Encircled LandsTe Urewera, 1820–1921

Judith Binney

For Europeans during the nineteenth century, the Urewera was a remote and savagely enticing wilderness; for Túhoe (and others) who lived there, it was a sheltering heartland. This history documents the first hundred years of Te Rohe Pótae o Te Urewera – the encircled lands of the Urewera – following European contact.

The terrain was criss-crossed by early missionaries, many French Roman Catholic, and from 1866 by the ‘booted feet’ of government troops. In 1866–67 large areas were taken by confiscation or forced cession from the northern and southern boundaries of Túhoe’s land. At the end of the fighting in 1872, by the agreed terms of peace, the Urewera became an autonomous district, collectively governed by its own leaders, who named themselves Te Whitu Tekau (The Seventy).

These are men who stand tall in any history of Aotearoa New Zealand – among them, Te Whenuanui I, Erueti Tamaikoha, Kereru Te Pukenui and Te Makarini Tamarau (Tamarau Waiari) – although they are little recognised. The borders of their lands were further circumscribed during the 1880s and early 1890s, yet these leaders worked together to negotiate Te Rohe Pótae o Te Urewera as a separate tribal district, formally ratified in 1896. This agreement is unique, for it was the only legally recognised tribal enclave in Aotearoa New Zealand. In 1896, the Premier, Richard Seddon, acknowledged that this recognition was made in fulfilment of earlier promises exchanged with Túhoe’s leaders.

But in 1921–22 the ‘Urewera District Native Reserve’ created in 1896 was abolished in law. Its existence, its history, and even the very name Te Rohe Pótae for the Urewera became almost totally forgotten – except in local memory. The governance of Te Whitu Tekau was steadily undermined, and Urewera lands progressively alienated from their original owners by the Crown.

Encircled Lands recovers this lost history from a wealth of contemporary archived documents, many written by the Urewera leaders themselves, and over 150 early photographs, along with oral sources and original maps. It explains how the idea of internal self-government for Túhoe was born – and for a period partly realised. It provides the historical context of an idea that has come again to the negotiating table: Túhoe’s never ending quest for a constitutional agreement that restores their authority in their lands.

RRP $89.99 hardback624 pages • 260 x 185 mmApprox 200 photographs and mapsFull colour throughoutISBN: 978-1-877242-44-1Publication: November 2009

Judith Binney Judith Binney, DNZM, is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Auckland. She is the author of several prize-winning books including Redemption Songs: A Life of Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki, which won the Montana Book of the Year, 1996. This work followed her earlier writing on the people of Te Urewera – Mihaia: The Prophet Rua Kenana and his Community at Maungapohatu (with Gillian Chaplin and Craig Wallace) and Nga Morehu/The Survivors: The Life Histories of Eight Maori Women (with Gillian Chaplin).

A Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Judith Binney was for many years editor of the New Zealand Journal of History. She was given the Prime Minister’s Lifetime Literary Achievement Award for Non-fiction in 2006. In 2009, she received the Polynesian Society’s Elsdon Best Medal. In 2006, she was awarded DCNZM (later DNZM) for her historical research.

Encircled Lands: Te Urewera, 1820–1921 draws on the two-part report she was commissioned by the Crown Forestry Rental Trust to write for the Waitangi Tribunal.

