Prophet Rua Kenana

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Rua Kenana - Our Prophet from Te Urewera

Our koro Rua Kenana was one of many Maori prophetic leaders of the 19th and 20th centuries. He called himself Te Mihaia hou, the new messiah, and was the leader of a section of the Tuhoe at a time when their land, the Urewera country was threatened by possible prospecting and milling.

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The shotgun(Quick) version

about our Koro

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About 1906 Rua announced the establishment of a New Jerusalem in the rugged Urewera's. Soon Maungapohatu had a thriving farming community, land was owned and farmed collectively and all proceeds were shared according to need.

Withdrawing to Maungapohatu, in the heart of Urewera, he established a community. Following is a history of Rua and his people, of the destruction of the community, by the government during World War I, and the struggle to start all over again.

Over the period 1906~1910 Rua Kenana was establishing his following and settlement at Maungapohatu in the Urewera country. His messianic religion promised the return of Maori lands and Mana to Maoris and the end of their subjection to British Pakeha rule.

Rua claimed to be the prophet whose coming was predicted by Te Kooti Arikirangi. He wanted to remove the Tuhoe people totally from European influence and induced many to sell all their stock and farming interests. His father had been killed fighting for Te Kooti. His mother was a person of some standing among Tuhoe and owned considerable land.

In his twenties Rua worked as a Laborer around Gisborne on Pakeha farms, before returning home. There he had a vision that King Edward would come to Gisborne, the white people would be driven into the sea, and the Maori would once more come into his own.

About 1906 he announced the establishment of a New Jerusalem at Maungapohatu in the rugged Urewera's about 20km north of Lake Waikaremoana. Soon Maungapohatu had a thriving farming community of a 1000 souls, including a co-operative bank and a two leveled circular temple. The land was owned and farmed collectively and all proceeds were shared according to need.

Rua’s messianic religion promised the return of Maori lands and Mana to Maori and the end of their subjection to Pakeha rule.

To many Pakeha all Maori were regarded as “lazy, shiftless and drunken", so the return of self-respect and independence under Rua amazed and even rankled them. As for Rua himself, he lived in a fine house and it was said he had 12 wives in all and more than 70 children.

Rua attempted to control illicit sly-grogging in the area but his application for a liquor licence was repeatedly turned down. He signed over many thousands of acres of Tuhoe land to the government as the Urewera National Park. Eventually he met with the prime minister Joseph Ward who didn't give Rua a verbal answer but offered a glass of whisky instead. Rua took this as a “yes” and began selling whisky.

During WWI he was harassed by the police because of the region’s liquor sales and in a moment of anger he said the Germans would win. This was the moment the Pakeha were waiting for – in March 1916 the invasion of Maungapohatu was planned. Seventy police were sent in three groups including a large number of mounted police, some of whom had been at Waihi in 1912.

Because Rua’s village was so remote, the police had to take a lot of gear and camp on the way. They moved like a small army with wagons and pack- horses. They were convinced that when they reached Maungapohatu there would be a fight. In fact there was no resistance.

Rua came to meet them with his two eldest sons, Whatu and Toko. But when the police moved suddenly to seize Rua there was a scuffle and a gun went off. No one knows whose. Immediately there was panic. The police had been expecting an ambush and thought this was it. Toko Rua ran for his gun and wounded four policemen before he was shot and killed. Toko’s best friend (and maternal uncle) Te Maipi, was also killed.

Rua, Whatu, and four others were arrested. Rua was charged with sedition (a kind of treason). His trial in the Auckland High Court lasted forty-seven days. It was the longest trial in New Zealand history until 1977.

None of the charges against Rua based on the events of 2 April could be made to stick, but he was found guilty of a lesser offence - being unwilling to be arrested at Te Waiiti on 12 February.

Rua Kenana was arrested on April 2nd 1916, after a shootout between his followers and 70 armed police. He is handcuffed to his son Whatu. Rua was sentenced to 12 months hard labor after what was the longest trial in New Zealand history at the time.

The judge sentenced him to twelve months’ hard labor and eighteen months’ imprisonment, a very heavy sentence. Eight members of the jury signed a petition protesting at the harsh treatment of Rua. He eventually served 9 months in MT Eden Prison, Auckland.

