the 2006 Census’, Social Policy Journal of New
Zealand: Te Puna Whakaaro, 36 (2009): 46-62.
63
Robin A. Kearns and Lawrence D. Berg, ‘Proclaiming place: towards
a geography of place name pronunciation’, Social and Cultural
Geography, 3, no. 3, 2002: 283-302.
64
Leigh Marama McLachlan, ‘Whanganui spelling officially given “h”’, Radio
New Zealand, 17 November 2015, http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/
te-manu-korihi/289937/plenty-in-an-’h’-for-whanganui (accessed 27
October 2016).
65
Sarah Maddison, ‘Postcolonial Guilt and National Identity: Historical
Injustice and the Australian Settler State’, Social Identities: Journal for
the Study of Race, Nation and Culture, 2012: 1-15.
66
Early in 2016 a Television New Zealand self-selecting survey (‘KIwimeter’)
that attracted over 200,000 responses was branded as racist by some
critics for asking respondents whether Māori should receive special
treatment. Bryce Edwards, ‘Political Roundup: TVNZ’s controversial
KIwimeter survey’, New Zealand Herald, 18 March 2016, http://www.
nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11607790
(accessed 27 October 2016). On wider Pākehā unease see Chris
G. Sibley and James H. Liu, ‘Attitudes Towards Biculturalism in
New Zealand: Social Dominance and Pakeha Attitudes Towards
the General Principles and Resource-specific Aspects of Bicultural
Policy’, New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 33, no. 2, (2004): 88-
99; Keith Barber, ‘Indigenous Rights’ or ‘Racial Privileges’: The
Rhetoric of ‘Race’ in New Zealand Politics’, The Asia Pacific Journal
of Anthropology, 9, no. 2, 2008: 141-56; Chris G. Sibley, Marc S.
Wilson and Andrew Robertson, ‘Differentiating the Motivations
and Justifications Underlying Individual Differences in Pakeha
Opposition to Bicultural Policy: Replication and extension of a
predictive model’, New Zealand Journal of Psychology, 36, no. 1
(2007): 25-33.
67
Treaty of Waitangi settlements are typically no more than a few cents in
the dollar relative to the value of what was lost. In the case of the

Waikato-Tainui settlement in respect of the invasion and confiscation
of Waikato in the 1860s, the settlement equalled 1.4% of the
estimated value of the confiscated lands. O’Malley, The Great War for
New Zealand, 598.
68
UMR Research, Treaty of Waitangi UMR Omnibus Results (Wellington: UMR
Research, 2011), 7.
69
In 1984 the incoming fourth Labour government embarked on a
programme of radical economic restructuring (known as
Rogernomics after then Finance Minister Roger Douglas). This saw
the heavily-regulated New Zealand economy opened up to free
market reforms, including a floating currency, elimination of most
tariffs and subsidies, the privatisation of many Crown agencies,
the reduction of top tax rates, and dismantling of many aspects
of the former ‘cradle to grave’ welfare state introduced by the first
Labour government in the 1930s. Unemployment skyrocketed as
a result, and food banks made a return for the first time since the
Great Depression. It was during this same period (in 1985) that
the Waitangi Tribunal was given a mandate to investigate historical
Māori claims under the Treaty of Waitangi dating back to 1840. A
New Zealand ‘politics of nostalgia’ based on a return to the supposed
golden era of the 1950s included not just smiling, happy Māori but
also full employment and an absence of poverty.
70
Paulette Y.L. Regan, ‘Unsettling the Settler Within: Canada’s Peacemaker
Myth, Reconciliation, and Transformative Pathways to
Decolonization’ (PhD diss., University of Victoria
FIGURES
Fig.1&2 Otorohanga College students presenting a 13,000 signature petition to
Parliament. Fairfax Media.

Harawira Pearless
CHAPTER 9
TE KAPEHU O TŪ-MATA-UENGA
WAY FINDING AS A MEANS OF
REMBERING THE PAST
HARAWIRA PEARLESS
INTRODUCTION
Wayfinding is a necessity in the invocation of post conflict remembrances.

Te Kapehu o Tū-mata-uenga is a navigational aide to the 28th Māori
Battalions significant battle grounds, roll of honour, gallantry, and
mentions in dispatches, the chronology of the campaign, and utilises
real and ethereal weigh points to the physical and spiritual markers that
guide us in our post conflict observances and pilgrimages. Wayfinding
to the 28th Māori Battalion battle grounds and burial sites require both
research and navigational skills to locate the geographic locations where
the 28th Māori Battalion went into action and where the men who fell
in battle now lie at rest.
Physical field research is the platform upon which any return visitation
is based but to find the way other tools are necessary. These include
understanding the local political and security situation, basic local language
skills, and a thorough understanding of religious observances. Wayfinding
is multifaceted and requires the broadest of appreciations, dependent
on what historical information is known and the ability to gain access to
geographic locations.
The central element of wayfinding is being able to ‘find the way’ and
needless to say a compass and a map are essential. A hand-held GPS is
also useful but way finding in the context of this chapter denotes that

