Many Have Not Survived

Te Ao Hou, March 1965, Page 34

Many Have Not Survived Altogether there are approximately 20 Maori war flags still in existence, as well as some drawings in the Dominion Museum and elsewhere. However in many cases nothing is known of their history and symbolism. Other flags were captured but have not survived; Captain Gilbert Mair in 1870 presented Te

Kooti's Te Wepu to a museum, but later was furious to find that it had been cut to pieces and used for dusters. Here is a contemporary description of another flag which is apparently no longer in existence. It was captured in 1860 at the Battle of Waireka, in the Taranaki War. ‘The devices on the flag were Mt Egmont, or Taranaki, and the Sugar-loaf Rock at New Plymouth, with the letters M.N. (Maori Nation), the figure of a heart and star, or the sun, on a red ground. The natives explained these symbols as meaning that the land from Egmont to the sea was the land of their forefathers: that the heart of the Maori was set upon having this land; and that the sun or star was the eye of the Deity.’ The drawing at the top of pages 32–33, and the one of the king's flag on page 33, are in the Alexander Turnbull Library. The drawings on page 34 are copies of drawings in the Dominion Museum.