The cost of defending themselves at the trials that followed the raid on Maungapohatu, and the cost of the raid itself, which the Maoris had to pay, almost ruined Rua’s people. They had to sell much of their land and all their animals.Pleas for help were met with indifference. “No anxiety need be felt as to Rua’s wives or children starving. Natives always help one another and if ever they become short of food they will either go back to their own people, or get married to other Natives,” reported an official sent to look into their desperate plight!

When Rua returned to his followers in 1918 he found them much poorer, and although many people had left his settlement, others stayed with him until his death on 20 February 1937. Rua lived out his days in relative comfort at Matahi, respected and venerated. Some still believe that he will return to them, as he promised.

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The long version about our Koro

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Rua Kēnana Hepetipa, 1868/1869?–1937

In 1906 Rua Kēnana emerged as a prophet amongst Tūhoe, claiming to be the spiritual successor of Te Kooti Arikirangi, founder of the Ringatū religion. He established an autonomous religious community at Maungapōhatu in the Urewera, but the government saw his views as seditious. Police invaded Maungapōhatu in 1916 and Rua was arrested, tried, and imprisoned for several years, but his community survived until the 1930s.

Rua Kenana, sometimes known as Ruatapunui, has usually been considered to be the posthumous son of Kenana Tumoana of Ngati Kahungunu, who was killed fighting for Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki at Makaretu sometime between November 1868 and January 1869. Rua's paternity has been questioned within his family, as has his statement that he was born at Maungapohatu. His mother was Ngahiwi (Harai) Te Rihi, of the Tamakaimoana hapu of Tuhoe at Maungapohatu.

Rua was brought up among Tuhoe, and Kenana's people at Te Aute, Pakipaki and Waimarama. Rua described the time with Ngati Kahungunu as a period of exile, but also said that when he returned to his mother's people (at about the age of nine) he was rejected by them.

From both families Rua learnt Te Kooti's history, and absorbed his religious predictions which envisaged the One who would come after him to complete his work by redeeming the land for Maori. Rua claimed to be this man.

He emerged from among the Ringatu, the followers of Te Kooti, within two years of their leader's death in 1893. In claiming to be the 'son' of Te Kooti, Rua divided the Ringatu world irrevocably. His greatest support came from his mother's tribe, Tuhoe, as did his most formidable Maori opponent, the chief Kereru (Numia Te Ruakariata). His authority would not be accepted until he had completed a series of quests in 1905--6.

Rua's statement that he was the successor to Te Kooti was first announced through an experience that he underwent on Maungapohatu, the sacred mountain of Tuhoe. The oral narratives tell how Rua and his first wife, Pinepine Te Rika, were directed to climb the mountain by a supernatural apparition, later revealed to be the archangel Gabriel.

There they were shown a hidden diamond, the guardian-stone of the land, whose bright light was shielded by Te Kooti's shawl. Rua, in his turn, covered it again to protect it. In some versions of the narrative Rua met both Whaitiri, the ancestress of Tuhoe, and Christ on the mountain. Rua would soon claim to be the Maori brother of Christ.

Following this revelation, in 1906 Rua undertook further tasks. In March he made a pilgrimage to Poverty Bay, Te Kooti's birthplace. There, he entered the sacred meeting house, Rongopai, erected to receive Te Kooti in 1887, when he was prevented from returning to Poverty Bay by the government. It is said that Rua entered the locked house by means of Te Kooti's white horse called, in this narrative, Te Ia. Following this miraculous event, the leading Ringatu Tohunga, Eria Raukura, baptised Rua in the waters of the Waipaoa River with the name that Te Kooti had given for the one who would make the land fertile again, Hepetipa (Hephzibah).

From Gisborne Rua went to Maungapohatu, where on 12 April (the sacred day of the month for Ringatu) he reiterated his own prophecy that on 25 June he would 'ascend the throne [and] the king will arrive at Turanga [Gisborne]'. The pilgrimage to Gisborne took place in May--June 1906.

Rua rode his white horse; with him he carried a large box strapped to a pack-horse by day and guarded in a tent at night. Some said it was the ark of the covenant, others that it was a second diamond which he was taking to give to the King, Edward VII. The diamond (in some versions money) was to be the means by which the land, conceded to Queen Victoria, would be redeemed from her son.

