I am burning like fire from the pain caused by [you]’. Anger and shame inspired these words, written by a Māori woman to her unfaithful husband who had recently deserted her. She then carefully placed the letter, along with one addressed to her brother, in a bedroom drawer. A few weeks later, on 6 April 1884, she committed suicide, an act that led to a coroner’s inquest, and the creation of a government file held at Archives New Zealand in Wellington, where those letters now reside.1 Suicide was not unknown in Māori society, but individuals were likely to have expressed their feelings in other ways, such as whakamā (withdrawing emotionally), or through waiata (sung poetry).
Even though letters to the government ‘are seldom emotional’ or ‘ever betray intimate, personal feelings’, sometimes records associated with the business of state inadvertently reveal glimmers of the personal lives of Māori women, as well as their more collective and public engagement in the historical experience of the colonial era, when significant social, economic and political transformations took place in Māori society.2 In writing to the state, sometimes Māori women’s ‘formalised dialogue’ reveals fragments of their life histories, such as when they articulated the difficulties of managing resource depletion, the anxieties and concern caused by family illness, as well as the joy or grief associated with personal relationships.3 In letters to government officials they requested money, food or clothing, often in a direct and transactional tone. In these instances women’s writing entered government archives because they pressed their claims. In seeking relief or justice, their requests were designed for a wide audience.
This chapter explores the potential of public records for examining private lives and emotional expression. Although the material available is patchy, the topic of private lives is nevertheless broad. Much of the material in the preceding chapters is relevant to this topic, but the texts that we explore here are quite clearly very personal in nature. This chapter focuses in particular on correspondence conducted by letter, a genre that was versatile, and could be used to express a variety of information and emotions. Examples presented here include expressions of love, joy, sorrow, grief or pleasure that appear in items in government archives, often in personal letters addressed to officials which were not originally envisioned as public documents.4 In letters addressed to government officials, who were often friends of the family, women articulated their fears about family illness, revealed family shame generated by bankruptcy, and expressed concern about their economic livelihoods. While documents generated by the state tend to be pragmatic and functional, the names and signatures attached to documents, such as a marriage certificate, register not just an important moment in life, but can act as a window onto histories of intimacy and relationships as they form, evolve, mature or break down. Outside government archives, Māori continued to register their emotions in traditional genre, as the expression of grief in a waiata tangi for a recently deceased husband published in a Māori-language newspaper, illustrates.
Hinemoa’s words open this chapter, but this was not the name by which she was known. However, it is the name she used to sign her letters. Family may have addressed her by that name, or it may have been a term of endearment used by her husband. Nevertheless in signing as Hinemoa, she drew upon a well known Māori metaphor for forbidden love. The Hinemoa of legend was the beautiful daughter of a chief, widely admired and desired, especially by a young man of lesser rank. Our Hinemoa, though, did not live happily ever after with her lover, Hawke.
Although widely respected, and noted especially for being committed to the welfare of her people, at 40 years of age, Hinemoa had already experienced two failed relationships by the time Hawke walked out on her, leaving her with two young sons aged nine and seven, and pregnant with another child. Abandoned, she took her life by strychnine poisoning, which she also administered to her young sons, who both died in agonising pain.5 The circumstances surrounding their deaths, and her role in them, were widely reported in the settler press, which printed the letters she addressed to the man who had ‘caused pain to my heart’. Written in Māori, they were translated for the coroner’s inquest, and the English-language versions widely published.6
While the ‘personal records kept as government archives are unembellished official logs of moments in an individual life story’ and ‘often procedural or transactional’ in nature, records of the state can sometimes bring the ‘unwelcome judgment of the judicial system’ to bear on sensitive matters.7 Hinemoa’s letters were created out of private anguish, and she addressed her feelings and thoughts to particular individuals; they were not designed for public consumption, but entered the official record and the archive because she committed a crime, in which her actions were subjected to judgment. After her death, Hinemoa’s words, and her private shame, were made public by an inquiring settler press that had little interest in protecting her reputation, nor that of her whānau.
Murder-suicide is a tragic and extreme result of a relationship breakdown, signalling the emotional and psychological turmoil induced by the shame of a very public act of abandonment. According to her brother, who testified at the inquest, during the preceding three months Hinemoa was, ‘much grieved … through Hawke having left her, and refusing to live with her again.’8 In a letter she explained that: ‘Perhaps now he will know the truth of my love for him.’9
Hinemoa was responding to her husband’s adultery, which was the subject of gossip and rumour amongst the community, and her actions were modelled on examples from the past. Traditionally a woman might compose a waiata aroha as a response to gossip, or to shame a ‘neglectful husband or lover’.10 Sometimes this was followed by whakamomori (suicide), which was, according to Margaret Orbell, ‘fairly common in traditional Maori society. Often it happened when a person had been shamed, even if they were not to blame; in this situation, removing oneself with tragic finality from one’s large and very close kinship group was a way of restoring honour and redeeming a lost reputation.’11
Adultery or pūremu was a serious offence; it was a crime against marriage, an institution that served to create political, economic and social bonds between whānau. Committing pūremu broke those bonds, and it was punished with severity. A married woman who committed pūremu, for instance, might be punished with the loss of her life, but compensation would also involve a payment to the aggrieved party, usually with taonga of great value, such as greenstone, weapons and cloaks, in order to restore the honour of both families.12 By the 1850s, items of great value included stock, particularly farm animals. When Meri Te Waiheke’s son committed adultery with the married daughters of chiefs, it disgraced his whānau. A rūnanga was held to discuss an appropriate punishment. It was agreed that Meri was responsible for compensating the families her son had dishonoured. It is not known how the young women were punished. In this letter Meri accepts her son’s crime, outlines the financial burden the requirement for compensation placed upon her, and expresses her immense disappointment in him:
Rangiohia, Hurae 27-/59
