Maori Images of Politics and Religion

A Maori interpretation of the events of the 1860s described here can be found in the “Sketches” of Aporo, which are now in the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington. The only information about them is the accompanying note written by Gilbert Mair, who commanded the Arawa troops during the Tauranga Bush Campaign in 1867:

Maori Sketches illustrating Dreams by Aporo. Shot by me at Poripori Jany 23 1867 under a waterfall. I took the sketches, wet with his blood from his body.

G. Mair

Elsewhere Mair referred to this Aporo as Rota who belonged to Pirirakau of the Whakamarama area (Andersen and Petersen 1956, p.324). Cowan (1923, Vol.2, pp.152-153) provided a more detailed account of the incident which he obtained in interviews with Mair. Immediately after the skirmish near Whakamarama, Mair

noticed a trail of blood leading down to a deep gorge on the left, or east in the direction of Poripori. There was a faint track here through the forest to Poripori, which the Piri-Rakau had marked by breaking and doubling over the fronds of the fern called tu-taumata (Lomaria discolor), which are silvery white underneath. When doubled over, the white under surface of the fern showed conspicuously against the dark green of the ferns, moss and tree trunks around it. Mair observed that these white fronds were splashed with blood; and diverging from the route followed by the others, he scouted along down to the creek in the gorge. Hot on the trail, he followed the blood marks to a cave, over the mouth of which a little waterfall came down. A shot rang out from the cave, narrowly missing him. Mair rushed in and encountered a wounded Maori kneeling behind the rocks in the gloom, and shot the man dead just as he was levelling his long single-barrel gun for another shot. Taking the dead warrior’s gun and whakakai pendant of tangiwai greenstone as trophies, Mair hurried back to the scene of the fight. He found by inquiry afterwards that the man he had shot, a big tattooed warrior, was a Piri-Rakau named Rota, one of the leading men of the turbulent tribe.

Andersen and Petersen (1956, p.324) noted that Mair was in error in the date of the incident at Poripori as this engagement occurred on 15 February 1867 (see also Cowan 1923, Vol.2, p.151).

There seems to be no other information about the origin of the sketches, which appear to be an incomplete collection of drawings by more than one artist. Some are in pencil and/or water colour, some in black ink and/or blue pencil, on different sorts of paper, and there is different handwriting in the inscriptions on some of the drawings. Three carry the inscriptions “ Whika 11, ” “ Whika 16 ” and “ Whika 18 ” which indicate they may have been part of a series. Some refer specifically to the Tauranga district but others have no particular identification and could have come from elsewhere How this collection came to be assembled together and carried by Aporo (or Rota) in battle may never be known. Nevertheless these sketches (reproduced here at threequarters of the original size) provide a Maori view of the Pakeha government, politics and religion, and some of the symbolism of Pai Marire.