Te Kooti’s War was among the last of the New Zealand wars, the series of 19th century conflicts between the Māori and the colonising European settlers. It was fought in the East Coast region and across the heavily forested central North Island and Bay of Plenty, between New Zealand government military forces and followers of spiritual leader Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki. Source: Wikipedia
Te Kooti was a military leader, outlaw, prophet and founder of the Ringatu religion. His campaigns started after he suffered the injustice of being imprisoned on the Chatham Islands without trial. He lead an escape from the Chathams and asked the Māori King Movement and the Tuhoe tribes for refuge but was rejected. He also sought dialogue with the colonial government but was rebuffed. He sent a statement to the effect that if the government wanted a war, he would give it to them in November.
On the night of 9 November 1868 Te Kooti led a war party in an attack on a district that was home to about 150 European settlers and 500 Māori. It became known as the Poverty Bay Massacre or Matawhero Massacre. * Many of the killings were followed by the singing of verses in Psalm 63.
Arikirangi is thought to be the original name of Te Kooti. His birth date is thought to be approximately 1832. After his birth Te Toiroa performed the naming ceremony, dedicating him to Tūmatauenga, god of war and of humankind. Te Kooti’s name was connected to a prediction of the impending arrival of Pākehā (Europeans), associated with evil, and the coming of a new God. This was a prophecy was made about him by Toiroa, a Ngāti Maru Tohunga, (seer) in 1766.
“Dark, dark is the night.
There is the Pakerewhā
There is Arikirangi to come.”
Speaking of the Pakerewhā, he said; “The name of their new God will be ‘The Son Who was Killed,’ a good God, however the people will still be oppressed…”
The people would still be oppressed because Te Kooti was lawless. He learned the scriptures from the missionaries but only used the verses he liked, quoting Bible verses while he and his followers killed people.
The oral traditions interpret his wildness as the evil from which he was to be rescued by divine intervention. They say that in the 1850s he was (purportedly) visited by the Archangel Michael, who told him ‘your people will be crushed by the weight of your deeds upon them…and you will know with certainty at that time I am a God who saves people’. Source: Te Ara NZ Biography: Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Tūruki
My mother’s great Grandfather, John Walsh served in the Armed Constabulary and after that became involved in the hunt for Te Kooti. John Walsh came to the Matawhero area after the massacre: After the Massacre — Nork Of The Armed Constabulary.
In 1883 Te Kooti was pardoned by the government.
Walks:
Opepe Historic Reserve – Opepe is the place on the Napier-Taupo highway where nine Armed Constabulary soldiers from the Bay of Plenty Calvary were killed in 1869 by an advance party of Te Kooti’s troops.
Te Porere Redoubt – where Te Kooti fought his last major battle on 4 October 1869. He escaped toward the Whanganui River via an old Ngāti Hotu track.’ (Ngati Hotu are a pre-Maori tribe.)
Mangaokewa Gorge Scenic Reserve, Te Kuiti
– In 1869 Te Kooti was invited to Te Kūiti, the residence of the Māori King – but only if he came in peace. He responded defiantly that he was coming to ‘assume himself the supreme authority which he coming direct from God was entitled to’. Accompanied by Horonuku and Ngāti Tūwharetoa, and his core group of around 60 whakarau, Te Kooti arrived at Te Kūiti on 10 July 1869. Rewi Maniapoto greeted Te Kooti as a kinsman (they were related through Te Kooti’s father) and Te Kooti, for his part, appeared more conciliatory. He had come not to depose Tāwhiao but ‘to rouse up the Waikato to take up arms’. A feast had been prepared, but at this point Te Kooti declared that ‘he should consider himself the host (tangata whenua) and that the Waikato were his visitors’. His men loaded their weapons and fired over the heads of the bewildered Ngāti Maniapoto.
– From 1873 to 1883 Te Kooti lived at Te Kūiti. Here he evolved the rituals of his church. In 1883 Te Kooti was formally pardoned, at Rewi Maniapoto’s insistence. Te Kooti left Te Kūiti and in April moved to Ōtewā, where he founded his religious community.
Links
Concerning Tairoa’s prophecy: Return of the Huia — Word Spoken by Tairoa
* Matawhero Massacre. Many of the killings were followed by the singing of verses in Psalm 63. Source: NZ History, Matawhero
NZShortWalks 