Kia Piripi Terangiatahua, kia Tamihana, kia Kutia, e hoa ma tena koutou, tenei taku korero kia koutou, kua hara taku tamaiti a Karipa, kua puremu ki nga wahine ma rena tapu o nga tamariki rangatira o Waikato, kotahi te wahine kua o ti te he £50 te utu, toko toru nga wahine marena i puremu nei a Karipa ko te kotiro mero iti takahau te tokowha te tehi he ana ko tana rungawaitanga ki te whakamoe i tetahi atu wahine marena ki te teina o karamo takirau, huia taua kohuru tanga i taua kotiro, me tana hungawaitanga nei puta ana te utu a Karipa, kotahi hoiho puta ana i te tahi o nga wahine marena nei, e 2 hoiho naku te tehi na Karipa ano te tehi, he ana, e 2, wahine kaore i utu a, he kare no te moni ia au, e £75 te utu a Karipa kei muri, e 50 o te tehi 25 huia ka 75, he tika tona tenei hara he mea ata runanga marire na Waikato karanga ano taua runanga, e Ripa me pehea enei o wahine, ka ki mai a Karipa, me utu kei runga aku kau, whakae ana taua runanga, tenei te tihi i whakaritea e te runanga kotahi hoiho wahine, kotahi kau, ma Karipa enei i homai hei utu mo taku, whakae ana ia
E hoa ma kei
Ki mai koutou kaore au e ako ki taku tamaiti, te taenga mai o Tuhourangi ki konei ka whakahoki i a ia, me au ka kiatu kia haere, kare epai, ka nui taku ako kaore e rongo, ne, 26, i runangatia ai taua haranei
Ka tika atu ia i te kaipuke
heoi ano
Na Meri Tewaiheke
[modern translation]
Rangiohia, July 27-/59
To Piripi Te Rangiatahua, Tāmihana, and Kutia. My friends, greetings.
This is what I have to tell you, my child Karipa has sinned, and has committed adultery with the married wives of young Waikato chiefs. There is one woman, for which he was fined £50. Karipa fornicated with three married women, a young unmarried woman is the fourth. One of his wrongs was his act of sleeping with another married woman, the younger sister of Karamo Takirau, together with his mistreatment of that girl, and his sins, Karipa’s cost [fine] is one horse on account of each of the married women. Two of the horses belong to me, one is Karipa’s. There are two women for whom reparations have not been paid, as I have no money. Karipa owes £75, 50 for one and another 25 makes 75. His guilt is plain, it was carefully discussed in council by Waikato, and that council asked, Ripa [Karipa], what should be done about these women? Karipa replied, that my cows be used as payment, to which that council agreed. This was their final ruling. One mare and one cow. Karipa gave me these to pay for mine. He agreed to this.
My friends, do not say that I do not teach my son. When Tūhourangi came here, they returned him, and I said for him to go, it is not right. I have given him ample instruction but he does not obey. Twenty-six people deliberated over those crimes.
He has gone off in the ship.
That is all.
From Meri Te Waiheke13
Pūremu, once appropriately compensated, also marked the end of a marriage. Early missionaries regarded with distaste the practice of utu, viewing it as a marker of ‘savagery’, while the freedom associated with divorce was viewed as a sign of immorality, which they sought to replace with Christian models of family and controlled sexuality. As part of their ‘civilising’ project, early missionaries sought to encourage Māori to take up Christian marriage. This was bound up with practices of record keeping, particularly documentation of the event in the form of a marriage certificate. When speaking to one Māori couple about their impending marriage in 1828, Anglican missionary Henry Williams told them ‘it was much more proper that these things should be written on paper, than to follow their native customs. I therefore prepared pen, ink, and paper, in due form’.14
Marriage certificates were a necessary part of the bundle of paperwork associated with formalising relationships in the European world, as illustrated by the marriage of Maria Ringa and Philip Tapsell, understood to be the first Christian wedding performed in the country. It took place several months after Anglican lay missionary Thomas Kendall baptised Maria, daughter of chief Te Ape, on 4 March 1823. In June 1823, Kendall read the banns of marriage three times on the request of Tapsell, and presided over the wedding on 23 June.15
Missionary House at Mata Hui
Bay of Islands New Zealand
Marriage solemnized at Mata Hui in the Bay of Islands New Zealand in the year 1823.
Phillip Tapsell First Officer of the Ship Asp now at anchor in the Bay, and Maria Dinga a Baptized native female of the Bay were married in this place by Banns with consent of Guardians this twenty third day of June in the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty three by me Thomas Kendall Minister and Missionary.
This Marriage was … ) Phillip Tapsell
solemnized between us ) The mark of X Maria Dinga
In the presence of Mr. [illegible] Wilson Commander Royal Sovereign
Mr. D. Brind Commander Ship Asp16
Kendall certified that the marriage took place ‘according to the Form contained in the Common Prayer Book of the Church of England and that the nature of the contract was clearly explained to the Bride and her native friends in the presence of several respectable witnesses and fully understood by them’, with signatures of nine European witnesses.17 Maria famously left her husband almost immediately after their wedding. Her dismissive attitude to the sacrament of Christian marriage, but particularly Kendall’s involvement in sanctifying the relationship of a couple who were clearly unsuited for the responsibility marriage entailed, embarrassed the Church Missionary Society leader, Samuel Marsden. Under his leadership the missionaries often refused to marry inter-racial couples, whose relationships they regarded as born of convenience, rather than affection. By the 1830s, the Anglicans softened their approach, recognising that Pākehā traders had some influence amongst tribes. With increasing competition for conversions amongst rival mission organisations, missionaries also became more willing to accept interracial couples in an effort to inculcate and spread Christianity amongst Māori.18
A marriage certificate registers the formal recognition of a relationship, but these documents are devoid of emotional expression. When it comes to declarations of affection it is to love letters that we must turn, and while there are few extant examples in public collections, those that do exist draw upon customary forms of expressing emotion through metaphor, allusion and rhetoric regularly found in proverbs, poetry and song.19 By the 1840s, missionaries noted Māori enthusiasm for letter writing, especially love letters, which were ‘the chief use of their literacy skills’.20
William Speer collected samples of Māori writing while travelling through the southern region of the country in the early 1860s. The son of an Anglican minister, Speer visited a number of British colonies and on his travels collected mementoes to commemorate the places he saw and the people he met, which he pasted into an album, now held by the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington. Speer’s album opens with the signature of southern Ngāi Tahu chief Tōpi Pātuki, pasted on the inside cover. Also contained in the album are two waiata Speer collected from Ruapuke, and two short letters signed by Māori women and addressed to Speer, both dated August 1863. The first letter, written in pencil and signed by several hands is difficult to decipher, as the text in the right hand bottom corner is smudged, while the handwriting is also hard to read. Nevertheless, it is possible to detect the signatures of three women: Hēra, Peti Mata, also known as Elizabeth (Betsy) Moss, and Ellen Kihau. Peti Mata also features in a pencil sketch drawn by Here Wete. In it she is depicted dancing with Mr Piata (Mr Speer), the album’s creator.21 Hēra Tieri, of whom little is known, wrote the second letter, perhaps just as a piece of innocent fun, which Speer annotated as a ‘Maori love message’.
