Herangi Te Kirihaehae Te Puea 1883 1918 Waikato Nz

edmondsallan - hello - This journal is about aa very great unassuming woman . ( simular to Whina Cooper ) . In my researching of the maori peoples of NZ I have been amazed at the wisdom & huge part the Women played in NZ Historical ancestry and developing of the people .
" Herangi, Te Kirihaehae Te Puea ", Waikato woman of mana, Kingitanga leader.Te Puea Herangi was born at Whatiwhatihoe, near Pirongia, on 9 November 1883. Her mother was Tiahuia, daughter of Tawhiao Te Wherowhero of Ngati Mahuta, the second Maori King, and his senior wife, Hera. Her father was Te Tahuna Herangi, son of William Searancke, an English surveyor, and Hariata Rangitaupa of Ngati Ngawaero hapu of Ngati Maniapoto. Te Puea was thus born into the kahui ariki, the family of the first Maori King, Potatau Te Wherowhero, in the difficult years following the wars of the 1860s and the extensive confiscation of Tainui lands. She was to play a crucial role alongside three successive kings in re-establishing the Kingitanga (King movement) as a central force among the Tainui people, and in achieving national recognition of its importance.
Te Puea's family moved when she was young to Pukekawa and then to Mangatawhiri, near Mercer, and between 1895 and 1898 she attended primary schools in Mercer and Auckland. She was known to her family as Te Kirihaehae. Her young adult years were exuberant, and she had several short-lived relationships. During one in particular - with a Pakeha, Roy Seccombe - she cut herself off from her people. Mahuta, Te Puea's uncle and successor to Tawhiao as king, himself intervened in about 1910 to draw her back. He had picked her out in her childhood as having unusual abilities, and had spent many hours passing on his knowledge to her; now he appealed to her to remember her duty to the Kingitanga and the people. Te Puea returned to Mangatawhiri and took up a burden that sat heavily upon her.
The early years in particular were difficult, because there was some resentment of her new position (her main support came from the people of Mercer and the lower Waikato); but she persevered with courage against the odds. She had her first test as a leader in 1911. Mahuta had decided to approve Maui Pomare as parliamentary candidate for Western Maori in place of Henare Kaihau, previously the nominee of the Kingitanga. Te Puea accompanied Pomare around the villages of the lower Waikato; her support ensured his election.

Te Puea's influence became more firmly established among Tainui people during the First World War, when she led their opposition to the government's conscription policy. She understood the sense of alienation that the military invasion, occupation and confiscation of land had imposed upon the people, and understood, too, that the Kingitanga held the key to restoring their sense of purpose. Te Puea was guided all her life by Tawhiao's sayings; more than anyone else, she gathered them together. During the war she drew on Tawhiao's words forbidding Waikato to take up arms again after he had finally made his peace with the Crown in 1881. She stood firm with those men who did not wish to fight a war that was not theirs, on behalf of a government that had dispossessed and scattered their people. But the government was impatient with what it saw as defiance and disloyalty, and compounded Tainui feelings of injustice by conscripting Maori only from the Waikato--Maniapoto district.

At this difficult time Te Puea's leadership was of great importance to Tainui. The revival of the Pai Marire faith, brought to Waikato from Taranaki by Tawhiao, helped to strengthen the people. Te Puea expressed her own opposition to conscription in specially composed waiata such as 'E huri ra koe', 'Kati nei e te iwi te kumekume roa' and 'Nga ra o Hune ka ara te pakanga', and gathered together the men liable for conscription at Te Paina (the pa she had rebuilt at Mangatawhiri) to support them. They were balloted in groups in 1918, then arrested and taken to Narrow Neck training camp at Auckland, where they were subjected to severe military punishments if they refused to wear uniform. Te Puea would travel north and sit outside where the men could see her from time to time; it gave them much-needed encouragement. I can remember her in my earlier days as
" Princess Te Puea " Till we meet again - Regards - edmondsallan