PERSONALITY STUDY - 1 - ERUERA TIHEMA TIRIKATENE The Honourable Eruera Tihema Tirikatene, member of the New Zealand House of Representatives, Minister of the Crown, whose whakapapa has been established by the early historians of the Ngaitahu tribe of the South Island, is a person of noble birth; in his own right, he is a Rangatira of the Ngaitahu tribe, and is the great grandson, by senior line of descent, of Tuhuru, the Ariki and conqueror of Westland. Mr Tirikatene's European ancestry derives from his great-great-grandfather Lord Tregarthyn. Born at Kaiapoi on 5 January, 1895, the eldest son of Captain John Driver Tregerthen (Tirikatene) and his wife, Tini Tuhuru Arapata Horau, Mr Tirikenatene received his early education at Tuahiwi School and the Kaiapoi District High School. He was a foundation member of the first pjatrol of Boy Scouts established in New Zealand. Mr Tirikatene was an all-round athlete: runner, wrestler, boxer, swimmer, footballer, motor-cyclist, speedboat racer, and an expert horseman. He was a member of Te Hokowit-a-Tu, the Maori Battalion of the First New Zealand Expeditionary Force in the first World War. On his return to New Zealand, he married Ruti Matekino Horomona, daughter of a chieftainess of the Ngati-Pahauwera and Ngati-Kahungunu tribes of Hawkes Bay. A man of many parts, Mr Tirikatene as well as being one of New Zealand's most forthright politicians, has had an interesting and varied career. He has been soldier, business man, farmer, stock dealer, timber miller, and master of his own sea-going ferry service and fishing craft, and is a certificated oil, gas, electrical and fluid marine engineer. In the early nineteen twenties, Mr Tirikatene became deeply involved and closely identified with the Ratana movement, the largest totally Maori national group in New Zealand. In 1927, he was one of the four young men chosen by the founder Tahupotiki Wiremu Ratana to be his “koata” (quarter), Ratana's exclusive personal representatives in the spiritual life of the Ratana Church. Eruera Tihema Tirikatene. (N.P.S. PHOTOGRAPH). In the realm of politics, Mr Tirikatene was thus vested with the highest status within the movement, and he retains this authority still.