P O Box 12474, Wellington 6144

Email: info@bwb.co.nz, phone: 04 473 8128

I N F O R M AT I O N S H E E T

CONTENTS

Preface

Introduction

Part One: Te Ao Hurihuri: A World Turned Over, 1820–1864

Chapter 1. He Mana Tawhito – An Ancient Authority

Chapter 2. The Land and its Leaders

Chapter 3. Strange Men and Gods

Part Two: Invasion and War, 1864–1872

Chapter 4. The Coming of War, 1864–1866

Chapter 5. Confiscation and Defence, 1866–1868

Chapter 6. The Conflict Expands, 1867–1870

Chapter 7. Peace Born of War, 1871–1872

Part Three: Guarding the Land, 1872–1896

Chapter 8. Te Whitu Tekau (The Seventy), 1872–1878

Chapter 9. The Ring of Fire, 1878–1891

Chapter 10. The Rohe Pótae and the ‘Small War’, 1891–1896

Part Four: A Promise Upheld? 1896–1912

Chapter 11. The Urewera District Native Reserve, 1896–1907

Chapter 12. The Urewera ‘Native Schools’ and the Famine, 1896–1909

Chapter 13. The Governor and ‘Te Rawe Kore’ – Two Narratives

Chapter 14. The Struggle for Authority, 1906–1909

Chapter 15. The First Land Sales, 1909–1912

Part Five: The Rohe Potae Subverted, 1912–1921

Chapter 16. The Law against the Prophet, 1911–1916

Chapter 17. The Legacies of the Past

Appendix 1. William Colenso’s Survey of the Urewera, 1843–1844

Appendix 2. Hunter Brown’s Survey, 1862

Appendix 3. Population of the Urewera, 1870–1907

Appendix 4. Elsdon Best’s List of the Urewera Hapü, Chiefs and Käinga, March 1896

Appendix 5. The Urewera District Native Reserve Act, 1896

Illustrations

Maps and Graphs

Tables

Whakapapa

Abbreviations

Bibliography

Index

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Pai Marire gathering at Tataroa, Waikato, 27 January 1865. On the right, the artist and his guide Hemipo are shown as bound prisoners. They were subsequently released. Watercolour by Lieutenant Herbert Meade. B-139-014, Alexander Turnbull Library

The marae flags flying at the final Urewera claimants’ hearing, 2005. The first three flags are (left to right): Te Mana Motuhake o Tuhoe, the new Tuhoe flag designed by Tame Iti; Te Paena, a collective flag from Te Uwhiarae, the Ruatahuna marae of Rua’s senior wife, Pinepine, and the last remaining centre of Rua Kenana’s teachings in Ruatahuna; and Kuri Kino, flag of Ngati Kuri, the hapü at Te Waiiti (and also Te Uwhiarae). Ngati Kuri men reconstructed Maungapohatu in September 1915, after Rua returned from his first jail sentence. The fourth flag is a facsimile of Tutakangahau’s flag made for Maungapohatu, seized by the police in their armed assault of 1916. The original is in the Auckland War Memorial Museum Tamaki Paenga Hira. It was given to the museum by the former Police Commissioner, John Cullen, who had led the assault. Rightfully the original belongs to the people of Maungapohatu. These four flags were chosen for the last claimants’ meeting for the Waitangi Tribunal Urewera hearings so as to establish the historical context for Tamakai-moana, the people of Maungapohatu. Photograph by Judith Binney.

LEFT: Erueti Tamaikoha, outstanding leader of Ngái Tama and Te Whakatane hapü. Date unknown, possibly 1880s. F73839 ½, Alexander Turnbull Library

RIGHT: Rua Kenana, July 1908. Portrait by James McDonald. Half-plate negative Michael Graham-Stewart

Photograph of women practising the poi, accompanied by a man with a concertina. Photograph probably by Thomas Pringle. ‘Through Tuhoe Land’, Ranfurly Collection, PA1-q-634-36, 37, Alexander Turnbull Library

Encircled Lands – Judith Binney (cont)

Mist over Waikaremoana from Panekiri bluff, 2001. Photograph by Shaun Barnett.

Map marking the routes used by Reverend William Williams and William Colenso to journey into the Urewera from Turanganui (Poverty Bay). The track comes to Onepoto at ‘Waikari L.’ (Waikaremoana). After crossing the lake in a waka, the track continues to Oputao (Ruatahuna). There the path forks, one track leading down the Whakatane River to Pupuaruhe, the other down the Whirinaki River to Ahikereru. Note the further tracks cutting east from the Whakatane River, notably from Omaruoteane (‘Maruteangi’) to Toreatai pä at Maungapohatu. From ‘Map of the Colony of New Zealand: From Official Documents’, by John Arrowsmith, 1853. 830a/1853/10944, Alexander Turnbull Library

The Urewera delegation meets Seddon in the garden of the ministerial residence, Molesworth Street, Wellington, September 1895. The men, with Carroll, celebrate with a haka. Seddon’s evident enjoyment is visible. He rarely smiled in photographs. S. Percy Smith Papers, Box 8, item 317, no. 219, MSS 281, AIM

‘Tuhoe did not sign the Treaty!’ Painted sign at Ruatoki, October 2002. Photograph by Judith Binney.

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