you are in all likelihood the first or one of very few people to have stood ‘on the
spot’ since the time of the battle, action, or engagement. I must differentiate here
between ‘on the spot’ and ‘in the general vicinity’; on the spot means just that, the
battle took place right here, this is where the blood of our tūpuna has been cast
which is in contrast to the general vicinity where the definite location of the battle
site is unknown but known to be ‘somewhere over there’.
Te Kapehu o Tu Mata Unega is a weigh finding aid that provides the wakapapa
and geographic locations of the 28th Māori Battalion’s significant battle grounds,
burial sites, memorials, gallantry awards, state honours and mentions in dispatches.
NGA TOHU: ICONOLOGY
The design of a weigh finding aid for any navigator belongs to the way finder. The
simplicity or complexity of the way finding aid also belongs to the way finder and
can be either coded or uncoded and may or may not include marginal information.
The marginal information provides the numerous elements that assist the holder of
the Kapehu to fully understand and interpret the instrument and to find the way.
In referencing ‘coding’ in the context of this chapter, I am referring to the inclusion
of the metaphysical elements such as nihiniho tuhua, haehae, koi, mango pare and
poroiwi kaheke. These are explanations of marginal information to compliment
the 28th Māori Battalion’s campaign and chronology of battles.
TE KAPEHU O TU MATA UNEGA
Te Kapehu o Tu Mata Unega is a multi-faceted Kapehu of navigational origins

that has two faces. The upper most face of the Kapehu bears the wakapapa of the
28th Māori Battalion’s campaign history and the inverse face is the keeper of the
geographic codes to where the 28th Māori Battalion’s significant battle grounds,
burial sites, gallantry, and mention in dispatches locations can be found.

The essence of Te Kapehu is to be able at a glance to way find, story tell and
teach. It is a pivoting dial with many quadrants and is the root of our 28th Māori
Battalion remembrances.
MARGINAL INFORMATION
To assist in understanding the components of Te Kapehu, the following marginal

information elements explain the ethereal elements of Te Kapehu from the outside
to the compasses central pivot point.

These ethereal elements consist of:
1. ‘Nihoniho Tuhua’ represents the underworld element and are the obsidian
like teeth of Hine-nui-te-pō;
2. ‘Haehae’ represent the grief element;
3. ‘Kauhanga Riri 1941-1945’ represents the 28th Māori Battalion campaigns

and years of engagement;
4. ‘Mate Papa’ is the cross element reflecting the 28th Māori Battalion’s number
of war dead by campaign;
5. ‘Maia Papa’ is the medal element representing the 28th Māori Battalion’s
number of gallantry awards by campaign;
6. ‘Kauhanga riri motuhake a pae pakanga’ represents the 28th Māori Battalion’s
significant battle grounds by campaign;
7. ‘Mangopare’ represents the warrior element within each of the 28th Māori
Battalion campaigns;
8. ‘Nga Poroiwi Kaheke’ represents the unknown final resting places of number
of the 28th Māori Battalion soldiers lost in action;
9. ‘Te Koi’, the pivot point of the compass, is identified by the Roman numerals
XXVIII and refers directly to the 28th Māori Battalion’s battle honours
nomenclature.
These representations overlay onto the battle nomenclature of the 28th Māori
Battalion and are representative of the acknowledgement that a kaupapa Māori
element is central to how we remember and that our collective remembrances
are centered on both physical and metaphysical elements which are inseparable.

TE KOREKORE O TŪ-MATA-UENGA
Te Korekore o Tū-mata-uenga is a further iconological element of way finding

and is the representation of the karakia element of our 28th Māori Battalion
remembrances. The second stanza of Te Korekore o Tū-mata-uenga is Te Korekore
o Te Kapehu, which identifies the karakia elements that are seated within Te
Kapehu, reads:
Te Korekore o te Kapehu.
Ko te Karukaru kaheke
Ko te Poroiwi kaheke
Ko te Kahikatoa kaheke
Ko te Hongihongi mata a Papa
Te Takapau o Tū-mata-uenga e
Te Karukaru kaheke references to where the blood of our tūpuna fell on the
battle grounds; Te Poroiwi kaheke references to where the bones of the 28th Māori
Battalion have fallen and are memorialised; Te Kahikatoa kaheke references how
and where the 28th Māori Battalion have been acknowledged for gallantry; Te
Hongihongi Mata a Papa references our invocation of pilgrimage; and Te Takapau
a Tu Mata Unega refers to the land as being the sleeping mat of Tū-mata-uenga.
CONCLUSION
Te Kapehu o Tu Mata Unega is a remembrance mechanism upon which return

visitation to 28 Māori Battalion’s sacred places are initiated and implemented. The
use of tohu or icons to achieve this is a means which enables hunau to relocate
and travel to the places where their tūpuna went into action and where some fell.
These at a glance are the root of how we remember the 28th Māori Battalion.
Te Kapehu o Tu Mata Unega is effectively one of many orientation devices at

our disposal. There are limitless others also with multiple compass points which

can be used depending on the navigator, researcher, or pilgrim. The karakia
element, Te Korekore o Te Kapehu, is the component that houses the essence of
our kaupapa Māori inclusions and are the direct references that are absent from
previous narratives and chronologies referencing the 28th Māori Battalion.
Kanohi kitea, marama tiahoaho is singularly the most poignant element of Te

