New Zealand's Native Royalty

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 23, 27 January 1940, Page 2 (Supplement)

New Zealand's Native Royalty

XXL—lioroki, King Of The Maoris '

WHEN other kings bear arms that flaunt the lion, the eagle and the dragon, it is fitting that the heraldic crest of Koroki Mahuta should carry the stars which led his ancestors to this country, whose native people he now leads. This coat of arms was not designed until last century, but the Maori race bore it long before then. Look back through six centuries to the time when the British Parliament was still struggling to establish itself, when the palaces of European kings were smoky, draughty barracks full of unruly mercenary soldiers, when Norsemen farmers were still making butter in Greenland . . . that was when Koroki Mahuta* s people, with a spirit of exploration far greater than that of their white brethren, followed the Pleiades to a cluster of green islands far to the south.

t ment, settlers and native landowners, the fundamental law of the Maori King movement was lost. There was war, : enmity and poverty. Nevertheless, out v »t the fires of those days, the kingship Y has arisen once more in unbroken line, c cementing together even more firmly the Maori folk of New Zealand. The blood which has stained it has only strengthened it. 1 Koroki was crowned on the morning j of his father's burial day, and the dead king looked on at the coronation of the 1 new. While the kinswomen of Te Rata . ' wailed the immemorial chants of the 1 _ tangi, an escort of forty, representing « all the tribes present, went to the gates 1 leading to the royal quarters of Waahi ' - Pa to welcome him who was to take 1 f the place of his father. On the flat space j i' l front of the marae he was met with 5 ceremonial chants- as stately and digni- 5 fied as any that have resounded in West- c t .minster Abbey. i 5 There he was crowned. A coror ation, apart from the pc-mp p an( l ceremony which surrounds it, is the , simple iir esting of a leader with his people's trust, and his acceptance of i his responsibilities towards them. When Koroki Mahuta was crowned, thousands of hearts turned towards him as tin'? man who took up the heritage of the Maori race. He was crowned with a of the old and the new, the ceremonial chants an echo from the tradition-haunted past, the short service typifying the modern culture of a race which has placed the Cross in its kind's coat-of-arms. i The Bible was taken in the hands of 3 the king-maker Tarapipi of Morrinsville, son of Tupu Tangawaka, a king-maker before him, and placed on the head of i Koroki. The words of the 100 th Psalm, i' so musically chanted, found an echo in , the hearts of the vast watching throng from kainga and pa throughout the countryside: "Enter into His gatos with 1 thanksgiving, and into His courts with f praise; be thankful unto Him and bless I His name." So came Koroki Mahuta to the Maori people. Wlyit sort of man is he? The 1 small lad who went barefoot to the 0 school at* Rakauinangamanga, a few _ hundred yards from the pa at Huiitly; the boy who played an excellent game of tennis and might have been a vellt known footballer if his state in life - had not decreed otherwise .. . these 5 have not been lost in the man he now is. t He is of average height, well-built, ' fine-featured; his brown, eyes are shy 1 but straiglit-gazing; his serious face 3 can break into a smile with all the 3 charm of his race. He has not 3*et out; grown the shyness which made him f reluctant to accept the kingship after his father's death, not through any dislike of responsibility, but through his - hatred of publicity." f There are about Koroki Mahuta all - the simplicities and subtleties which - • make the nature of the Maori as com-

By - - Ruth Park

There is possibly no other loader with so ricli a heritage of history as this shy, <juiet young man who is called the Maori king. In his own right he is a rangatira. Among his people that is a title both ancient and revered. Besides that he is the fifth of the Maori royal line, following the kingship instituted by Potatau te Wherowhero in 1557. Of the origin of that kingship you will read elsewhere. We need only mention that the honour was declined by several chiefs before the great gathering at To Heu Heu's village at Taupo where Potatau was persuaded to take on the responsibilities of paramount chief. At Rangiaowhia next year he was proclaimed king, and the policy of this hitherto unheard-of union of warring tribes was declared: The cessation of unconsidered land sales, backed by those simple words which should be at the basis of establishment of every kingdom . . . "te whakaporo, te aroha, te pure" (Faith, love, law). Somehow in the scramble which unavoidably marks the colonisation of every young country,.in the misunderstandings whjch arise between govern<s>

