TE RAKAU I MATAAHU by LEO FOWLER Behind the recent hoisting of the Ngati Porou flag on a flagstaff at Mangatuna (East Coast) lies a great deal of New Zealand history. On the centre of the stage is Ropata Wahawaha; the time is the Te Kooti wars. This story gives the background, written by Leo Fowler who has already published a novel and several articles on the Te Kooti period. In spite of the weather and a strong counter-attraction offered by the ministerial opening of a new school at Mangatuna, there was a large attendance at the Kie Kie marae last September when the ninety-year-old flag was hoisted on the eighty-year-old flagstaff, Te Rakau i Mataahu. Both flag and flagstaff have a rich background of history. After the flag had been hoisted by ninety-year-old A. B. Williams a service was held under its folds to re-dedicate the loyalty of the Ngati Porou people, and especially of the Ngati Rakairoa hapu on whose marae the ceremony was held. In the place of honour on the meeting house porch were the portraits of Major Rapata Wahawaha, N.Z.C., M.L.C., Sir Apirana Ngata and 2nd Lieutenant Te Moananui a Kiwa Ngarimu, V.C., all members of the Ngati Rakairoa, and all outstanding leaders among their Maori people. Behind this ceremonial flag-hoisting lies a story of one man whose vision and courage and purpose make him, perhaps, the greatest and most significant Maori of all time. I'd like to begin this story at the point where he held a similar flag-hoisting ceremony, some eighty years ago.

THE FLAGSTAFF IS BUILT In 1871 Major Rapata Wahawaha, N.Z.C., was presented with a flag by the British Government and a word of honour by Queen Victoria. In 1872 he had erected at Mataahu, on the East Coast just north of Waipiro Bay, a huge flagstaff on which to fly the flag and it was there hoisted with due Flag ‘Ngati’ Porou flying on ‘Te Rakau i Mataahu’ Eastland Photographers ceremony in the June of that year. Several thousand Maoris, many of them being those who had fought against the British Crown in the Hau Hau and Te Kooti wars, were assembled to see the hoisting of that flag. They heard the Reverend Mohi Turei preach on loyalty to God and the Queen, and they saw Rapata Wahawaha, wearing his New Zealand Cross and girt with his sword of honour, newly returned from a ceremony of honour in Wellington where the highest in the land had assembled to praise and congratulate him. Mataahu was chosen for the site of the flagstaff because it was the traditional landing place for war canoes returning from an expedition. It was a symbolic place because it was close to there that the Government steamer had not long before landed the Ngati Porou contingent which Rapata Wahawaha had commanded so successfully in the Hau Hau and Te Kooti campaigns, the contingent which succeeded in doing what two British columns had failed to do, that is to break the might of Te Kooti's Tuhoe allies and to drive Te Kooti himself into futile exile in the King Country. The cost, in lives and in privation, had been recorded by pakeha historians, who have paid full tribute to the courage and hardiness of the Ngati Porou warriors. Many, many pages could be filled with details of the prowess of Ngati Porou in these campaigns, but the record is there in the history books for you to read for yourselves.* In this article I wish to deal more with some of the lesser known aspects of those campaigns and especially with the symbolism which lay behind that historic flag-raising nearly ninety years ago.