MAORI PIONEER

Taranaki Daily News, 11 July 1933, Page 3

MAORI PIONEER

DEATH OF MRS. PORE DEFENDER OF THE GATE PA. SAW BURNING OF KORORAREKA. Mrs. Heni Pore, who (lied at Rotorua on Saturday, was one of the few survivors, of those who saw the flames of Kororareka when it was sacked by Hone Heke in 1845. Over a period of some years Mrs. Pore spent the eventide of life at Rotorua. She had attained the age of 93 years, and few s . women had had a more adventurous career. She was a very small child when she was hidden in the ti-tree at night to escape Hone Heke’s followers. The next day she was put on the Government brig Victoria, and when that vessel was sailing out of Bay of Islands for Auckland, she saw the flames of Kororareka, and heard the guns of H.M.S. Hazard firing on the township which was then occupied by the Maoris. The connection of Mrs. Pore with the Arawa tribe dated back to 1823, when Hongi Ika raided Rotorua, and took home with him to the North a girl named Maraea Taunakiwehe, daughter of Te Ngahoe and Rangitauninihi, who lived on Mokoia Island. The girl was later married to a William Kelly by the Rev. R. Taylor, and Heni Pore was bom to them at Kaitaia on November 14, 1840. When she was still ■ very small her father was drowned at Mangonui, ’ and she was sent to the Church of England mission station at ■ . Paihia, Bay of Islands, where she was living at the time of Heke’s raid. AUCKLAND IN THE ’FORTIES. Some time after the arrived in Auckland, . Mrs. Kelly was married to Mr. Thomas Russell, a shipbuilder. They lived in a cottage on the bank fronting Commercial Bay, alongside the site of W. S. Graham’s bond store (now occupied by L. D. Nathan’s warehouse). His step-daughter, who took the name of Jane Russell, was first sent to a school at the convent kept by the nuns. Afterwards she attended a school kept by the widow of Captain Wakefield. Later she attended the school of Mr. and Mrs. Hurry, and was afterwards for a time a pupil of Mrs. William White, mother of ’> the late John White, author of “Ancient History of the Maori.” She went to Wesley College at the time that Mr. Fletcher was master, and from there was sent by the Rev. T. Buddle as assistant teacher to the Maori girls at Three Kings Colleget Mrs. Mary Tautari, of Taumarere, Bay of Islands, a native interpreter, was a pupil of Mrs. Heni Pore when she was at Three Kings College. Amongst Mrs. Pore’s schoolmates were the late Sir Walter Buller and Mr. J. B. RusselL She remembered seeing Sir Edwin Mitchelson playing about when he was three years of age. In the early days of Auckland Mrs. > Pore knew two girls, the Misses Milne, who were in a bonnet shop in Wyndham Street kept by a Mrs. Larson. Theyafterwards started business on their own account, and the firm is still carried on under the name of Milne and Choyce, t Ltd. HIDING IN HUNUA RANGES. While still living with her mother, Heni Pore was married to a chief named Te Kiri Karamu. In 1860 she went with her mother to live with relatives at Maraetai, and when the war broke out in the Waikato, although she was then the mother of several children, she decided to join her brother, Waha Huka, who refused to remain at the homestead. They resolved to throw in their lot with the Kingites, and for five months they were hiding in the Hunua Ranges, and often had to live on berries, wild honey and water. Finally they got through the cordon of British troops and reached the main body of Kingite Maoris. It was Heni Pore who made the flag for the Maori “King’s” party. Before that flag could be used, the Forest Rangers, under Major Jackson, raided a native camp and captured the banner, which now reposes in the Municipal Library at Auckland. Heni Pore continued with the Kingites till towards - the end of 1864, when the last pa was evacuated secretly at night.