This is the second part of a study of the life of Te Kooti Rikirangi, written by Leo Fowler of Gisborne. Much of the information offered here has not been published previously and should help in the understanding of Te Kooti's character. Responsibility for statements made rests entirely with the author and we shall be glad to publish fresh views from correspondents. While very few would today favour Te Kooti's policies, he was a great leader whose prophesies and spiritual message have had an immense influence on the Maori people.

A NEW LOOK AT TE KOOTI by Leo Fowler There has been almost a chorused statement among historians of Te Kooti that, prior to his exile to the Chathams, he never exhibited any of those qualities which would have marked him out for leadership. This is a view which cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged.

BEFORE THE EXILE I have notes of conversations held during the past thirty years with quite a number of old timers around the Poverty Bay district. Notable among them were members of the Burke and Dunlop families who occupied land on the Te Arai creek which belonged to Te Kooti or to his immediate family. These notes are supported by a manuscript, dictated in her later years, by Mrs. Captain Ross, of Opotiki.1Mrs Ross was formerly Sarah Dunlop, the eldest of the Dunlop girls whose father, James Dunlop, came to the Bay in 1849. Sarah Dunlop later married Lieutenant Ross who was the first soldier to be wounded in the Waerenga-a-hika flight. The Dunlops claimed some personal acquaintance with Te Kooti; apparently he occasionally worked for them, and he called around once or twice a year, according to Mrs. Ross's manuscript, to collect a calf or a pig as rent for the land, it being held in a sort of loose usehold. Mrs Sharpe, of Gisborne, told me that her grandmother, Mrs. Thomas U'Ren, who settled on the Arai River in 1841, would never, till the day of her death hear a word against Te Kooti.2Mrs Sharpe is the eldest daughter of Captain Thomas U'Ren, and the grand-daughter of the Mr. and Mrs. Thomas U'Ren referred to here. Mrs. U'Ren insisted that Te Kooti was a good worker, a fine ploughman with a good way with beasts (most unusual in a Maori at that time) and especially nice with the U'Ren children. The eldest of these children, Mrs. Sharpe's father, grew up to be one of those who took the field against Te Kooti, but his daughter says he never held any animosity against the old Maori warrior and always held that he was the victim of injustice and misrepresentation. There is reason to believe then, that Te Kooti grew up with some kind of pakeha education, and that, like most of his fellow tribesmen of Rongo Whakaata, maintained friendly relations with the pakeha settlers. Mrs. Ross, in her manuscript, says he had a good deal to say for himself, but was never cheeky, and Edward Burke, whose sister married Charles Dunlop, the eldest of Sarah's brothers, said Te Kooti was always asking questions and endeavouring to acquire pakeha skills. James Cowan, who has a way of unearthing information overlooked by other historians, tells us Believed to be an authentic portrait of Te Kooti Rikirangi te Turuki, this was given to the Gisborne Museum recently by Mrs Shaw of Haldane Street, Gisborne. It was in the possession of her father as early as 1873 and possibly earlier. The picture was presumably taken between the Poverty Bay Massacre in 1868 and 1873. It may even date from before the massacre. Te Kooti was believed to have been born about 1830 and would have been 43 in 1873. This photograph, until now unpublished, tallies with most descriptions of the great rebel leader. All writers who described him mentioned his peculiarly fierce eyes and the absence of tattoo.