Ruapuke Akuhata 17/1863
Haere ra e taku aroha kia Mitipi e ta tena ra koe ka nui toku aroha kia koe / He mihi atu taku kia koe te noho maina i kona / Ka mutu ia Matou hoa aroha / Na hera tieri
[modern translation]
Ruapuke, August 17/1863
Go my love to Mr Speer. Sir, greetings. Great is my love for you. / I greet you who is living there. / Ended, by our loving friends. / From Sarah Tieri22
In writing their greetings of affection on paper Ellen Kihau, Hēra Tieri and Peti Mata were participating in an already well established social practice within their community. Ruapuke residents had learnt to write without the aid of a missionary, probably through the instruction of white men married into the community, and through informal instruction amongst Māori themselves. On his second visit to the island in 1844, only a few weeks after the arrival of the island’s first resident missionary Johannes Wohlers, local Māori gave the surveyor John Barnicoat a letter, sealed with wax, for delivery to Ōtaki, a coastal town north of Wellington. Barnicoat noted the ‘practice of communicating with one another in this manner is common among the natives, who perhaps are delighted in making use of their newly acquired faculty of communicating their thoughts by writing’.23 By 1863, Ngāi Tahu wrote for a variety of purposes, ranging from personal pleasure, to the instrumental and pragmatic.
Although most letters were exchanged between Māori, such as the one Barnicoat was instructed to deliver, these do not appear in archival collections in great numbers. Examples of writing between Māori correspondents do exist in private manuscript collections, for many Pākehā, such as William Speer, collected samples of Māori writing, which they regarded as curios. Arthur S. Atkinson, for instance, opportunistically collected letters in war-torn Taranaki from Māori villages where the residents had been forced to quickly evacuate, leaving tangible and evocative evidence of recent occupation behind them.24
Moments of great stress and anxiety activated letters, particularly during the wars of the 1860s. Amongst the Atkinson letters is one from Mere Paea Kōkiri to Hairuha and Rāwinia communicating her concern for her friends.
Aperill [Aperira] 19 1860
Haere atu ra e taku reta ki te kawe atu i toku aroha kia Hairuha e hoa tena koe[.] Ka nui toku aroha atu kia koe ia au e noho atu nei[.] E hoa ma tena koutou[.] Kia rongo mai koutou ko te mamae ia au kia koutou i te po i te ra e kore e mutu he roimata taku kai i te ra i te po kia koutou i te putanga mai o tena He kia koutou[.]
E hoa e Rawinia tena korua ko to Tungaane[.] Heoi ano[.]
Na Mere Paea Kokiri
Taupiri i Waikato
[modern translation]
19 April, 1860.
Go, my letter, to carry my affection to Hairuha, my friend, greetings. My love for you is great as I am sitting here. My friends, greetings. Let you hear that the pain I have for you in the night and day will never end, tears for you are my food night and day from that wrong having happened to you. My friend, Rāwinia greetings to you and your brother. That is all.
From Mere Paea Kōkiri.
Taupiri in Waikato.25
In sending news of family, including communicating good or bad news to relatives and friends, letter writing served to help maintain kinship connections by making words mobile. In the words of Abenaki scholar Lisa Brooks, ‘Writing not only travelled among communities but mapped the ties between them.’26 Words were carried short distances, but also across countries. Alison Jones and Kuni Jenkins relate the story of chief Te Koki (Ngāpuhi), who when he heard of his son’s death in Sydney in 1820, news of which was carried by letter, requested his child’s name be pointed out so that he could hongi it: ‘his son’s name on paper, like a signature, held the wairua of the child, and touching noses – in a hongi, exchange of breath – with the name that stood in his place would have brought the family as close to the boy as they could get at that moment.’27 As this moment of heightened grief illustrates, ‘writing brings people close’, for as a ‘material object, the written document is a surrogate for the writer’s body.’28
A number of letters of farewell addressed to George Grey and Lady Eliza Grey, written by Ngāti Raukawa women of mana in the 1850s, express grief at the departure of the governor and his wife. Before leaving, Grey gave a series of speeches at a number of venues across the country in 1853, which prompted Māori speeches in reply, and these often formed the basis for letters.29 In their compositions, Pīpī Te Whiwhi, her daughter Jane, and Ruta Te Rauparaha, ‘employed customary oral forms of expression in the written compositions that they modelled on the English letter form’.30 Drawing from the public world of speech, these farewell letters were written as public documents, not to a single individual. Indeed, composers had a wide audience in mind, as this extract from Jane’s letter to George and Eliza demonstrates, for it also contained a message to Mākere, daughter of Kahe Te Rau-o-te-rangi and Jock Nicol, who travelled with the Greys to the Cape Colony.
