Wiremu Tamihana

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30348, 25 January 1964, Page 3

Wiremu Tamihana

Tamihana the Kingmaker. By L. S. Rickard. Reed. 200 pp. Index. In most history books Wiremu Tamihana occupies but few lines. Despite the important part he took in New Zealand affairs in the 1850’s and 1860’s he is far less celebrated than Hone Heke or Te Rauparaha. “Yet he' was a much greater man than any of thefee,” remarks the author of this thoughful biography, “and there are good grounds for asserting that his race has never had greater. Of his contemporaries, probably only Tamati Waka Nene bears comparison with him.” This work should go far to redress the balance; for from this balanced portrait, Tamihana emerges as a keenly intelligent, brave and far-seeing Ariki, a convinced Christian of complete integrity, whose power during a most difficult period of adjustment between Maori and European races was considerable, Throughout his life he always looked forward, hoping for the Maori people to come to terms with Western ways peacefully without surrendering their independence or their identity. But his ideas were too modern for his age, and his influence was thwarted on both sides by the inflamed passions which flared up eventually in the Maori wars, and maddeningly baulked by the short sightedness of his contemporaries. In circumstances of appalling difficulty he endured patiently and without personal bitterness the frustrations and misunderstandings that so often afflict those in advance of their time. This Maori chief was a statesman of superior quality both in intellect and character, a giant totara in a forest of dissension.

But the purpose of this biography is illumination not justification or praise. With careful accuracy the author describes the events of Tamihana’s life: his part in the blood-thirsty attack on the Arawa tribe at Rotorua; his conversion to Christianity by the missionary, the Rev. A. N. Brown; his subsequent detestation of useless blood-

shed and his appreciation of the rule of law; on the death of his father, the illustrious Te Whero Whero, his assumption of the chieftainship of the Ngate Haua tribe; his realisation of the reasons for the tightening up of the pakeha grip on the islands of the new colony as the inevitable tide of European settlement continued to flow; his performance as Maori resistance hardened to those in all parts of the country whom the Maoris could not but regard as alien land-grabbers: his part in the setting up of the Maori King—a sincere attempt to provide a national figure, a power equal to the Government and a fountainhead of wise laws for the guidance of the whole Maori people; on the outbreak of war, his efforts to patch up a truce in Taranaki; his success in preventing Rewi Maniapoto’s attack on an almost undefended Auckland (an event which had it succeeded would not in the long run have affected the outcome of the Maori war, but would have made it incomparably more bitter, provoked a vengeance, and poisoned the relations between Maori and European for generations).

All this Mr Rickard describes with literary skill, impartiality and veracity. Inevitably documentary evidence is absent over considerable sections of Tamihana’s career, but the author makes no attempt to gloss over uncertainties. As a result, in time this ■ life will come to be regarded as a standard work. Despite the evident appreciation of Wiremu Tamihana’s character, Mr Rickard’s perspective is sound and his judgment balanced. In the meantime this book will surely stimulate interest in a man who was undoubtedly one of the most remarkable in New Zealand’s history, an ornament to his race and country. The text is clear and is fully documented, and besides a bibliography there is an excellent index. A map, similar say to that included in Gorst’s “The Maori King” would have been a help to the reader. Its omission rather spoils an otherwise sound work of scholarship, a book of outstanding merit