Te Whiti from a sketch by Mary Dobie. (The Graphic)
Te Whiti from a sketch by Mary Dobie. (The Graphic)
One of the most disturbing episodes in New Zealand history took place in November 1881 when a force of the Armed Constabulary marched on the settlement of Parihaka in Taranaki, arrested its leaders Te-Whiti-o-Rongomai and Tohu Kakahi, and drove away hundreds of people who had gathered there under their protection.
Who the Herald would have chosen as New Zealander of the Year then would be quite different from who the paper chooses today. For some years Te Whiti had been leading a campaign of peaceful resistance to Pakeha encroachments on the land. Although he preached peace the settler community feared either he was a fanatic in pacifist clothing or that, when the time came, he would not be able to control his followers and the result would be bloodshed.
The state, impatient to survey and sell the land to raise money to pay for its ambitious immigration scheme, wrestled with the issue for four years.
In the end, as Hazel Riseborough explains in Days of Darkness, the government set out to destroy Te Whiti's mana by assembling a large force of Armed Constabulary to arrest him at gunpoint. Native minister John Bryce planned and executed the raid and the pages of the 19th century Herald suggest he would have been chosen as New Zealander of the Year.
"Opinions were much divided as to the prudence of Mr Bryce's action, a great many contending that he would precipitate the country into a war," said the paper. "[But] the result has been an entire and perfect success - a success so great that comparatively little attention is now directed to [Parihaka]."
Left: John Bryce (Alexander Turnbull Library). Middle: Tohu Kakahi. (Alexander Turnbull Library). Right: Te Whiti-o-Rongomai. (Mary Dobie, The Graphic).
IN HINDSIGHT With hindsight, however, it is perfectly clear that Te Whiti and Tohu were genuine pacifists who did not budge from their convictions even under the most extreme provocation when the soldiers came to arrest them. One of the officers of the Armed Constabulary, Stuart Newall, reported that, just before he was led away, Te Whiti exhorted his people to be stout-hearted, to live in peace and to hold on to their land.
They remained true to his teaching and, far from being destroyed, his mana was enhanced.
The historian Danny Keenan writes in the DNZB that Te Whiti and Tohu are seen by their descendants as complementary figures sharing a titanic burden.
"The name Te Whiti-o-Rongomai (celestial flight of the shining one, resting at Puke-Te Whiti) came to symbolise, according to descendants, the essence of the mission that he, with Tohu Kakahi, was called to work out in the Maori world."
The Herald's attitude to Te Whiti had changed by the time he died in 1907 even though it still believed he should have been prepared to allow his people to assimilate.
"Te Whiti strove for what he honestly regarded as the rights of the Maori," said his obituary.
"To his people he was absolutely loyal, being alike above corruption and above fear; and although he failed to perceive the possibility of avoiding racial disaster by adopting the Pakeha methods and accepting Pakeha civilisation, he unhesitatingly exerted all his influence against the yielding by his people to the Pakeha vices."
Te Whiti and Tohu are outstanding examples of Maori leaders negotiating a path through a difficult, dangerous and changing world.
But they are also seen more generally as outstanding exemplars of moral and physical courage. For holding their nerve and remaining true to their convictions under extreme provocation, they are our New Zealanders of the Year for 1881.
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