MEMORIES OF PRINCESS TE PUEA A BROADCAST BY ERIC RAMSDEN To-night I join with the Maori people in mourning the loss of the greatest Maori woman of our time—perhaps of all time—Te Puea Herangi, ariki tapairu, of Waikato. Te Puea never liked the title of Princess, and never applied it to herself. On the other hand, she was always insistent that her cousin—and nephew by marriage—Koroki, the fifth Maori King, should be referred to as such. I speak to-night with the memories of an association of more than 30 years with Te Puea. When I knew her first she was struggling with a band of entertainers, attempting to raise funds for the establishment of the village now known as Turangawaewae on the banks of the Waikato River. To the Pakeha world she was then little known. But in the Maori world her rank as the grand-daughter of King Tawhiao was, of course, acknowledged. At that period she was a stout, well-built woman, dominating in character, shrewd as always, and wise. With her children, as she called them—they were actually orphans she had mothered following two epidemics—she had worked on the roads, cut gorse and flax. Her ambition was to re-establish the Maori King's home at Ngaruawahia. All tribal land there had been confiscated. But she had her eye on ten acres sacred to all Waikato, because it contained a spring at which her grandfather, King Tawhiao, once drank. That ambition was realised. Yet it took many years of planning and hard work before the model settlement, as we know it nowadays, was established. It is curious to recall that, in those days, the Pakehas of Ngaruawahia objected to her presence, and sought to have her ejected by the health authorities. Te Puea showed the earth-floored and bag-walled huts to the inspector. ‘We are poor,’ she said, ‘but we are clean!’ … Sir Apirana Ngata once gave me the key to her complex character when he said: ‘First, she is a woman. Secondly, she is a Potatau (a member of the kahui ariki, or Maori Royal Family, as all the descendants of the first Maori King, Potatau Te Wherowhero, are known). Thirdly, she is a Maori.’ If a woman, and sometimes subject to the vagaries of her sex, Te Puea seldom let her emotions sway her judgment. In all things she was essentially practical. Nevertheless, there were times when she could make use of her undoubted charm to achieve her objectives. As a dirct descendant of Potatau, she was always conscious, though never foolishly so, of the blood within her veins: her whole life was devoted to the ideals of the Kiingitanga, or Maori King Movement. And, of course, as a Maori, her stand on Maori affairs was always that of a Maori. Indeed, it could not have been otherwise. Once I heard her upbraid King Koroki early in his reign for not leaving punctually to attend a meeting in his honour. ‘Never keep the people waiting,’ she admonished. ‘Remember, if there were no people there would be no King. We are the servants of the people!’ To Te Puea the Kiingitanga was a sacred trust, one that had been accepted unwillingly perhaps by her great-grandfather, King Potatau, but, nevertheless, an inheritance that must never be departed from. When Te Puea took a prominent part in its affairs in the reign of her uncle, King Mahuta, the Kiingitanga had, historically speaking, reached its lowest ebb. She lived to see it stronger than at any period since Tawhiao's days. That, undoubtedly, was her doing. Let me speak of her for a moment as a Maori: Though Te Puea had one Pakeha grandfather, it was as a Maori that she lived and died. At times her motives were misunderstood and criticised. When her people were imprisoned during the First World War because conscription was forced upon them, she led a passive resistance movement. If she had but lifted her finger there would have been bloodshed. Instead, she walked among them, a switch in her hand, as the police carried out her cousin, the late Te Rauangaanga, and though the people moaned in their anguish, not a soul stirred. Maoridom, among the most conservative of the tribes, was her background, her environment, her heritage. Therefore, one must never assess Te Puea otherwise than as a Maori. From phase to phase she developed. When I knew her first she would not allow a Waikato child to go to school—though she was always grateful, and it stood her in good stead, for the little schooling she had had. Later, she became an earnest advocate of education for all Maoris. The prejudice that she had inherited against education was common to all Waikato in her young days. How many times have I heard her say: ‘Why educate our children? So that they may come back and rob us?’ …