Tuhoe
Encyclopedia
Ngāi Tūhoe (ˈŋaːi ˈtʉːhɔɛ), a Māori iwi
("tribe") of New Zealand
, takes its name from an ancestral figure, Tūhoe-pōtiki. The word tūhoe literally means "steep" or "high noon" in the Māori language
. Tūhoe people also bear the sobriquet Nga Tamariki o te Kohu ("the children of the mist").
(Te Urewera National Park
) in the eastern North Island
, a steep, heavily-forested area which includes Lake Waikaremoana
. Tūhoe traditionally relied on the forest for their needs. The tribe had its main centres of population in the small mountain valleys of Ahikereru and Ruatahuna, with Maungapohatu, the inner sanctum of the Urewera, as their sacred mountain. The Tūhoe country had a great reputation among the neighbouring tribes as a graveyard for invading forces.
s. The first major contact occurred when the iwi fought against the settler government in the battle of Ōrākau in 1864. The following year authorities falsely accused Tūhoe of involvement in the killing of missionary Karl Volkner in the Volkner Incident
and confiscated the iwis fertile lands. Tūhoe lost 5700ha of land on its northern border from a total of 181,000ha of land confiscated by the Grey government from Tūhoe, Te Whakatōhea
and Ngāti Awa
. The Crown took Tūhoe's only substantial flat, fertile land and their only access to the coast. The Tūhoe people retained only harsh, more difficult land, setting the scene for later famines.
In 1868, Tūhoe sheltered the Māori leader Te Kooti
, a fugitive who had escaped from imprisonment on the Chatham Islands
, and for this the government punished them during the manhunt. Te Ara
, the Online Encyclopedia of New Zealand, notes:
After these events, Tūhoe isolated themselves, closing off access to their lands by refusing to sell, lease or survey them, and blocking the building of roads. Belich describes the Urewera as one of the last zones of Māori autonomy and the scene of the last case of armed Māori resistance: in 1916 the New Zealand Police Force arrested the Tūhoe prophet
Rua Kenana
on dubious charges after a gun-battle in the Urewera left 10 people killed or wounded. The police conducted the raid "like a military operation" entering alien territory.
Belich states that significant European penetration did not occur in the Urewera district until the 20th century.
and for their unbroken use of the Māori language, which 40% of them still speak (2001 figure).
Of the Tūhoe people, estimated to number between 33,000 and 45,000, about 19 per cent still live on their tribal lands; most of the rest live in towns on the fringes of Te Urewera and in the larger North Island cities. At least 5,000 live in Australia.
Tūhoe continue to maintain camps in Te Urewera and help run conservation programmes for endangered birds such as the kiwi
and the kokako
. Many Tūhoe return to their homelands every two years for the Te Hui Ahurei ā Tūhoe (Tūhoe Festival), which features kapa haka
, debates, sports competitions, and fashion shows. The event provides an important opportunity to maintain ties between friends and relatives.
From the late 1990s some Tūhoe started referring to themselves as the "Tūhoe nation". Observers note that Tūhoe and the Crown have long had a strained relationship, with widespread rejection of Pākehā
rule. Some Tūhoe people say they have never signed the Treaty of Waitangi
and never gave up their sovereignty.
Tamati Kruger of Tuhoe often speaks for the Tuhoe iwi.
have brought the Urewera claim to the Waitangi Tribunal
, a commission of inquiry set up in 1975 to compensate Māori for past land-confiscations on the part of the New Zealand government. The Urewera tribunal, set up in 2002, accepted submissions until 2005 and expected to report in 2007
training-camps in the Ureweras.
The New Zealand Police arrested 17 people nationwide and charged them with firearms offences.
Solicitor-General David Collins rejected a bid by police to lay charges of terrorism
against 12 of those arrested because of concerns over inadequacies of the Terrorism Suppression Act, but said the raids had stopped some "very disturbing activities".
New Zealand Attorney-General at the time Michael Cullen drew attention to Mr Collins' statement that the police had acted appropriately but the threshold was very high.
Police Commissioner Howard Broad publicly apologised for the actions of his officers during the raid, acknowledging they had set back relations between police and Tūhoe people. He said:
Iwi
In New Zealand society, iwi form the largest everyday social units in Māori culture. The word iwi means "'peoples' or 'nations'. In "the work of European writers which treat iwi and hapū as parts of a hierarchical structure", it has been used to mean "tribe" , or confederation of tribes,...
("tribe") of New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, takes its name from an ancestral figure, Tūhoe-pōtiki. The word tūhoe literally means "steep" or "high noon" in the Māori language
Maori language
Māori or te reo Māori , commonly te reo , is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Māori. It has the status of an official language in New Zealand...
. Tūhoe people also bear the sobriquet Nga Tamariki o te Kohu ("the children of the mist").
Traditional lands
Tūhoe traditional lands is Te UreweraTe Urewera
Te Urewera is an area of the central North Island of New Zealand. Located in rough, sparsely populated hill country to the northeast of Lake Taupo, it is the historical home of Tuhoe, a Māori iwi known for their controversial stance on Māori sovereignty...