Otaki
20 September 1853
My dear father, the Governor, and my dear mother, Lady Grey.
…
This is a salutation to you all, including your girl, my young relative, Makere. I am still crying because I didn’t see your departure. My crying for you, and my sadness, is indeed great.
I don’t know how to compose words in my letter [as] I am a child. However, I have a lament for my father, my mother and my sister. Go to your homeland. Give my love to my dear sister, Makere.31
In contrast, Ruta Te Rauparaha and Pīpī Te Whiwhi’s letters show a variation in writing style and skill, indicating they did not write them. Rather, it was their command as orators on display.32 Pīpī and Ruth did not need the skills of writing, for they had scribes who could turn their oratory into words upon paper. Pīpī’s daughter, Jane, was of a generation expected to obtain the skills of reading and writing, and to use them for the benefit of their families.
Most of the letters collected for He Reo Wāhine were addressed to colonial officials.33 These are of interest to the historian seeking evidence of women’s changing social, material and emotional circumstances. They range from letters of farewell, to requests for equipment or financial assistance due to impoverishment or ill health, requests for information about land claims, and letters of complaint. As will be seen in the material from this section, some of these letter writers were educated in mission schools, or sent by their parents to live with Pākehā kin in Australia specifically to obtain an education.
Emily Russell (d. 1887), daughter of Kohukohu timber trader and mercantile elite, George Frederick Russell, was sent to Melbourne to be privately educated, befitting the increasing economic status and respectability of her father. She regularly wrote letters to her family.34 In her evidence to the West Coast Commission in 1880, Ākanihi Kurakitoro (Agnes Simeon) regarded education as essential to her children’s future.
I want to protect my children; I brought them into the world, and I must provide for them. I wish to be certain that, if anything happens to me, they will be supported until they are old enough to take care of themselves. There are four girls and five boys; the eldest, who is a boy, is fourteen years of age. I have sent my eldest daughter to Melbourne to be educated. She is staying with my husband’s mother, who has a governess for her. She will come back again in about two years’ time, when she has finished her education.35
Education equated with care, which was often expressed as securing the future social and economic opportunities of children. Recognising that success lay in an ability to negotiate the Pākehā world of commerce, some parents sought to obtain an education in English for their children, giving them a skill set that might enhance their future prospects. Young women also desired to learn these skills, for writing offered the possibility of freedom from parental or community control.
Learning to write encompassed a wide range of genres, including creative expression. In the papers of Joseph Mathews, held at the Alexander Turnbull Library, are samples of children’s writing in English from Awanui and Kaitāia Schools, where his son and son-in-law taught, respectively.
A boy was one day sitting on the steps of a door. He had a broom in one hand, and in the other a large piece of bread and butter which somebody had kindly given him. While he was eating it and merrily humming a tune he saw a poor little dog quietly sleeping not far from him. He called out to him to Come here poor fellow.
Annie Catherine Boyes
Awanui School
December 7th 1875
The Spider
Do you see the spider in the picture. He has just got his web done; and there he sits in the very middle of it, ready to pounce upon a fly. The spider loves work.
He begins to work as soon as he begins to live. Every spider is born a weaver. Even the youngest spider knows how to weave his web just as well as the oldest. The spider never has to go to school to learn his task. So, the little duck can swim as soon as it is hatched. And the little bird can build its nest, and the bee can make the honey without any teaching. God has given the creatures the power to do their work. And that is why they never make any blunders.
Eliza Colenso, Kaitaia School, April 12th 187636
Before the 1867 Native Schools Act, missionaries were the key providers of education in Māori communities. While English was emphasised, it was not necessarily the lingua franca of choice for everyday conversation, or even writing. The letters of Matire (Matilda) Moncur illustrate this. She was a foundation pupil of Reverend John Morgan’s school at Ōtāwhao established in 1849, with the financial support of George Grey. Morgan proposed to offer all lessons in English, and specifically targeted ‘half-caste’ children like Matire, whose parents:
are generally anxious for their education but their small means will not allow of their being sent to private schools. The mothers of these children are generally the daughters of the leading chiefs, and as they are with their Parents living amongst the various tribes along the coast, and in the interior, these children will no doubt in future years exercise great influence amongst their respective tribes, either for good or for evil. How important then that they should receive a Christian education, that hereafter they may not stand in the way to retard the advancement of the Aborigines, but on the contrary some of them may be employed as schoolmasters and schoolmistresses amongst them.37
By the end of 1850, Morgan had 40 boarders, 36 of them ‘half-castes’.38 As he had hoped, his school offered instruction in the English language and by October 1852, Morgan reported that of the 38 pupils, all, bar one, could read and write in English.39
The daughter of Kāwhia trader James Moncur (d. 1845) and Rewa Te Rārangi Pouaka (Ngāti Hikairo), Matire married John Morgan’s nephew, Samuel, in 1855. Although educated in English, she was clearly more comfortable with the Māori language, which is reflected in her correspondence with Donald McLean. In 1871 she wrote from Alexandra (now Pirongia) of the impoverished state of her family, her husband having left numerous debts, which she was struggling to pay. Her request for relief is written in a standard letter format, with rhetorical embellishments from Māori oral conventions absent, likely reflecting the use of a scribe familiar with formal letter writing.
Alexandra
15 June 1871
Dear Sir,
I regret being in a position compelled to trouble you, but having no other remedy, you will I trust excuse this liberty. My circumstances being such as to completely break down any hope of maintenance for my children, without your kind assistance. Owing to the mental derangement of mind of my husband who has not been in a good state since your last visit to Alexandra. In addition to my affliction in respect of my husband, I have been sued for debts contracted by him before his illness, which I have to meet, it amounted to £13-4-6, and another summons from Auckland for £24-in what manner to meet it I do not know, further I am from necessity, obliged to get credit from the Stores for food &c which cannot be done without. I blame my having to leave ‘Kawhia’ four years last April, which thoroughly broke up my house and destroyed my property, together with repeated raids since and losses attending them, is the cause of my present position and distress.
