Herangi Te Kirihaehae Te Puea 1918 Waikato Nz

edmondsallan - Hello - Te Puea was now determined to rebuild a centre for the Kingitanga at Ngaruawahia, its original home before the confiscation, in accordance with Tawhiao's wishes. She was dissatisfied with the swampy conditions at Mangatawhiri and wished to make a new start in the wake of the tragic influenza epidemic of late 1918, which had struck the settlement with devastating effect, leaving a quarter of the people dead. Te Puea gathered up 100 orphaned children from lower Waikato and placed them in the care of the remaining families. But she needed a better home for them. In 1920 Waikato leaders were able to buy 10 acres of confiscated land on the bank of the Waikato River opposite the township and by 1921 Te Puea was ready to begin moving the people from Mangatawhiri to build a new marae, to be called Turangawaewae. It seemed an impossible plan, given the distance the people had to travel and their lack of resources, and Te Puea was frank with them about the difficulties they would face. Years of hard work followed, draining and filling swampy scrub-covered land, and raising funds for the building of a sleeping house for visitors and, later, a large carved house intended as a hospital. They had also to overcome the attitudes of the Pakeha citizens of Ngaruawahia, who initially tried to have them removed from the borough.
In these years a community was welded together under Te Puea's leadership. In the evenings an expert in haka taught the young people, and Te Puea formed a group named Te Pou o Mangatawhiri. Its name commemorates the pou (post) erected by the Kingitanga at Mangatawhiri beyond which Pakeha were not to acquire land or authority, an injunction they ignored. Te Pou o Mangatawhiri set out to raise the hundreds of pounds needed for the carved house by performing in halls and theatres throughout the North Island. Te Puea kept morale high on the tours, gathering the young people together to tell them stories and share her hopes with them, joking, jumping to her feet to show them how to improve their haka, how to pukana. In 1927 they toured the East Coast, where Apirana Ngata, MP for Eastern Maori, led Ngati Porou in giving strong support to the building of the carved house. It was the start of a long friendship between Te Puea and Ngata. At his suggestion the house was named Mahinarangi, after the ancestor who had united Tainui with the tribes of the East Coast. Six thousand people attended the hui to open the house in March 1929.
Other events of significance to the Kingitanga occurred in the 1920s. In 1927 a royal commission chaired by W. A. Sim considered the confiscation of land in the 1860s. It recommended the payment of £3,000 annually to Waikato as compensation; both the offer and some of the commission's findings were unacceptable, and negotiations over a settlement occupied the next 20 years. Te Puea was also increasingly becoming known outside Waikato. Her friendship with Ngata and Gordon Coates led her into frequent contacts with government officials, and another friend, Eric Ramsden, a journalist, persuaded her of the value of publicity for her work. Articles about 'Princess' Te Puea began to appear in newspapers and magazines.

With Turangawaewae marae established, Te Puea turned her attention to building an economic base for the people, dependent until now on seasonal wage-labour, and already feeling the impact of the depression. Ngata became native minister at the end of 1928, and his legislation providing for state loans to Maori farmers put land development within the reach of Waikato. The development schemes began on small pockets of land at Waiuku and Onewhero. Te Puea became the supervisor of the schemes and travelled constantly among them, taking families from Ngaruawahia to help with the work. She shared Ngata's vision of land development and dairy farming as the basis of strong communities; and as the farms were subdivided and homes and milking sheds built, she established or extended marae throughout Waikato. Sometimes she chose the place herself, as at Mangatangi and Rakaumanga, supervising all the arrangements from cutting the trees to plastering the walls with cement over soaked, cleaned sacks. At Mangatangi she named the house Tamaoho, and had a great canvas painted telling the story of Tamaoho, and the migration of Ngati Tamaoho long before from Maungakiekie (One Tree Hill) through the Hunua Range into the Mangatangi area. The dining hall here is named for her: Kirihaehae. New marae were incorporated into the round of Poukai gatherings instituted by Tawhiao, which are still at the heart of the Kingitanga: an annual visit by the King - and, more recently, the Queen - to each marae to consult the people. What a deep futuristic thinker this woman was . If any one is putting these journals together for their own personal pass me on'S to the family , I can see some young woman reading this journal , and making her think - If she can do all that -- so can I . Till we meet again - Regards -edmondsallan