(Te Urewera National Park
Te Urewera National Park
Te Urewera National Park is one of fourteen national parks within New Zealand and is the largest of the four in the North Island. Covering an area of approximately 2,127 km², it is in the north east of the Hawke's Bay region of the North Island....
) in the eastern North Island
North Island
The North Island is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The island is in area, making it the world's 14th-largest island...
, a steep, heavily-forested area which includes Lake Waikaremoana
Lake Waikaremoana
Lake Waikaremoana is located in Te Urewera National Park in the North Island of New Zealand, 60 kilometres northwest of Wairoa and 80 kilometres southwest of Gisborne. It covers an area of 54 km². From the Maori Waikaremoana translates as 'sea of rippling waters'The lake lies in the heart of Tuhoe...
. Tūhoe traditionally relied on the forest for their needs. The tribe had its main centres of population in the small mountain valleys of Ahikereru and Ruatahuna, with Maungapohatu, the inner sanctum of the Urewera, as their sacred mountain. The Tūhoe country had a great reputation among the neighbouring tribes as a graveyard for invading forces.
The colonial period
Tūhoe had little direct contact with the early European settlerSettler
A settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established permanent residence there, often to colonize the area. Settlers are generally people who take up residence on land and cultivate it, as opposed to nomads...
s. The first major contact occurred when the iwi fought against the settler government in the battle of Ōrākau in 1864. The following year authorities falsely accused Tūhoe of involvement in the killing of missionary Karl Volkner in the Volkner Incident
Volkner Incident
The Völkner Incident describes the murder of the missionary Carl Sylvius Völkner in New Zealand in 1865 and the consequent reaction of the Government of New Zealand in the midst of the New Zealand land wars.-Background:...
and confiscated the iwis fertile lands. Tūhoe lost 5700ha of land on its northern border from a total of 181,000ha of land confiscated by the Grey government from Tūhoe, Te Whakatōhea
Te Whakatohea
Te Whakatōhea are a Māori iwi located in the eastern Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand. The iwi comprises six hapu: Ngāi Tamahaua, Ngāti Ira, Ngāti Ngahere, Ngāti Patumoana, Ngāti Ruatakena and Te Ūpokorehe. In the 2006 Census, 12,072 people claimed an affiliation with Te Whakatōhea.The iwi is...
and Ngāti Awa
Ngati Awa
Ngāti Awa is a Māori iwi centred in the eastern Bay of Plenty Region of New Zealand.Ngāti Awa comprises 22 hapu , with 15,258 people claiming affiliation to the iwi in 2006. The Ngāti Awa people are primarily located in towns on the Rangitaiki Plain, including Whakatane, Kawerau, Edgecumbe, Te...
. The Crown took Tūhoe's only substantial flat, fertile land and their only access to the coast. The Tūhoe people retained only harsh, more difficult land, setting the scene for later famines.
In 1868, Tūhoe sheltered the Māori leader Te Kooti
Te Kooti
Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki was a Māori leader, the founder of the Ringatu religion and guerrilla.While fighting alongside government forces against the Hauhau in 1865, he was accused of spying. Exiled to the Chatham Islands without trial along with captured Hauhau, he experienced visions and...
, a fugitive who had escaped from imprisonment on the Chatham Islands
Chatham Islands
The Chatham Islands are an archipelago and New Zealand territory in the Pacific Ocean consisting of about ten islands within a radius, the largest of which are Chatham Island and Pitt Island. Their name in the indigenous language, Moriori, means Misty Sun...
, and for this the government punished them during the manhunt. Te Ara
Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand
Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand is an online encyclopedia created by the Ministry for Culture and Heritage of the New Zealand Government. The project was established in 2002 and the website launched in 2005...
, the Online Encyclopedia of New Zealand, notes:
"Old enemies of Tūhoe fought on the side of the government; they carried out most of the raids into Te Urewera during a prolonged and destructive search between 1869 and 1872. In a policy aimed at turning the tribe away from Te Kooti, a scorched earth campaign was unleashed against Tūhoe; people were imprisoned and killed, their cultivations and homes destroyed, and stock killed or run off. Through starvation, deprivation and atrocities at the hands of the government’s Māori forces, Tūhoe submitted to the Crown."
After these events, Tūhoe isolated themselves, closing off access to their lands by refusing to sell, lease or survey them, and blocking the building of roads. Belich describes the Urewera as one of the last zones of Māori autonomy and the scene of the last case of armed Māori resistance: in 1916 the New Zealand Police Force arrested the Tūhoe prophet
Prophet
In religion, a prophet, from the Greek word προφήτης profitis meaning "foreteller", is an individual who is claimed to have been contacted by the supernatural or the divine, and serves as an intermediary with humanity, delivering this newfound knowledge from the supernatural entity to other people...
Rua Kenana
Rua Kenana Hepetipa
Rua Tapunui Kenana was a Māori prophet, faith healer and land rights activist.-Background:Rua Tapunui Kenana Māori prophet, faith healer and land rights activist....
on dubious charges after a gun-battle in the Urewera left 10 people killed or wounded. The police conducted the raid "like a military operation" entering alien territory.