Dear Sir. If you would please take these facts into your kind consideration and help me over my difficulties, you will confer a boon on my children and an everlasting gratitude from your
very & Obedient Servant
Matilda Morgan
Honble. D. McLean
Auckland
P.S. I have never received any compensation for the losses sustained at Kawhia.
M. M.40
A second letter to McLean is written in Māori. It is highly likely Matire composed the letter, as the handwriting style and signature match. In it she warns McLean against listening to or believing the words of Hāmi Mōkena, her husband, Samuel Morgan.
Arekahanara
Mei 30th 1873
Kia te Makarini
Kei whakakarongo koe ki nga korero a Hami Mokena kua porangi i te kainga waipiro
Na Matire Te Rarangi
Matilda Morgan
To Mr McLean
[modern translation]
Alexandra
May 30 1873
To Mr McLean
Do not listen to the stories of Hāmi Mōkena who is mad from drinking alcohol.
From Matire Te Rārangi
Matilda Morgan
To Mr McLean41
Matire, Samuel and their children struggled to regain their stability and prosperity after they were forced to leave Kāwhia. As Matire explained, it was this event that was the cause of all their problems, being the catalyst for Samuel’s indebtedness, his failing health and struggles with mental illness.
Many Māori women corresponded with Donald McLean. He was, after all, second only to the governor in the control and authority he exerted in Māori land purchasing and race relations until his death in January 1877. Over his career McLean cultivated close relationships with leading Māori men, and acted as patron for the mixed-descent sons of white fathers of respectable standing, such as Henry Balneavis and Native Land Court Judge, Frederick Maning. McLean welcomed correspondence from white men married to Māori women, because with their close ties to Māori communities, they could be of use to him and the government as translators and intermediaries. One of his correspondents was Samuel Morgan.
Samuel Morgan wrote to McLean in July 1871, requesting assistance to gain compensation for his family’s property at Kāwhia. Their loss was ‘heavy’, which was made harder by having such a ‘large family’. Others had their losses compensated, but he was still waiting, he noted.42 Two months later, Morgan again requested McLean’s assistance to obtain compensation ‘which you kindly promised to see about’, and asked for employment as ‘I have as you know a large family and I am anxious to get a situation if possible’.43 By 1873, Morgan’s claim had not yet been actioned. Recognising that it was information McLean wanted, Morgan became a member of McLean’s network of informants when he offered news of the ‘hauhau’, and Māori views about road construction and surveys from a source who ‘doesn’t wish his name mentioned’.44 This exchange of information may have prompted Matire’s 1873 letter warning McLean that Hāmi was not to be trusted, for Hāmi was suffering psychologically because of his drinking. His debt continued to increase, placing further stress upon Matire and their twelve children.
Morgan had a poor reputation amongst Waikato Māori, but the reduced position of his wife, a relative of King Tāwhiao, caused by his ‘intemperate habits’ marginalised him further from the Tainui tribes, who had little sympathy for him. When Matire, then separated from Morgan, sold her Pirongia land in early 1877 in order to pay his debts, Morgan turned the new owner’s surveyors away. Fearing violence, and angry at Morgan’s role in causing disturbances in the King Country, Ngāti Maniapoto leader Rewi Maniapoto ordered him out of the region, sending twelve men to escort him across the border, where he was taken into the care of Te Wheoro. Not long after this, Morgan was imprisoned at Ngāruawāhia for vagrancy.45 Morgan’s life ended in dramatic and tragic circumstances, when he died at the hands of a fellow prisoner on 20 February 1877. Although Matire requested his body be released to her after the police investigation, when Morgan was buried on 22 February, few came to pay their last respects, and his wife and children did not attend.46
McLean operated through direct personal contact in order to carry out policy. In cultivating the friendship of men of influence and social standing, such as Henry Balneavis, who McLean referred to affectionately as ‘My Dear Bal’, he created obligations for families. This association was of value to Balneavis, who hoped he could count on McLean’s support in obtaining justice for his children, whose land interests he had been struggling to establish. When Balneavis’s daughter Jemima (c.1848–1907), who married John Shera in 1873, wrote to McLean after the death of her father, she did so based upon long established ties of friendship and association.
October 18th [1876]
My Dear Sir Donald
I write to you as one of my father’s oldest friends to ask you to use your influence to get a year’s salary for us. My dear father left what little he had to be divided equally among his five children. A Memorial has been sent to the Governor through the Minister of Justice and no reply has been received as yet. I am sorry to trouble you during the Session, but I hope that you will see that the Memorial is not forgotten. I am sure you will try all you can for your old friend Bal’s children.
Believe me,
Yours sincerely
Jemima Shera47
Maria Maning, daughter of Frederick Maning, also corresponded with McLean. In the following letter she gently pokes fun at the correspondence McLean often received, mimicking the style of a ‘complaining’ letter. Its content articulates the close ties between the Maning family and McLean, who likely helped obtain employment for Maria’s brother, Hauraki Maning, in the Native Department.
Auckland
June 20th /70
My Dear Mr. McLean
It is nothing new for you to get petitions & requests from all sorts & conditions of men & so it gives me courage to do a little in that line on my own behalf. I have just come to town & it seems a dreadful ‘sell’ Hau being ordered off to Wellington as soon as I arrived. It is like a lady to be unreasonable of course & you may think so – but I am sure affairs of State can be disposed of without his aid so do please be the best of Defence Ministers as you always are and send him back speedily. It is not simply as an escort & all that sort of thing that I want him but for other matters. I’ll call it ‘business’ to give it its proper importance in your eyes.
I saw your son yesterday. He would like to go down to the ‘Empire City’ [Wellington] I think & Hau not at all – so we sat over the fire talking mutinously & left much better after it.