Kapehu o Tu Mata Unega and refers directly to the elevated levels of understanding
that are achieved once morehu see with their own eyes the battle grounds and
burial sites that their tūpuna fought and died upon. Similarly, kanohi kitea, marama
tiahoaho, is the essence of pilgrimage and it is the Kapehu that orientates pilgrims
to the sacred places of the 28th Māori Battalion and enables the deepness of
understanding.
While November 11th signifies the conclusion of our active period of World War
One 1914-1918, Māori do not focus on this period in isolation. It is a component
of a far broader recollection of the Maori commitment to conflict, pre-colonial, the
land war period, the Boer War, the First and Second World Wars, Japan, Borneo,
Malaya, Vietnam, Peace Keeping and humanitarian operations, and private security
operations worldwide.
The overall purpose of Te Kapehu o Tu Mata Unega is to re-open ancient pathways

and means of access and to propagate our remembrances inter generationally. It
is the war compass of Tu Mata Unega which connects us to our beloved soldiers
who have since passed on.

Funded by Te Puni Kōkiri, supported by Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Awa and hosted by Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi
Cover: Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 7-C2.
A sketch of the fight at Rangiawhia (now Rangiaohia) by J A Wilson showing the engagement for the recovery of McHale’s body. Various
forces and soldiers named including McDonnell, Colonel Nixon, Wilson, Alexander, Dunn and General Cameron and staff.
Funded by Te Puni Kōkiri, supported by Te Rūnanga o Ngāti Awa and hosted by Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi
Cover: Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 7-C2.
A sketch of the fight at Rangiawhia (now Rangiaohia) by J A Wilson showing the engagement for the recovery of McHale’s body. Various
forces and soldiers named including McDonnell, Colonel Nixon, Wilson, Alexander, Dunn and General Cameron and staff.

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TE PŪTAKE

WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND

THE HISTORICAL NEW ZEALAND WARS BETWEEN

The New Zealand Wars is a sensitive subject for many

It is important that we put the same emphasis on our own

(Ed.) Malcolm Mulholland

WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND

THE HISTORICAL NEW ZEALAND WARS BETWEEN

The New Zealand Wars is a sensitive subject for many

It is important that we put the same emphasis on our own

(Ed.) Malcolm Mulholland

Malcolm Mulholland (Ed.)

Title: TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: THE NEW ZEALAND WARS

SIR HARAWIRA GARDINER

This publication is based on a collection of presentations that were

1 | INTRODUCTION TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND

TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND INTRODUCTION |2

The fund that was established by Government is administered by Te Puni Kokiri

Gardiner himself noted some of the inherent problems in deciding upon a

3| INTRODUCTION TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND

TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND INTRODUCTION |4

NEW ZEALAND OBSERVANCE DAYS

DATE DAY OBSERVED

5| INTRODUCTION TE PŪTAKE O TE RIR: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND

TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND INTRODUCTION |6

DATE DAY OBSERVED PURPOSE

7| INTRODUCTION TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND

CANTERBURY OBSERVANCE DAYS

DATE NAME OF DAY PURPOSE

As stated by Day, the twenty or so memorials that were erected to acknowledge

TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND INTRODUCTION |8

Chapter Three is authored by Dr Vincent O’Malley. O’Malley himself played

9| INTRODUCTION TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND

Chapter Four is written by Che Wilson. Wilson’s contribution is titled “Resistance

TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND INTRODUCTION | 10

11 | INTRODUCTION TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND

Chapter Six was written by Judge Layne Harvey regarding a perspective on

TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND INTRODUCTION | 12

As highlighted in previous chapters, a more sympathetic ear was developed by

Chapter Seven penned by Haare Williams on Te Kooti provides a precis of the

13 | INTRODUCTION TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND

Chapter Eight, co-authored by academics Joanna Kidman and Vince O’Malley,

TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND INTRODUCTION | 14

Chapter Nine is written by Harawira Pearless. Pearless has developed a unique

“That a working group be assembled to ascertain the importance placed on New

15 | INTRODUCTION TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND

TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND INTRODUCTION | 16

17 | INTRODUCTION TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND

TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND INTRODUCTION | 18

19 | INTRODUCTION TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND

WAR AND CONFLICT

Let me begin with the recent commemoration of the centenary

The incorporation of tikanga and māramatanga Māori within the defence

21 | CHAPTER 1 TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND

TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND CHAPTER 1 | 22

23 | CHAPTER 1 TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND

The fourth reason is that commemorations go to the heart of the continuity of

The fifth reason we commemorate war is to enshrine the eternal memory of

Finally, we commemorate wars to remind ourselves never to repeat the same

TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND CHAPTER 1 | 24

How do we commemorate war? There are a number of ways we do that. First

25 | CHAPTER 1 TE PŪTAKE O TE RIRI: WARS AND CONFLICTS IN NEW ZEALAND