Te Puea Herangi

Te Puia Herangi, CBE (9 November 1883- 12 October 1952) was a respected Māori leader from New Zealand's Waikato region known by the name Princess Te Puea.

Early life

She was born at Whatiwhatihoe, near Pirongia, daughter of Te Tahuna Herangi and Tiahuia, who was daughter, by his principal wife, of the second Māori 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 Māori 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 Māori and English.

Leadership role

When her mother died in 1898, Te Puea returned home reluctantly at the age of 15, supposedly to take her mother's 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.

Achievements

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 Māori 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 Ngāti Porou people. She was also friends with the Prime Minister, Sir Gordon 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 Māoritanga.

During 1913 and 1914 the Māori community suffered a smallpox epidemic. The main problem was that many of them believed that disease was a punishment from displeased spirits, and refused to go to Pākehā hospitals. In response, Te Puea set up a small settlement of nikau huts devoted to nursing people back to health. This was successful as not a one person died and the isolation of the village largely prevented spread of disease.

Te Puea was awarded a CBE in 1937. 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 there 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-Māori unity through the King Movement. Te Puea always stressed the importance of iwi over hapu (the tribe over the sub-tribe or family grouping).

Nineteen forty was the centenary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, the document that founded modern New Zealand. The Government had planned nationwide celebrations. Initially Te Puea was in favour but various promises made by the government about 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 Pākehā and those tribes which have not suffered any injustice during the past hundred years.

Te Puea 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 reason to love or trust the Pākehā. However as time went by she came to see the need for reconciliation. In 1946 after nearly 20 years of negotiation she accepted on behalf of Tainui a settlement offered by the Prime Minister, Peter Fraser of NZ$10,000 a year in perpetuity. She recognized this as a paltry offering; even then the land unjustly confiscated from the Tainui was worth billions of dollars. However the payment acknowledged that a grievous wrong had been done to her people.

Te Puea died at her home after a long illness. 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 the meeting house at Turangawaewae.

Further reading