I regretted so much His Excellency’s absence it would have been ‘so delightful’ had he not taken his departure also. He or you or somebody must have taken the sun away with you. It is miserable here & the rain is something dismal to contemplate.
Please (if possible) do let Hau return and ‘Your Petitioner will ever pray & c & c …’
Believe me
In all humility
Yours truly
M. A. Maning48
Her next letter to McLean, though, was far more serious in tone. Playful references to pleading petitioners are replaced by anxiety about Hauraki’s bankruptcy, and its financial impact upon her and others, not to mention the impact on the family’s reputation.
Thursday March 6th
My dear Mr. Maclean [sic]
I have been so troubled that I made up my mind this morning to write to you & try if you would help me. It is such hard work this asking favors & it is my first attempt & were it for my own benefit especially it would still be harder but as it is I take heart of grace and enter into my catalogue of troubles.
My brother Hau is the beginning and the ending of it. I have been so ashamed of all I have heard of his doings since my return to town that it were useless to try and palliate his conduct & in this case there is no excuse to be made. I being his sister I cannot bear it with his calm indifference. He has lived with people of the name of Sharpe – & during my stay in town I have also. He is in their debt to the amount of £35. He had kept them waiting & hoping with one story or another until they saw his name in the paper as Bankrupt & since then he has been leading them to believe that through your influence he would get his pay & return to his situation.
It was through his representations & through a sort of belief in him that seems to have been their general delusion they entered into such an occupation that of Board & Residence & they were poor but living comfortably enough – but through this debt of his they are with greatest difficulty – with every prospect of being left homeless in a few days. Mrs Sharpe is a lady unfortunately & feels her position in consequence most keenly & being in both poorly health & elderly it is most hard. Mr Sharpe has been out of employment for many months. I am more unhappy about them because of my inability to help them – brothers who go the pace – do not spare their female relations & my purse has suffered quite as much as his fathers, only I cannot afford it quite as well but that is my own affair & would not be mentioned here but to show that it is only because I am unable myself to do anything that I write to you now. Papa will do nothing for anybody whom Hau has laid under contribution – but I thought that if you had any intention of retaining him in his office that you might stretch a point by advancing his pay or do something somehow or other that these poor folk should not be utterly ruined through him. I know not how unreasonable ladies requests are supposed to go & this of mine I know to be something most unusual but I do believe in your great kindness & also in your power to do as you like in most things & if you only knew how grateful I should feel for a load off my mind I think you would believe in it being a rather jolly thing to be the Honble Native Minister & everything else that you are. I am in a better humour already than I have been since I came back & found how many there were who had reason to think Manings were capable of doing selfish & untruthful things & I cannot help feeling better when I think of it but as I said I am in better humour & more hopeful since I started this epistle.
Remember too that this style of correspondence is new to me so if there is anything lacking in proper respectful phraseology that I send from ignorance – not wilfully & you must excuse me.
I write on my own thought without signifying any intention beforehand of doing so – but Hau had made use of your name so often of late that Mrs Sharpe asked my advice about calling upon you to ascertain the truth – & the worst also for her upon that hint I speak myself & hope to get an answer for against as soon as convenient. I am so disgusted with things in general & brothers in particular – my experience of them being people who take the pleasantest road to themselves & leave the rough path to others. I suppose I shall feel more amicably taihoa but at present I can only pin my faith upon you – and hope to remain
Yours very sincerely
Maria A. Maning
Grafton Road49
As a single woman, Maria’s ability to help financially support her brother was limited, but nevertheless she endeavoured to do her family duty.
Women without access to land or resources relied on seasonal work. Single women’s opportunities ranged from seasonal labour to factory work or domestic service. Rihi Huanga wanted her daughter to obtain a government job and applied to George Thomas Wilkinson, the local native officer, for assistance in 1898. He forwarded the letter to the Under Secretary of the Justice Department, which had oversight of ‘native affairs’ in the 1890s.
Kihikihi
Oketopa 9th 1898
Kia Hori Wirikihana
Kai whaka haere a Te Kawanatanga e hoa tena koe
He inoi atu tenei naku kia korua koto taua matua ko Te Kawanatanga Mo tetehi mahi ma taku kotiro kia homai e korua ara nga mahi e rite ana mana he whaka ako kura he poutapeta me etahi atu mahi a Te Kawanatanga.
E rima ona tau e whaka ako ana i nga kura ka tahi ano ka mutu ka rua tekau ona tau i naia nei
Heoi ano
Na Rihi Huanga
Ko tonu ingoa ko Ema Erena
Ko tana mahi kura kua whaka mutua koia nei te take i tuhi atu ai au kia koe kia homai tetehi mahi ma ana
Heoi ano
[Wilkinson’s translation]
Kihikihi 9th October 1898
To Mr George Wilkinson
Government Agent
Friend, greeting. This is an application of mine to you and our parent, the Government, for some suitable employment for my daughter, such as teacher in a school or post office work, or any other Government work. She has been engaged school teaching during the past five years. She is 20 years old. That is all, from
Rihi Huanga
Her name is Ema Ellen. It is because she has ceased to act as a school teacher that I apply to you for some employment for her. That is all.50
For his part, Wilkinson advised that Ema was a ‘respectable, intelligent, and well behaved young woman’, who would, in his estimation, ‘carry out satisfactorily the duties belonging to any Government situation if she were successful in obtaining one.’51
Teaching was a precarious labour market though, for Māori women were often employed at a lower rank, as teacher aides or assistants, and paid at much lower rates. Many hoped to establish their own schools, but only a handful succeeded in the decades before 1900.52 The first to do so was Mary Tautari (d. 1906), who established a native school at Taumārere in 1875, which also catered for boarders. Her pupils were mainly Māori girls, who got an education in English and were trained in the arts of instrumental music, singing and household manage ment along European lines.53 Her main supporter was Sir Donald McLean, who promised he ‘would get the government to pay for their board with you’ if she was able to attract significant numbers of Māori girls to the school.54 However she got into financial trouble, and when her key supporter died, Mary turned to McLean’s son, Douglas, for help in 1877.
