'OUR ONLY MONARCH.’

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 20, 20 May 1893, Page 474

'OUR ONLY MONARCH.’

TAWHIAO: THE MAORI KING. (SEE ILLUSTRATION, FRONT PAGE ) THE excellent picture of • King ’ Tawhiao which we give in this issue will, no doubt, be of general interest, not only in this colony, but abroad. So much has been written and heard about New Zealand’s only monarch during the last few years, and especially just lately, that the printing of the old chief’s portrait will doubtless be looked on as a seasonable thought. Last year, Tawhiao, who had for so long been a thorn in the side of the Government of New Zealand, accepted a Government pension, and it was believed that henceforth no morewouldever be beard of the Maori * Kingite’difficulty. However, acting on the advice of his dusky advisers, TAWHIAO HAS REPUDIATED THE IDEA OF SURRENDERING UP HIS AUTHORITY TO THE GOVERNMENT, and he has declared that be will not accept a penny more of the Government pension. Many of his most influential adherents amongst the natives are said to be incensed with him for accepting a pension, and between Maori and pakeha, the old * King ’ is in a somewhat similar position to the proverbial unfortunate between the devil and the deep sea. Speaking at the big native meeting at Maungakawa, near Cambridge, in the Waikato, lately, Tawhiao gave utterance to some characteristic statements. Amongst other things he said : ‘ The Governor, the Government and all the Government officers must leave New Zealand. The island is mine ! The bakers, carpenters and storekeepers may remain. I will look after them !’

The action of Tawhiao in accepting a pension from the Government of New Zealand last year virtually cooked the old chief’s political potato (as Te Whiti would say). Tawhiao’s ancestry and tribal connections render him one of the most illustrious native chiefs in New Zealand. His full name is

A TITLE IMPOSING ENOUGH FOR ANY KING—MATUTAERA TE PUKEPUKE TE PAUE TU KAHATO TE-A-POTATAU TE WHEROWHERO (POTATAU II).

Tawhiao can trace his descent back for some twenty generations to the pioneer Hotunui, a chief who came across to New Zealand in the historic canoe Tainui, from the legendary fatherland Hawaiiki, and landed at Kawbia.

Hebelongsto the tribe of Ngatimahuta, and is allied tomost of the other Waikato tribes. Tawhiao was born about the year 1825, so that he is now about sixty-eight years of age. His birth place was a place called Orongokoekoea, on the Mokau, where all the Waikatos had gone from fear of the Ngapuhi, under Hongi and I’omare, who had driven them out of Waikato with their guns after the fall of Matakitaki, on the Waipa, in 1823. Afterwards they returned to the Waipa and Kawhia. Tawhiao says that the first white man he saw was at Kawhia—Captain Kent. The first missionaries he remembers in the Waikato were Stack, Hamlin, Williams, and Morgan, and he says, epigrammatically,

‘THE MISSIONARIES TOLD US WE WOULD BE BURNT UP UNLESS WE BELIEVED, SO WE BELIEVED.’ Tawhiao was baptised by the name of Matutaera (Methusaleh) at Mangere by the Rev. W. Burrows. He remembers a European—the Ven. Archdeacon Mannsell—coming to ask his father, the famous warrior chief Te Wherowhero, to sign the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, This was at Mangere, on the Manukau.

Te Wherowhero was made King of the Maoris in 1857 by the central tribes of the North Island, beaded by the celebrated Ngatihaua chief Wiremu Tamebana Tarapipipi (William Thompson), the * King Maker.’ The old chief did not live long, and on his death at Ngaruawahia on the Waikato in 1860, his son Tawhiao was selected to take his place.

Tawhiao was declared King of the Maoris in 1860 by the tribes assembled at Ngaruawahia, with great ceremonials on the part of the natives. Tawhiao was at Rangiriri in 1863 when the Waikato war began. If his advice had been taken by the hostile natives, the tribes would have crossed country to Kirikiri by way of Paparata, leaving the Waikato Valley, and would thus have menaced the settlers in the vicinity of Auckland. He had a narrow escape from being shot at the battle of Rangiriri. Since the Waikato War Tawhiao has lived at Te Kuiti, Whatiwhatihoe, and Pukekawa, on the Waikato, and has lately been holding meetings at Maungakawa, near Cambridge. He is now reported to have established a new settlement at Parawera, beyond Orakau (in the Waikato), near the place where the historic battle which closed the Maori War in 1864 was fought. A few years ago Tawhiao visited London, in company with Major Te Wheoro and other chiefs, and many amusing yarns concerning the old man’s doings in the metropolis are recorded. How he was enamoured of the Gaiety ballet girls (just like the pakeha ieunesse doree), and how he was accustomed to perform a

wild war-dance on his best belltopper after coming home from the theatre at night, are matters of history. When Tawhiao left here for England some of his followers seemed to have firmly believed that he was GOING TO LONDON TO MARRY THE QUEEN, and it is even said that when he returned without his royal consort many of the Maoris were grievously disappointed ! At any rate, in Tawhiao’s opinion, the Queen’s indifference to his regal presence only showed Her Majesty’s want of taste. Tawhiao’s eldest son, Tu Tawhiao, who was a young man of better parts than his father, died some years ago. It is not known on whom the royal mana will fall at Tawhiao’s death, but there is dissension amongst the King party, and the probabilities are that the ‘ Kingite ’ cause will soon be a thing of the past, and that old Tawhiao will need no kingly successor.