Rua's mission was to seek the peaceful restoration of authority to Maori. When the King failed to appear, Rua announced: 'I am really that King.' 'Here I am, with all my people.'

Rua now initiated a new cycle of events, the creation of the City of God at Maungapohatu. This cycle was created from scriptural history, but its immediate purpose was to prevent the alienation of the Urewera for mining or European settlement.

Tuhoe's land was being made available for prospecting without their consent, contrary to protective legislation passed in 1896. Tuhoe and Te Whakatohea, the two tribes who committed themselves to Rua in the 1906--8 period, saw the issue in even wider terms. They sought to re-enter their confiscated lands in the eastern Bay of Plenty, identifying them with the lands that God had promised, by his covenant with Israel, to restore to later generations.

In 1907 Rua constructed his new community at the foot of the mountain. The people called themselves Iharaira (Israelites) and, like Rua, grew their hair long in imitation of the Nazarites, the people separated unto God.

The meeting house, which was circular and decorated with a design of blue clubs and yellow diamonds, was called Hiona (Zion). Built in imitation of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, it stood within the inner sanctum of the pa and was Rua's “Council Chamber and Court House” – also known as “Rua’s Temple” and Te Whare Kawana built in 1908, being named “Hiona” (Zion). Rua thought it was modeled on the Jerusalem Temple (even though his chamber was not to be a place of worship), but the actual model was the present day Dome of the Rock on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, a Muslim Mosque and one of the most sacred of Islamic shrines!

The entrance to the pa bore the bold sign 'Mihaia' (Messiah), Rua's stated identity. His home within the inner sanctum was called Hiruharama Hou (New Jerusalem). It was a European-style gabled house, but it had two entrances from its verandaed porch: one for Tuhoe, the other for Te Whakatohea.“Hiona” was the most remarkable Maori building ever built. Its unique cylinder shape would make it one of the kind.

By April 1908 Rua had seven wives, fulfilling, as he said, the vision of Isaiah 4:1.

Rua married 12 Wives

They came from Tuhoe, and from Ngati Raka, who lived mingled with Tuhoe.

Pinepine Te Rika, from Ngati Kuri of Ruatahuna, he had (according to their eldest grandson) 17 children. She was known as 'our Holy Mother', because she had shared the vision on the mountain. Rua's other wives were

Pehirangi (Rehe) Kanuehi of Hamua from Ruatoki;

Te Akakura (Patu) Ru of Ngati Rongo, who came from the Ruatoki chiefly line of descent and was known as the 'Queen of Sheba' - she to whom King Solomon gave all her desires;

Te Aue (Kiritiatia) Heurea, Ngati Koura, Ruatahuna;

Mihiroa (Tatai) Te Kaawa, Ngati Kuri, Ruatahuna

Wairimu (Martha Vercoe), Hamua, Ruatoki

Whirimako (Teo) Ereatara, Hamua, Ruatoki

Ngapera Rini, Te Mahurehure, Ruatoki,

Kiha (Te Hororoa) Tahu, Te Whanau-a-Pani, Ruatoki,

Waereti Irohia, Ngati Raka, Te Waimana

Te Aomakarani (Meri) Wi Kamaua, Ngati Raka, Te Waimana

Piimia (Te Atawhai) Onekawa, Upokorehe, another tribe living with Tuhoe. They married after his return from prison 1918. His last and youngest wife

Rua had children by all his wives. The Whakatohea people were linked to Tuhoe by early arranged marriages with Rua's two eldest sons, Whatu and Toko. The death of Whatu's wife, Whaitiri Rewiri, about 1911 caused many from that tribe to leave Rua. Toko's first wife, Taupaki Te Kora left him and so did her people but his second wife Tawhaki Awa, was just as important politically, she was the daughter of Awa Horomona,one of the five men who had exhumed and secretly reburied Te Kooti in 1893 and he the only surviving member knew where he lay.

In 1910 Rua was invited onto the tribal committee for Tuhoe lands, and through it he sold 40,000 acres to the government for £31,000. His objective was to raise the capital needed to develop his community and thereby retain the heart of the Urewera; that is, the 20,000 acres which he had been given by Tuhoe in 1907. He also hoped to develop mining through a company that he had formed in 1908. He thought that European settlement would speed the completion of the partially constructed stock route from Poverty Bay, and open up another from the eastern Bay of Plenty, meeting at Maungapohatu. From there the track would pass through to Rotorua, making his community economically viable. In 1906 a railway was also scheduled to come inland from Gisborne through Maungapohatu. Rua had gathered the people there through his visions and predictions of catastrophic floods on their low-lying lands. They had sold all their possessions on his instructions; now he hoped to sustain them under their mountain.

