Heke's final resting place secret for now

The time and place at Kaikohe where famed Ngapuhi warrior Hone Heke's bones will be buried next month will not be publicly announced until the night before the internment.

Te Matarahurahu hapu leader David Rankin - who holds Hone Heke's mere - said the late formal announcement was to conform with Maori custom. He expected hundreds of people to attend the burial ceremony.

Two years ago, Heke's bones were removed from a cave near Pakaraka, where they had lain since 1850, when the great chief died.

The bones were threatened by contamination by sewage soakage from a housing development, Mr Rankin said.

The remains had been moved to a temporary site at a wahi tapu outside Kaikohe, and the time was now right for them to be buried in a new and final resting place.

Heke's grave site was ''high on a hill'' where the bones would be well out of the way of any household septic tank pollution, Mr Rankin said.

He would not be drawn on the location of the hill, but on the western side of the town is the 86m volcanic cone called Kaikohe Hill where a monument to Mr Rankin's ancestor Hone Heke Ngapua was unveiled by Acting Prime Minister Sir James Carroll in 1911.

The warrior chief Hone Heke Pokai (1810-50) had no children. Hone Heke Ngapua (1869-1909) was the chief's grand nephew. He became the Northern Maori MP in 1893, a year later famously introducing the Native Rights Bill which sought a constitution for Maori, implementation of the Treaty of Waitangi, and a separate Maori Parliament. Although supported by many tribes, the bill was not passed.

Mr Rankin said the warrior chief's mere had been passed down to him by his late father, Graham, via Hone Heke Ngapua.

While Mr Rankin has in the past permitted some of the chief's personal effects in his possession to be exhibited publicly, the mere has always been kept under wraps.

''If anyone questions my right to speak for Heke's whanau I tell them the mere is my mandate.''