Taumarere, Bay of Islands
March 29th 1877
Dear Sir
On the occasion of the death of your lamented father I felt strongly inclined to make some attempt at expressing my deep sympathy in your trouble, but feared my letter would be an intrusion, therefore remained silent.
At present I am forced to write and ask your kind sympathy for I feel now in great want of a sincere friend and trust that your interest in this school will enable you to kindly overlook my boldness in addressing you on the painful subject on which I am about to speak, namely a certain unpleasant business transaction which if not arranged by your too kind consideration, I shall no doubt be forced to break up this native school founded by your never to be forgotten father and this would be a greater misfortune and pity as the girls are now over their first difficulties and promise to be not only well educated but even accomplished and nice girls.
The business to which I refer to is this. That some time ago (as the enclosed will more fully explain) a money transaction was as far as I knew settled in a satisfactory manner and to my astonishment I received the enclosed by last mail and as I have no possibility of managing the matter in a state of desperation I apply to your good feelings to act as I believe in my heart your dear father would do in this matter. I wish very much that you could conveniently let me hear from you by next mail and I earnestly beg of you to kindly excuse the liberty I am taking and to which I am actually driven by present state of affairs. With very best and kind wishes
I remain yours most sincerely
Mary Tautari55
Although she received ‘a kind note’ and some advice, in the end her brother-in-law stepped in, paying the debt, and relieving her of anxiety.56 Although Mary encouraged ‘Europeanisation’ at her school, this was not to be at the expense of Māori culture, language and ways of life, which she demonstrated her commitment to in her work as a Licensed Native Interpreter in the Land Court. Amongst her cohort in 1888, was Matire (Matilda) Morgan.57 No doubt their education in the English language, and familiarity with colonial institutions, as well as their personal connections with officials, gave them an advantage in the court, which they could use for the benefit of their whānau and friends.
By the late nineteenth century, many women experienced increasing difficulties in maintaining families from an ever-reducing resource base, as Meri Matimati’s letter illustrates.
Kupape 1 Tihema
E hoa e Temakarini
tena koe kia rongo mai koe i taku korero ma matou te tehi kai mau e homai kia rua peke riwai kia ko tahi pihi poaka kia ko tahi peke pihikete
Kia ko tahi topai [illegible] huka ta temea hoki ituhituhi atu ai ahau kia koe he mate rawa no matou i te kai mei kore to matou hemo i te kai e kore ahau e tuhituhi atu kia koe Kite tehi kai nate mate rawa o matou i te kai i tuhituhi ai ahau e Te Makarini kia ma na mai tenei pukapuka
Na ku tena puka puka
Na To Waea na Meri Matimati
Kia Te Makarini
[modern translation]
Coopers Bay 1 December
Friend, Mr McLean. Greetings.
Listen to what I say, about some food for us. Please give us two bags of potatoes, a side of pork, and one bag of biscuits and one [illegible] of sugar because I wrote to you because we are starving. If we weren’t starving, I wouldn’t write to you for some food. It is due to us starving, that I have written. Mr McLean, please give effect to this letter.
This letter is from me,
From your mother, Meri Matimati.
To Mr McLean.58
Others wrote to officials to draw their attention to the burdens of widowhood, old age or illness, which they sought to remedy by gaining a pension, or social assistance. George Thomas Wilkinson forwarded Ani Waiwhakarewa’s request to the Native Department in 1895.
Tepaina Akuhata 22 1895
He Tuhi atu tena naaku ki te kawanantanga kia mahara tia mai te nei wahine e mau nei ta tana ingoa iraro nei a Ani Tewaiwhakarewa 67 no nei ona tau ko taana taane kua mate kaore kau ana tamariki koia ahau ituhi atu ai kia tukua mai i te kawana tanga heoranga mo tenei ‘wahinei’ e mau nei tona ingoa ituhi atu ai ahau kaore kau ia e kahakite mahi kai maana kaore ano hoki he tangata mahi kai ma ana i te mea kia kua mate nei hoki taana taane i te 16 o akuhata 1892 tetau kaore nei he tangata hei ata whai i aia monga tau imua atu otana matenga
Koia ahau ituhi ai ko toona oranga me homai kia ia e te kawanatanga ara nga mea i hiahia tia eia Heoi ano
Ani Tewaiwhakarewa
Kia mana mai i akoe taaku reta mehe mea kite mana mai ia koe me tuku mai ki Waingaro i te 28 o Ngara o Akuhata 1895 ko taku iwi ko Nga ti Tahinga
[Wilkinson’s translation]
Mercer, August 22nd 1895
This is a written application of mine to the Government in the hope that it will consider the case of this woman whose name is signed below viz Ani Waiwhakarewa. She is 67 years old. Her husband is dead. She has no children that is why I write asking Government to grant her some relief. She is not strong enough to grow food for herself and there is no one to grow food for her because her husband died on the 16th August, 1892. There is no one to provide for her now until her death. That is why I write asking that some Government relief, such as she desires, may be granted to her.
Ani te Waiwhakarewa
Give effect to the request in my letter. If it is granted send (the reply) to Waingaro on the 28th August, 1895.
My tribe is Ngatitahinga59
Maangi Pōtae requested support so her husband could access medical care. She also wanted his government pension raised to a level appropriate to his years of service and loyalty to the Crown.
Papawai
Greytown North
31 March 1891
The Honorable
The Minister of Native Affairs,
Wellington,
Sir,
I wish to bring to your notice the case of my husband Henare Potae, who is at present suffering very much from rheumatism.
When Mr Mitchelson was Native Minister he promised to give my husband a free passage from Gisborne to the Hot Springs, and also an order for admission to the Hospital there.