By 1911 this task was becoming increasingly difficult. None of the planned routes were developed. Maungapohatu suffered (and would continue to suffer) from high mortality, particularly among its children, due to the harsh winters, inadequate diet and poor housing. Rua's offer in 1908 to the Cook County Council to send men to complete the Gisborne stock track was refused. Poverty undermined the religious vision. By 1913 the community had declined from five or six hundred people to about 30 families, and many, including Rua and his wives, had returned to live in the more clement valleys of the eastern Bay of Plenty.

In 1914 the second construction of Maungapohatu commenced under Rua's direction. His was a ritual sequence of demolition and rebuilding. The 20,000-acre block was divided in August 1914, and half was set aside. Rua ordered the inner sanctum area to be destroyed. Hiona was abandoned, and subsequently demolished. In its place a more orthodox meeting house was built, Tanenui-a-rangi. It differed in one important aspect from almost all Maori meeting houses in that food could be consumed within. The reconstruction of 1914 was part of a series of tapu-lifting rituals which culminated early in 1915 when Rua and his followers cut their long hair and brought to an end the days of the Nazarites. This ushered in the years of the New Covenant, as they lifted the state of living under the laws of tapu and inaugurated the state of being noa, or freed from the restrictions of the past. If Rua was taking the people step by step through sequences from the Bible, he was also following Maori practices of entering and leaving temporary states of being.

This search for communal salvation was undercut by other events.Scheming authorities had maintained a watch over Rua, encouraged by some high-standing Maori leaders, particularly James Carroll and Kereru. In 1907 the Tohunga Suppression Act had been passed, directed primarily at Rua. He was seen to be a disruptive influence because of his claims to be a spiritual healer, and because of his hostility to the native schools, which were teaching the children in English. The local police were instructed to watch Rua from May 1906 on the grounds that he was 'suspected of acting as a Tohunga'. He was harassed with the dog tax in 1907, but, despite Kereru's efforts, was never charged under the Tohunga Suppression Act.

The dropping of this attempt to prosecute Rua was undoubtedly due to his meeting with the prime minister, Sir Joseph Ward, in March 1908. This occasion became known as the 'Ceremony of Union' among the Iharaira, for Rua accepted Ward's argument that there could be no separate Maori government: 'there cannot be two suns shining in the sky at the one time'. Rua also interpreted this to mean that there would be the same laws for Maori and Pakeha, just as they enjoyed 'the one sun that shone above our heads'. He therefore created the flag that he flew at Maungapohatu (and which would later be described as seditious): the Union Jack with a message stitched onto it, 'Kotahi te ture mo nga iwi e rua Maungapohatu' (One law for both peoples, Maungapohatu). Alongside it he flew his own ancestral flag, Te Tahi-o-te-rangi, here taking his identity (as Te Kooti had before him) from the Tuhoe hero who had urged, 'Let us acquire fame by means of mercy' (instead of by revenge). Rua's leadership, based on the principles of equality under the law and pacifism, came to be seen as seditious in the First World War.

In 1915 Rua was arrested on charges of illicitly selling alcohol at Maungapohatu. Maori were not allowed to buy off-licence, a situation which led to frequent abuse by all parties involved. On this occasion the government used the legislation to harass Rua, because he had counselled against Maori volunteering. He was arrested on charges of supplying liquor at a large gathering (a ceremonial bone-cleansing), and the local magistrate, Robert Dyer, sentenced him to the maximum term of three months' imprisonment. The sentence was, in fact, for a suspended charge which had been held over from his arrest for a similar offence in 1911.

