TO MEET QUEEN

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30044, 31 January 1963, Page 14

TO MEET QUEEN

Descendent Of

Treaty Chief

(N-Z- Pr«ss Assoctation) AUCKLAND, Jan. to. A member of a Maori family intimately connected with the establishment of British rule in New Zealand will meet Queen Elizabeth at Auckland on February 8. She is Mrs Ringi Ngakuru, great grand-daughter at the Ngapuhi chief, Kawiti, whose name is the first to appear on the Treaty of Waitangi. Mrs Ngakuru is supervisor of the handling department of Crown Lynn Potteries, New Lynn, which the Queen will visit She is one of seven persons there who will be presented to the Queen. Although he signed the treaty. Kawiti was one of the leaden in the war against the British which broke out early in 1845. He led an attack on Kororareka (Russell), defended Ohaeawai. and built and defended Ruakapeka. He was respected as a courageous and chivalrous warrior. His son, Mrs Ngakuru’s grandfather, was Maihi Paraone Kawiti, the chief who in 1858 re-erected the flagstaff on the hill at Kororareka as a token of lasting peace. Leaden of the Maori king movement offered him toe governorship of toe northern province, but he declined. Mrs Ngakuru’s father, Mr Te Riri Maihi Kawiti, lives at Waiomio, near Kawakawa. Until his recent retirement he was a member of toe Waitangi National Trust Board.