important influence in consolidating native interests, both political and otherwise. He lias a direct voice in the native nominations for Parliament, and controls the representative of the Western Maori seat, which electorate includes all the Waikato, Taranaki and Wanganui districts. As a rangatira his mana is enormous, equaV to that of the great chieftains whose names shine iu the long list of his ancestors, llis people, with their inbred reverence for the blood wliiclf for generations lias proved itself worthy, regard him with all the loyalty and devotion of which they are capable. Is there any wonder, then, in the fact of Koroki's sacrifice of his free life as it commoner, to take up the responsibilities which demand dignity, wisdom and a capable hand on the multiple reins of Maoridom? Princess Te Puea Herangi, C.8.E., is his cousin. Princess Te Puea is one of the most remarkable women New Zealand has ever known, and she has poured all her immense energies into the welfare of her race, centred round the kingship. With people like Princess Te Puea and his uncle and his great-uncle—both are men of wisdom and influence —to advise him, Koroki Mahuta's decisions have been marked by a steady progress towards a definite goal. That goal is the reinstating of the Maori race as a factor to be reckoned with in New Zealand. The old enmities which have smouldered between tribes since first Potatau was proclaimed at Kangiaowhia, are slowly being overcome. Koroki's quiet progress through the kaingas and pas often goes unnoticed. There is 110 fanfare of trumpets to announce him, but he leaves behind him a more completely united people who have surmounted dillicultics which in the old days would have meant implacable hate and bloodshed. Ho is the first Maori king to visit the tribes on the East Coast, with whom he claims kinship through Porourangi. The traditional hospitality of the Maoris makes his procession one of immense wholehearted welcome, where the chiefs and sub-chiefs come forth to pledge their allegiance and the pcoplo show their loyalty by chants and hakas. He returns this hospitality by those ceremonial feasts dear to the Maori, held at Waahi or Ngaruawahia. Maori banquets are conducted with a, lavishness typical of medieval times, and with just as much whole-hearted enjoyment. No stranger is ever turned away from a pa, especially from such a one as Koroki's, where the preparations for such a feast go 011 for days. At his first anniversary, where he appeared for (he first time in public, Koroki wore European clothes. Accompanied by his retinue, he walked slowly along the marae to his phee of honour 011 one side, the people lining up 011 the other. The new flag of the pa was 011 that occasion flown for the first time over the building. Notable amongst the steaming food cooked both Maori and pakeha fashion was a magnificent four-tier coronation

plex as the moko pattern which once ir adorned his face. He love.s music 5 the n. lusty colour and warmth of pa life, yet oi rarely partakes of it. He heaps hospitality upon his people, yet abides by n the law that liquor will not enter his ti house Turongo. He might have been a ]\ line athlete, but because of his kingship t! denies himself participation in sports where he might have shone. A speaker Cl with the line, voice and eloquent tongue r . of his race, he rarely speaks. Amongst j ( a people generous with praise and adulation as with all else, he moves with the M minimum of fuss and bother. Yet this M man, barely thirty, has a power and an a influence, not to be lightly estimated. j. The Kingite movement was, in war- J> torn days, the voice of a nation crying c for peace. The days of tribal war have v gone, and the Maori nation, now at c peace, asks that the labours of its } leaders and the interests of its supporters should be turned to other fields, h Health problems, education, employment t and housing . . . these things affect the ] ; brown New Zealandcr as vitally as they a do the white. The Maori King is a f nucleus for the nation. Not .only do s his people look toward him for mental a and spiritual leadership, but he is an a a

cake flanked by two turkeys. Other feasts give us records of over a thousand eels, sackful 011 sackful of kumaras and potatoes, hundreds of pigs, immense quantities of fish. These feasts are symbolic of hospitality; the work is done gladly and freely by the people of the pa, and the food contributed from kaingas both r;ear ond far as a tribute to their leader. They are, too, a method of bringing together the outer tribes, for the korero naturally follows after the banquet. It was at one of these gatherings that Koroki made the first gesture to heal, the long-standing breach between the Arawa and Waikato tribes. So important have these feasts become that there is special accommodation at the new house that has been built under the direction of Te Puea at Ngaruawahia. This centralisation of the Kingito movement at Ngaruawahia is a strange fulfilment of the long-ago prophesy of King Tawhiao, who, as the was driven out of the town by General Cameron, declared that it would one day be the hub of the movement. This house, Turongo, is intended to be the home of the Maori king. Built by the generosity of the peoples of the Waikato, the King Country and Taupo, Turongo now stands not only as a memorial to the selfless loyalty of the King's supporters, but also as an unparalleled example of Maori craftsmanship. Much has been written of l Turongo and its accompanying house > To Mahina-a-rangi . . . the entrance ; hall where the walls are engraved with 5 the story-carving of the ancients, and > where the blind paua eyes peer down . at the stranger; the rooms where the walls are lined with the panels of deli--5 cate, precisely-angled reed work called • tukutuku, the mats of unbleached flax, all done with the loving perfection and | painstaking craftsmanship typical of the ; Maori who, trained or untrained, is an artist by inheritance. In this house the . tribal art of many different peoples is , combined, as the Ngapuhi and the Wai- , kato, the Taranaki and the Arawa sink [ their differences in the cognisance of common blood. ■ At the opening or Te Mahina-a-rangi . Lord Galway officiated. He was taken j up the river in Te Winika, canoe of a j hundred legend**, a thousand traditions. As the blood-red waka, slim and burnished as a pea pod, frowiiing of prow, beplumed and decorated, slipped . up the stream to the place where five . thousand Maoris awaited to sec the opening of the new house, there seemed to be a blending together of Maori and : pakeha, as the white King's representa- * tive paid his respects to the brown. 1 And so we come to that totara door which bears the coat of arms of this 1 royal family of the South Pacific. Six ■ feet high, ten feet wide, the doors form \ together one of the most arresting and '.exquisite pieces of carving in the world. There the- Pleiades which long ago guided Koroki's fathers across the ocean hang in all the smoky opal of paua shell above the Cross-surmounted wheel of life, which is grasped by the god of good and the god of evil. It is a fitting heraldic design for a man who walks quietly among his people and who combines the wisdom of his elders* with his own clear-sighted modernity; whose charity and generosity I to the poorer of his folk is done "in the night and in silence"—which is not only the royal but the Maori way.