On 19 January 1916 Rua was summonsed on the 1915 charges, for which, in his understanding, he had already served the maximum sentence. This summons followed hard upon a contentious meeting about the opening of the Tuhoe land, at which all parties had been present: Rua, Kereru, William Herries (the native minister) and Dyer. Rua was a driving force behind a large Tuhoe petition of May 1915 which had urged that the legal restrictions on purchasing and leasing be lifted from the Urewera reserve. Kereru opposed this, as did Herries, although more covertly, for his interest lay in the Crown's continuing ability to purchase with monopoly rights, which he had commenced in 1915. Rumours were circulated that Rua was actively working for a German victory; these speculations Kereru passed on to the government. Herries decided on a strategy to pluck Rua out, using the legal channels that Dyer had kept open. Kereru, who was in charge of the Tuhoe recruitment committee, had been actively persuading Herries to take this action.

When Rua was presented with the summons he refused to attend court that month, pleading the urgency of harvesting his cocksfoot grass. He stated he would attend the session scheduled for the following month. Dyer judged the letter to be in contempt and a new warrant was issued for Rua's arrest. When it was brought to him on 12 February, he refused to go voluntarily with the two policemen and they did not arrest him. Preparations for an armed police expedition were set in motion on 9 March by John Cullen, commissioner of police. The plan to arrest Rua 'by ordinary means' had escalated into preparations to use force.

These events led to the conflict of 2 April 1916, the worst clash between the police and a Maori community last century. Rua was arrested at Maungapohatu by an armed force of 57 constables sent secretly from Auckland and two smaller contingents from Gisborne and Whakatane. He was seized on the Marae, where he was standing unarmed, accompanied by Whatu and Toko, waiting to greet the police. At the same moment, a shot was fired. In the ensuing melee two Maori were killed, one of whom was Toko. The senior police officers later orchestrated the police evidence, stating that the first shot was fired by a Maori and was part of a planned ambush; the Maori stated it was a police shot.

The weight of evidence supports the Maori case, although the matter is unlikely ever to be decisively resolved. Perjury was also committed by the police concerning the two Maori deaths; Toko, who was initially wounded when he grabbed a gun and began to fire at the police, was probably summarily executed. Legally, Rua's arrest was an assault, as it had taken place on a Sunday for a minor offence. Cullen, as commander, was guilty of the use of excessive force.

At least one of the Gisborne policemen, Arnold Butterworth, thought that not only was Rua's arrest illegal but 'that Cullen would be guilty of eleven charges from murder or manslaughter down to common assault'.

The notoriety of Rua's arrest was extended by his Supreme Court trial, the longest in New Zealand's legal history until 1977. Police lies were compounded by Maori perjury, directed by the defense counsel, Jerry Lundon, in a misguided attempt to name Mounted Constable Arthur Skinner guilty of firing the first shot.

Because Rua's arrest was illegal, the judge, F. R. Chapman, dismissed the charges of resisting arrest at Maungapohatu; Rua was tried for using seditious language, counseling others to murder or disable the police, and resisting arrest on the earlier occasion of 12 February.

The jury threw out the charge of sedition and were unable to come to a decision on the counseling charges, but found Rua guilty of 'morally' resisting arrest on the first occasion. With this lever, Chapman pronounced a sentence of one year's hard labor followed by 18 months' imprisonment. Eight of the jury protested publicly and with a petition to Parliament against this harsh interpretation of their verdict. It cannot be said that Chapman was impartial. He considered that Rua had a long history of defiance of the law and that, as a member of a race 'still in tutelage', he needed to learn that the arm of the law reached 'every corner'.

Rua was released from prison in April 1918. He returned to a community now heavily indebted by the legal costs of his and others' trials, as well as the costs of the police expedition, which he was expected to pay.

He began the reconstruction of Maungapohatu for a third time. He and his wives lived at Maai, whose name meant that it was freed from tapu. It was about half a mile from the older settlement, and a new meeting house was opened there in February 1919. It was called Te Kawa-a-Maui, the name taken from a house of learning that once stood at Maungapohatu, but also commemorating the kawa ceremonies performed by the ancestor Maui to lift the tapu and cleanse the land. This new house was built from the timbers of the demolished council chamber, Hiona, the designs whitewashed over.

While Rua was in prison, the Presbyterian mission had established itself at Maungapohatu and opened a school in July 1918. Rua gave his support to the school on the understanding that, in return, the Presbyterians would never erect a church there. This was the unusual basis of the co-operation that developed between Rua and the missionary, John Laughton.

