Rebel Rua trial photos on sale

By LAUREN MENTJOX

A photo album documenting the trial of one of the country's most controversial Maori leaders has surfaced in an antique shop almost 90 years later.

The album contains 26 photos of Tuhoe leader Rua Kenana's trial at the Auckland Supreme Court in 1916.

The trial of the man known as the prophet Rua lasted 47 days. It was the longest in New Zealand's history until 1977 and its verdict stirred a public response.

The photos are believed to have been taken by Rua's lawyer, Jerry Lundon, and include his family, his Maungapohatu Marae in the Ureweras, police witnesses and court staff.

Auckland University professor Judith Binney, author of Mihaia: The prophet Rua Kenana and his community at Maungapohatu, said there were only two other known collections. Both were at the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington.

Though the album found in Auckland was likely to contain the same photos as those at the library, it was an important discovery, she said.

"It would be very exciting if it is a new collection, because the trial was hugely important at the time."

The album was found in an antique shop and bought for about $50. It is being auctioned next month and could sell for around $1200.

Alexander Turnbull Library's photographic archives curator, John Sullivan, said the archived albums had been given to the library by different donors in the 1970s.

They contained the same photos and the captions were written in the same handwriting.

One was given to interpreter Hare Hongi by Percy Wilkinson, whom police had instructed to gather evidence.

This did not mean Mr Wilkinson took the photos, Mr Sullivan said.

The discovery of a third album of photos from the same trial showed a high level of interest, he said.

According to the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography website, Rua was the self-proclaimed religious leader of a Maori separatist movement at the tiny, remote settlement of Maungapohatu. He practised a messianic religion and prayed for the day when, like the Israelites' release from Egypt, Maori would be free from Pakeha settlers.

In 1916, after failing to answer a police summons, 60 armed police were sent to raid his marae in a Government effort to stop his challenging the state and discouraging Maori from taking part in World War I.

Rua was arrested after the shoot-out which left two people dead, including his son.

Police later said the first shot was fired by a Maori, but evidence suggested the police were first to fire.

Justice Frederick Revans Chapman dismissed the charges because Rua's arrest at Maungapohatu was illegal. But he was sentenced to 12 months' hard labour and 18 months' reformative treatment for "morally resisting" arrest on a previous occasion. The remaining seven charges were dropped.

He served nine months of his sentence at Mt Eden Prison in Auckland.

Most of the jurors wrote to the Auckland Star and sent a petition to Parliament complaining about the verdict.

The album will be auctioned on November 25 by Dunbar Sloane auctioneers and valuers in Newmarket.

Owner Dunbar Sloane said the album was bought cheaply by a "lucky" vendor six months ago at an Auckland antique shop.

The man did not want to be named because the antique shop probably did not realise how valuable the album was.