Te Puea Herangi

Te Puea Herangi (1883-1952) was a respected Maori leader from New Zealand's Waikato region.

She was born at Whatiwhatihoe, near Pirongia on the 9th of November 1883, daughter of Te Tahuna Herangi and Tiahuia, who was daughter, by his principle wife, of the second Maori King, Tawhiao Te Wherowhero. Her name came from the phrase Puea ahau I te ao, which means I shall rise to the surface of the world; however, she was known to her family as Te Kirihaehae. Her Uncle Mahuta played a major role in her upbringing.

As the eventual successor to her grandfather, she was educated in the traditional Maori ways. At age 12 she began attending Mercer Primary School and then went on to attend Mangere Bridge School and Melmerly College in Parnell. She was fluent in both the Maori and English languages.

When her mother died in 1898, Te Puea returned home reluctantly, supposedly to take her place. However, being young and believing also that she was dying of tuberculosis, she rejected the traditional role expected of her and cut herself off from her people.

This phase passed and in 1911 she returned to her people and resumed her hereditary role. Her first task, the one that re-established her mana among her people, was to successfully campaign on behalf of Maui Pomare in his election bid to become the Kingite Member of Parliament.

She was soon acknowledged as one of the leaders of the Kingitanga Movement and worked to make it part of the central focus of the Maori people. She also began farming at Maungatawhiri. Te Puea was firmly opposed to conscription when it was introduced in 1917 and provided a refuge at her farm for those who refused to be conscripted into the New Zealand Army.

Following the influenza epidemic of 1918, she took under her wing some 100 orphans, who were the founding members of the community of Turangawaewae at Ngaruawahia. It was through Turangawaewae that Te Puea began to extend her influence beyond the Waikato Region. The construction of its carved meeting house was strongly supported by Sir Apirana Ngata and the Ngati Porou people. She was also friends with the Prime Minister, SirGordon Coates, and with noted journalist Eric Ramsden. It was through her friendship with Ramsden that articles about her and her work began to appear in the national newspapers. In these she was usually identified as Princess Te Puea, a title that she herself deplored, saying that the role of princess does not exist in Maoritanga.

Te Puea was awarded a CBE in 1937. Then a year later yet another carved meeting house was opened by the Governor General, Lord Galway.

In 1940 she bought a farm near Ngaruwahia and began developing it provide an economic base for the Turangawaewae community. It was here that she began teaching the beliefs that would sustain the King Movement: work, faith (specifically the Pai Marire faith, which became strongly established in the Waitako region), and pan-Maori unity through the King Movement. Te Puea always stressed the importance of iwi over hapu (the tribe over the sub-tribe or family grouping).

1940 saw the centenary of the signingof the Treaty of Waitangi, the document that founded modern New Zealand. The Government had planned nationwide celebrations. Initially Te Puea was in favour of these celebrations. However various promises made by the government about the the nature of the event were not kept and the Tainui withdrew. At the time she said

"This is an occasion for rejoicing on the part of the Pakeha and those tribes which have not suffered any injustice during the past hundred years"

TePuea was raised by people who had fought to resist the government Invasion of the Waikato in 1860 and by people who had lived through the bitter years that followed. She had little reson to love or trust the Pakeha. However as time went by she came to see the need for reconciliation. In 1946 after nearly twenty years of negotiation she accepted a settlement offered by the Prime Minister, Peter Fraser of $NZ10 000 a year in perpetuity. She recognized this as a paltry offering; even then the land unjustly confiscatedfromthe Tainui was worth billions of dollars. However the payemnt ackowledged that a grevious wrong had been done to her people.

Te Puea died at her home after a long illness, 12 Oct 1952. During her life time she had raised the King Movement to national significance. It is said that even now, decades later, her spirit can still be felt in themeeting house at Turangawaewae.