In 1925 an outbreak of typhoid fever struck Maungapohatu. Rua was advised by Dr Charles Hercus of the need to reconstruct the homes and latrines. He turned this knowledge to wider purposes, rebuilding the City of God on earth. In 1927 he predicted the end of the world in a rain of stars, and ordered the reconstruction of the houses, all possessing tin roofs against this event. Once again, the people sold their belongings and regathered from the lower-lying valleys to the foot of the mountain.

This second exodus by Tuhoe to Maungapohatu occurred because they had discovered from the 1927 government commission investigating confiscated lands that Tuhoe would receive no compensation and no land would be returned. At the same time, it seemed possible that Maungapohatu might now become economically viable. Under Rua's influence, in 1922 Tuhoe had donated 40,000 acres of land to the government so that two arterial roads could be built to connect Maungapohatu to the eastern Bay of Plenty and to Rotorua. This road construction was expected to commence in 1927.

Rua's hopes were that Tuhoe could live fruitfully on their own lands and take control of their own lives, but the roads were never built; However Tuhoe did receive some monetary compensation for their gift in 1958.

Rua Kenana called himself the Maori Messiah, but his energies were directed into gathering the people and trying to make it possible for them to live and work together. If he exploited them, personally using some of the money he collected, he also directed their wealth into communal projects. He purchased seed and distributed food supplies in difficult times. He was a divisive leader, but was also a leader for a substantially dispossessed people who needed a vision.

With his handsome appearance and long hair, Rua became a well-known figure and was frequently photographed. He has entered the imagination of the playwrights, the poets, the film-makers, the painters, and the songsters of New Zealand, many of whom have used the story of Rua to keep alive the issues of justice and Maori autonomy.

Maungapohatu failed economically, and by the early 1930s the people were forced to leave to seek food and employment.

Rua went to live at Matahi, a community he had founded on the Waimana River in the eastern Bay of Plenty in 1910. There he died on 20 February 1937.

He was described as being 68 years of age. He left five wives (Pinepine, Pehirangi, Te Aue, Mihiroa and Piimia), one former wife (Te Aomakarani), and 22 children.

He had predicted that he would rise on the third day. When the appointed time had passed, his coffin was sealed in a concrete vault which he had ordered to be built beside his home.

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Pinepine Te Rika, 1857/1858?–1954

Pinepine seen here holding mokopuna Hami Biddle, son of her daughter Tukua Meri Ngawaiwhakaataata Rua who married Tori Biddle. They had 9 children

Pinepine Te Rika was the first wife of the Tūhoe prophet Rua Kēnana, and she shared the religious visions he experienced on the sacred Tūhoe mountain Maungapōhatu. Rua was to have a further six wives, but Pinepine always had special status and a role as spiritual leader. Pinepine Te Rika was born probably in 1857 or 1858 at Rahitiroa, an old settlement of Ngati Kuri just east of Te Waiiti, in the Bay of Plenty.

Her father was Te Rika Te Wheura (sometimes known as Te Mikaera Te Rika or Te Wharenui), a leader of Ngati Kuri of Ruatahuna and Tamakaimoana of Maungapohatu, both of Tuhoe. He had fought for Te Kooti Arikirangi during the wars of 1868--72 in the Urewera. Her mother was Tuhiwai Taheke of Ngati Raka of the lower Waimana valley.

Pinepine had three brothers: Pari Te Ahuru, Te Kahuorangi (later known as Pita Te Taite) and Te Kaawa; and a sister, Kumeroa. Pari Te Ahuru and Pita Te Taite would later become important in the Iharaira (Israelite) church, an offshoot of the Ringatu church and founded by Rua Kenana in the early twentieth century. They became leading Riwaiti (Levites). Through her father and mother, Pinepine became a major shareholder in Tuhoe land blocks in Ruatahuna, Maungapohatu and Waimana.

After the wars in the Urewera, a section of Ngati Kuri under Te Rika moved to Uwhiarae in Ruatahuna and established a settlement. Here the young Pinepine became influenced by the Ringatu church, which permeated Tuhoe life at that period. She was betrothed to Rua Kenana of Tamakaimoana and they were married in the 1880s. After living at various places on the East Coast and the Bay of Plenty, where Rua worked as a farmhand and later as a farmer, they established their home at Maungapohatu. It is said that they eventually had 17 children.