Belich states that significant European penetration did not occur in the Urewera district until the 20th century.
Tūhoe today
Tūhoe people have a reputation for their continued strong adherence to Māori identityCultural identity
Cultural identity is the identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as one is influenced by one's belonging to a group or culture. Cultural identity is similar to and has overlaps with, but is not synonymous with, identity politics....
and for their unbroken use of the Māori language, which 40% of them still speak (2001 figure).
Of the Tūhoe people, estimated to number between 33,000 and 45,000, about 19 per cent still live on their tribal lands; most of the rest live in towns on the fringes of Te Urewera and in the larger North Island cities. At least 5,000 live in Australia.
Tūhoe continue to maintain camps in Te Urewera and help run conservation programmes for endangered birds such as the kiwi
Kiwi
Kiwi are flightless birds endemic to New Zealand, in the genus Apteryx and family Apterygidae.At around the size of a domestic chicken, kiwi are by far the smallest living ratites and lay the largest egg in relation to their body size of any species of bird in the world...
and the kokako
Kokako
The Kōkako is a forest bird which is endemic to New Zealand. It is slate-grey with wattles and a black mask. It is one of three species of New Zealand Wattlebird, the other two being the endangered Tieke and the extinct Huia...
. Many Tūhoe return to their homelands every two years for the Te Hui Ahurei ā Tūhoe (Tūhoe Festival), which features kapa haka
Kapa haka
The term Kapa haka is commonly known in Aotearoa as 'Maori Performing Arts' or the 'cultural dance' of Maori people...
, debates, sports competitions, and fashion shows. The event provides an important opportunity to maintain ties between friends and relatives.
From the late 1990s some Tūhoe started referring to themselves as the "Tūhoe nation". Observers note that Tūhoe and the Crown have long had a strained relationship, with widespread rejection of Pākehā
Pakeha
Pākehā is a Māori language word for New Zealanders who are "of European descent". They are mostly descended from British and to a lesser extent Irish settlers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, although some Pākehā have Dutch, Scandinavian, German, Yugoslav or other ancestry...
rule. Some Tūhoe people say they have never signed the Treaty of Waitangi
Treaty of Waitangi
The Treaty of Waitangi is a treaty first signed on 6 February 1840 by representatives of the British Crown and various Māori chiefs from the North Island of New Zealand....
and never gave up their sovereignty.
Tamati Kruger of Tuhoe often speaks for the Tuhoe iwi.
Waitangi Tribunal
Tūhoe and other local iwiIwi
In New Zealand society, iwi form the largest everyday social units in Māori culture. The word iwi means "'peoples' or 'nations'. In "the work of European writers which treat iwi and hapū as parts of a hierarchical structure", it has been used to mean "tribe" , or confederation of tribes,...
have brought the Urewera claim to the Waitangi Tribunal
Waitangi Tribunal
The Waitangi Tribunal is a New Zealand permanent commission of inquiry established under the Treaty of Waitangi Act 1975...
, a commission of inquiry set up in 1975 to compensate Māori for past land-confiscations on the part of the New Zealand government. The Urewera tribunal, set up in 2002, accepted submissions until 2005 and expected to report in 2007
2007 Urewera police raids
A major armed-police raid in the Ureweras on 15 October 2007 focused attention on the Tūhoe people, and claims emerged that some Tūhoe had run terroristTerrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
training-camps in the Ureweras.
The New Zealand Police arrested 17 people nationwide and charged them with firearms offences.
Solicitor-General David Collins rejected a bid by police to lay charges of terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
against 12 of those arrested because of concerns over inadequacies of the Terrorism Suppression Act, but said the raids had stopped some "very disturbing activities".
New Zealand Attorney-General at the time Michael Cullen drew attention to Mr Collins' statement that the police had acted appropriately but the threshold was very high.
"Anybody who claims this is some kind of vindication for all those involved is misreading what the Solicitor-General said."
Police Commissioner Howard Broad publicly apologised for the actions of his officers during the raid, acknowledging they had set back relations between police and Tūhoe people. He said:
"We regret the hurt and stress caused to the community of RuatokiRuatokiRuatoki is a locality in the Bay of Plenty Region of New Zealand. It is located at the base of the Urewera Valley, approximately 20 km south of Whakatane. The predominantly Māori community of approximately 600 people affiliate with the Tūhoe iwi, with at least ten marae located in the area...
and we will seek an appropriate way to repair the damage done to police-Maori relations. History tells us that episodes such as this can and do take decades to heal."
External links
- Tūhoe iwi Website
- Te Mana Motuhake O Tūhoe Website
- Tuhoe Freedom Fighters Website
- The Ruatoki valley blazes as Tūhoe stands tall
- Tūhoe - History of Resistance (Google Video) (Torrent)
- Tūhoe actions threaten treaty hearing (Streaming Video Clip)
- Tūhoe The First Peoples
- Tūhoe Hauora
- Tūhoe sets up road blockades fights for forest
- Tuhoe and their history in Te Urewera National Park