King Movement Flags

Te Ao Hou, March 1965, Page 34

King Movement Flags The Maori King movement also had many flags, one of which is illustrated on page 33. Other flags bear the words ‘Kingi’ or ‘Niu Tireni’ (New Zealand). James Cowan in his book ‘The Maori Yesterday and Today’, page 85, illustrates a later and most complicated one which features the Tainui canoe, the rainbow god Uenuku and the Pleiades (Matariki), together with a cross, a crescent moon and the sun. Another similar flag flown at Ngaruawahia today appears on page 30 of Te Ao Hou No. 41. Many of the old flags are very well sewn, for often their makers were girls who had learnt needlework at the mission schools. The beautifully made flag ‘Aotearoa’ was sewn by a young half-caste woman named Heni Pore who had been to school in Auckland in the 1850s. Many years later she met the writer James Cowan and told him the history of the flag. ‘I made that flag in our camps as we travelled about in the Hunua bush in the latter part of 1863. It took me about three weeks to complete the work, doing it as opportunity offered.’ Cowan adds that at that time Heni was about 23, ‘with two or three children which she and her mother and sister carried on their warlike wanderings. She carried a gun, too, and was able to use it.’