By John O'Hare

Recently installed information panels at Kerikeri’s Stone Store is shedding new light on the stories of interactions between Māori and the Church Missionary Society missionaries who established the Kerikeri Mission in 1820.

The beautifully presented stories and artwork by heritage specialist Rose Evans is drawing rave reviews from many visitors to the heritage site according to Kerikeri Mission Station Property Lead Liz Bigwood.

“The new interpretation has been a while in the making – with Covid-19 and other considerations extending the life of the project,” says Liz.

“We’re there now, though, and visitors are able to explore these stories when they climb the stairs to the second floor of the store and enter a different world.”

The posters – which tell the story of the formation of the mission at Kerikeri and its subsequent early years – incorporate four broad themes: Literacy, Trade and Agriculture, Religion and the Musket Trade.

“We’re dealing with religion, money and politics here so you can imagine that our interpretation makes for a great read,” says Liz.

New material also makes an appearance – including the intermingling of the musket trade with the missionaries’ somewhat aspirational goal of having nothing to do with supplying Hongi Hika with guns.

Thanks to the influx into the Bay of Islands of other Pākehā who didn’t have the same moral concerns about supplying Māori with muskets – as well as the odd rogue missionary and growing Māori confidence in negotiating their own deals – the middlemen missionaries were increasingly cut out as Māori dealt directly with foreign ships in the bay.

By 1821, Ngā Puhi had become the most armed tribe in Aotearoa, as the position of the Kerikeri missionaries at the time was feeling increasingly precarious.

“On the flip side, guns weren’t the only thing the missionaries were able to offer. Besides agricultural tools and the new religion of Christianity, the missionaries also offered something foreign ships passing through the area couldn’t provide – literacy,” she says.

“The missionaries found a ready market for literacy – so much so that by the end of the 1820s, one observer described reading among Māori as a very popular pastime in the Bay of Islands. This increasing spread of literacy was helped in no small measure by the work of the missionaries – including the small school in Kemp House run by George and Martha Clarke, and Charlotte Kemp.”

The impact of teaching literacy among Māori children – often the sons and daughters of influential rangatira like Hongi Hika – was nothing short of explosive. The most celebrated of these was Hongi’s daughter, Rongo Hongi – later baptised ‘Hariata’ Rongo, after Charlotte Kemp.

“Hariata lived at the Kerikeri Mission house with John Butler, and later Charlotte and James Kemp,” says Liz.

“Evidence that Hariata learned to read and write at the mission was found beneath the floor of Kemp House kitchen in 2000, when workers found a slate bearing the signature of Rongo Hongi – her pre-baptismal name. The writing slate – likely to be the earliest extant written text by a Māori woman, and a taonga that is on display in Kemp House – was added to the UNESCO Memory of the World New Zealand Register in 2018.”

Together with her husband Hone Heke – another alumni of the little school at Kemp House – Hariata was later to use her literacy in framing crucial and strategic communications with Governor Grey and other worthies during the Northern War in her husband’s name.

But it is another of Hongi’s descendants – Eruera Pare Hongi – who features prominently in the new interpretation.

According to the NZ History website, Eruera was likely to have been a nephew of Hongi, who was orphaned following the death of his father Te Koperu. As a result – and possibly with some help from Hongi – he lived with missionary George Clarke at Kemp House in Kerikeri and studied at the mission school there.

At the age of 10, Eruera, who was the school’s top scholar, wrote the earliest known letter in the Māori language – a vivid and assertive piece addressed to ‘e tini rangatira o ropi’; to the many chiefs of Europe.

“Eruera was a skillful scribe, and he was part of the selection of Te Kara (the United Tribes’ flag in 1834) and was a key figure at the signing of He Whakaputanga (the Declaration of Independence) – so much so that he is described as ‘te kai tuhituhi’, or ‘the scribe’, on the document,” she says.

“According to NZ History, one commentator – Patu Hohepa – cites the quality of the document’s language and expression which were ‘formal Ngā Puhi idiolect’ as evidence that Eruera wrote the Declaration.”

Eruera was baptised by Rev William Yate in 1831, taking the name Pare – a transliteration of Edward Parry after the English Arctic explorer. At this time, Eruera was a constant companion of Yate, helping him to translate Scriptures into Māori during a trip to Sydney in 1828.

According to NZ History, although Eruera is said to have married in 1833 or 1834, it is likely that he and Yate had a sexual relationship. Yate was later dismissed from the Church Missionary Society because of allegations of sexual relationships with men.

“Eruera was a man of considerable literacy skills – and an invaluable bridge between Te Ao Māori and the new emerging world of the Pākehā,” says Liz.

“It is likely that Eruera would have gone on to play a similar role at the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi but sadly died in October 1836 – barely in his twenties.”

According to Liz, the stories of Rongo and Eruera – and the many thousands of Māori whose lives were impacted by the mission at Kerikeri and wider interaction with Pākehā in the bay – are emblematic of the story of Māori being selective of this new knowledge and using it to exercise their independence to their own advantage.

“It was a dynamic, fascinating time in our history, the effects of which has shaped our society today,” she says.