In 1904, while farming at Waimana, Rua experienced a divine call and was charged with the sacred mission of prophet. As a result of another revelation, he and Pinepine climbed the sacred Tuhoe mountain where they met Whaitiri, a celestial ancestress of Tuhoe. She took Pinepine and Rua to the top of Maungapohatu. There they met Christ who guided Rua to the mountain swamp and revealed to him the hidden diamond that the former prophet Te Kooti had left there. This established Rua's right to carry on Te Kooti's work. Rua fetched Pinepine and together they witnessed what lay beneath the protective layer of the swamp. Pinepine was said to have been the first woman to climb the sacred mountain and to see the diamond of Te Kooti. This was to have a profound effect on her life, as Rua now considered her to be tapu.

When Rua gained prominence as a prophet and leader, Maungapohatu was designated the New Jerusalem and the converted flocked there in 1907. Those who were of two minds followed when Rua prophesied floods and earthquakes in the Bay of Plenty seaboard. In 1908 Maungapohatu was a thriving community. By April, probably influenced by Scripture, he had taken six further wives from the different subtribes of Tuhoe and Ngati Awa - a politically astute move to ensure unity within his following. However, Pinepine continued to fulfil her calling as a sacred wife, and it was to her that Rua turned for the spiritual direction of the community.

Being tapu, she was separated from the community in a house built for her in the sacred enclosure, while Rua and his other wives lived in his home, Hiruharama Hou (New Jerusalem). This segregation was influenced by Scripture, where Pharaoh's daughter, King Solomon's wife, was set apart. Ordinary people could not visit Pinepine without going through an elaborate ritual of purification by water. Before entering her house they were required to remove their outer garments and leave them at the door. They then sprinkled themselves with water so that Pinepine would not be rendered profane by their worldliness, and they in turn were protected from her personal tapu. When they left, their clothes and bodies were sprinkled again.

She could not prepare or touch food or go near the kitchens; this was the task of her long-time servant and companion, Marumaru. She fed Pinepine in the manner of the sacred Tohunga of an earlier period, with food offered to her mouth at the end of a stick. As a mark of her tapu and rising Mana Pinepine became the keeper of the sacred covenant, a large embossed English-language Bible which had been given to Rua by Tuhourangi of Te Arawa. This was kept in a special covenant house in the sacred enclosure next to Pinepine's house, which only she could enter. When the community completed their meeting house, Tanenui-a-rangi, in 1914, she could not enter it. Sometimes she could be seen peeping inquisitively through the rear windows at night.

On 2 April 1916 a long-running legal dispute culminated in a large police party, headed by Commissioner of Police John Cullen, arriving at Maungapohatu to arrest Rua Kenana. A shot was fired, causing panic among the Maungapohatu people who were sitting peacefully and unarmed on the Marae. In the ensuing confusion scuffles erupted, and further shots were fired by both sides. When the fight was over two Maungapohatu men were dead - Te Maipi Te Whiu and Toko, Pinepine's second son. They had died within the sacred enclosure, and the watching Pinepine had gone to her son's assistance before returning to the protection of her house. She had also tried to stop the fighting by carrying the covenant in front of her for all to see.

However, without Rua spirituality was not enough to keep the people together. By April 1918, when he was released, the population of Maungapohatu had dwindled and a new Presbyterian mission headed by the Reverend John Laughton threatened to undermine the Iharaira church. Rua compromised by allowing children to join the Presbyterian mission; the parents and the elderly remained Iharaira. Laughton opened a school at Maungapohatu in July and Pinepine's younger children were among its first pupils.

Rua moved his family to Waimana. Subsequently, he moved each year to Waimana or Matahi and then returned to Maungapohatu when the weather was kinder. Presumably Pinepine remained at Maungapohatu until Rua freed her from the tapu late in her life. She was then able to move about and attend to ordinary activities, but because of her years of separateness, she invariably burnt her cooking and had difficulty coping without the assistance of her friend Marumaru. Eventually she left Maungapohatu and lived at Matahi where Rua had established permanent residence.

Her son Whatu died in 1936 as a result of an accident while shearing in Gisborne. Rua died a year later, and was buried in a tomb by his house at Tuapou, Matahi. Pinepine continued to live there until she died on 9 August 1954 aged 96. She was buried at Matahi on 12 August.

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Pinepine Te Rika, 1857/1858?–1954

(This version of Pinepine as told by uncle Pou Temara)

Pinepine Te Rika was born probably in 1857 or 1858 at Rahitiroa, an old settlement of Ngati Kuri just east of Te Waiiti, in the Bay of Plenty. Her father was Te Rika Te Wheura (sometimes known as Te Mikaera Te Rika or Te Wharenui), a leader of Ngati Kuri of Ruatahuna and Tamakaimoana of Maungapohatu, both of Tuhoe. He had fought for Te Kooti Arikirangi during the wars of 1868--72 in the Urewera. Her mother was Tuhiwai Taheke of Ngati Raka of the lower Waimana valley. Pinepine had three brothers: Pari Te Ahuru, Te Kahuorangi (later known as Pita Te Taite) and Te Kaawa; and a sister, Kumeroa. Pari Te Ahuru and Pita Te Taite would later become important in the Iharaira (Israelite) church, an offshoot of the Ringatu church and founded by Rua Kenana in the early twentieth century. They became leading Riwaiti (Levites). Through her father and mother, Pinepine became a major shareholder in Tuhoe land blocks in Ruatahuna, Maungapohatu and Waimana.

She could not prepare or touch food or go near the kitchens; this was the task of her long-time servant and companion, Marumaru. She fed Pinepine in the manner of the sacred tohunga of an earlier period, with food offered to her mouth at the end of a stick. As a mark of her tapu and rising mana Pinepine became the keeper of the sacred covenant, a large embossed English-language Bible which had been given to Rua by Tuhourangi of Te Arawa. This was kept in a special covenant house in the sacred enclosure next to Pinepine's house, which only she could enter. When the community completed their meeting house, Tanenui-a-rangi, in 1914, she could not enter it. Sometimes she could be seen peeping inquisitively through the rear windows at night.

On 2 April 1916 a long-running legal dispute culminated in a large police party, headed by Commissioner of Police John Cullen, arriving at Maungapohatu to arrest Rua Kenana. A shot was fired, causing panic among the Maungapohatu people who were sitting peacefully and unarmed on the marae. In the ensuing confusion scuffles erupted, and further shots were fired by both sides. When the fight was over two Maungapohatu men were dead - Te Maipi Te Whiu and Toko, Pinepine's second son. They had died within the sacred enclosure, and the watching Pinepine had gone to her son's assistance before returning to the protection of her house. She had also tried to stop the fighting by carrying the covenant in front of her for all to see.

The bodies of Toko and Te Maipi were kept by the police in the covenant house for some time before burial. Her eldest son, Whatu, was arrested together with Rua and four other men and taken to Mount Eden prison. During Rua's two-year absence, Pinepine remained at Maungapohatu except for the occasions when she attended the trials of her husband and son. She could barely afford the trip to Auckland as the police had stolen her savings when they searched her house after the affray. At this time the Riwaiti (Levites) were responsible for the spiritual life of Maungapohatu. However, without Rua spirituality was not enough to keep the people together. By April 1918, when he was released, the population of Maungapohatu had dwindled and a new Presbyterian mission headed by the Reverend John Laughton threatened to undermine the Iharaira church. Rua compromised by allowing children to join the Presbyterian mission; the parents and the elderly remained Iharaira. Laughton opened a school at Maungapohatu in July and Pinepine's younger children were among its first pupils.

Rua Kenana moved his immediate family to Maai, because of the blood that had contaminated the sacred enclosure at Maungapohatu. Pinepine remained at the main community while he and his wives lived together in one house. She still maintained her sacred position and a new, separate house was built for her. In 1919, after the influenza epidemic, Rua moved his family to Waimana. Subsequently, he moved each year to Waimana or Matahi and then returned to Maungapohatu when the weather was kinder. Presumably Pinepine remained at Maungapohatu until Rua freed her from the tapu late in her life. She was then able to move about and attend to ordinary activities, but because of her years of separateness, she invariably burnt her cooking and had difficulty coping without the assistance of her friend Marumaru. Eventually she left Maungapohatu and lived at Matahi where Rua had established permanent residence.

POU TEMARA

Binney, J. et al. Mihaia. Wellington, 1979

Sissons, J. Te Waimana. Dunedin, 1991

Webster, P. Rua and the Maori millennium. Wellington, 1979