It would be of great benefit to my husband if you would kindly grant him the passage & the admission to the Hospital promised by Mr Mitchelson.
All his ailment was contracted while in service of the Government.
My husband also had a pension of £100 from the Government but it was reduced to £40, and then it was raised to £75.
My husband wishes me to ask you to ask the Government to raise his pension again to £100 as he is now an old man & very sick and not able to do anything for himself.
If you will look in the books of the Government you will see that my husband was always on the side of the Government & was of great service to them during the wars.
This is all I have to say at present.
Please send the answer soon to
Yours truly
Maangi Potae60
Widowhood placed women in precarious financial positions. Mākere Tāwhai wrote to the Native Minister in 1894 seeking financial relief. Her original letter no longer exists, so we have only the English translation.
[official translation]
Waima
October 6 1894
The Honourable
Minister for Native Affairs
This is a letter of mine to you and the other members of your Government.
Salutations to you all, great indeed is my love for you in the remembrance of the death of my husband the late Honi [sic] Mohi Tawhai, who died in grief at the action of the Maoris in abandoning the Government of New Zealand.
This is an application of mine to you and the members of your Government to have pity on us and continue his pension to me and my children for he was a person who loyally supported government measures up to the time of his death and my children will I trust follow in the footsteps of their father, and should have pity on me and continue that pension for our support. I could have them both taught to follow the footsteps of their grandfather Mohi Tawhai and their father Hone Mohi Tawhai for I and my children are as orphans and I am physically unable to provide food for our maintenance.
That is all, ended
From
Makere H. M. Tawhai61
These are not begging letters, but instead critique the state. Mākere, for instance, as the widow of a loyal servant of the government, views the government as having a duty and a responsibility for her welfare. Mākere Tāwhai, like many women who appear in this book, sought to hold the state to account.
Financial constraint shaped the lives of many women, but this was not the case for all. Histories of consumption and commerce in colonial New Zealand have yet to track the purchasing power of Māori women. Catherine Bishop has highlighted their role as colonial businesswomen, but women were also consumers of a range of goods and services, notably fabrics and dressmaking services, reflected in the advertising targeted at them.62 They were also interested in photography, regularly going to studios to have their likenesses recorded on camera for posterity. Some had their portraits painted, which were the cause for joy and happiness. On seeing Gottfried Lindauer’s portrait depicting her likeness, Rōra Hakaraia expressed her pleasure in writing to Walter Buller.
Putiki
Hune 28th 1895
Kia Te Pura
Tena koe e rua aku wiki ki Waikanae ka hoki mai au ki Whanganui nei katahi ahau ka kite i te whakaahua i tukua mai nei e koe. Ka nui te koa o to ku ngakau, i rangi nui atu te pai o taua whakaahua. Kia ora tonu koe ma te Atua koe e tiaki i runga i te pai o taua whakaahua.
Heoi ano
Rora Hakaraia
[modern translation]
Pūtiki
June 28 1895
To Buller
Greetings. I have been in Waikanae for two weeks, and have returned here to Whanganui. I have just seen the likeness that you sent to me. I am really happy with it and I am pleased at the quality of that picture. Thank you. May God protect you on account of the quality of that picture.
That is all
Rōra Hakaraia.63
Rōra’s brother was the military leader Te Keepa (Major Kemp). In 1911 she revived the idea of a memorial erected in her brother’s memory, first proposed in 1898. She was successful in arranging financial support, and commissioned a statue based on a Lindauer portrait depicting a youthful Te Keepa in military uniform, wearing his medals and holding a sword of honour gifted to him by Queen Victoria.64 It was unveiled at Pākaitore/Moutoa Gardens in September 1912. On seeing it, Rōra rejected it as a poor likeness of her brother, and refused to pay the remainder of the costs. Several panels of text adorn the plinth, one of which is in Māori alone. Ewan Morris suggests that Rōra arranged this panel, and in it she ‘speaks in her own voice’ about her brother, emphasising his many contributions to the community, but particularly his status as a peacemaker.65 In this panel she sought to elaborate on the depiction of Te Keepa in his military finery, by drawing attention to his leadership in many sectors of the community. This is how she wanted him remembered.
Expressions of grief continued to be composed as mōteatea (sung poetry), notably waiata tangi, or laments. In the July 1856 issue of the Māori-language newspaper, Te Karere Maori sits the following waiata tangi with an accompanying English translation.
HE TANGI NA TE PAEA MO TONA HOA.
Mo EPIHA PUTINI TE RANGIATAAHUA
Tera Kopu hapai o te ata
Me he mea ko te hoa tenei ka hoki mai.
E mihi ana au taku kahui Tara
I tukua iho ai, ka hinga ki raro e!
Tu ke mai Taupiri i te tonga
Karekare kau ana te tai ki Manuka.
I haere rangitahi ko te rangi ki te mate
Kihai i ponaia te hua i Motutara
Hoki mai pa! to moenga i te whare.
E pupuri nei au te tau o taku ate
Ka ngaro ra e taku manu kohe ata.
Tena ka tiu, ka wehe i a au, i.
[newspaper translation]
LAMENT FOR JABEZ BUNTING RANGIATAAHUA.
BY HIS WIFE, TE PAEA.
The star Kopu harbinger of morn
Appears in view, an emblem this of the beloved,
Methinks returning to me.
My flock of tiny birds, left here to droop
Without a father, o’er you I mourn.
Lo, distant in the south, Taupiri rears its head
In solitude, while the waters of the Manukau
Are rippling onward.
Death has severed thee from us; and thou
Wast borne to heaven, we had time
To fasten in thine ear thy heir loom Motutara.
Come back O father and betake thyself
To thy accustomed slumbers in thy dwelling.
The cord that gives vitality to this frail heart,
I hold, and fain would cut asunder;
For he who was my talking bird, that sung.
So sweetly at the dawn of day, has
Disappeared for ever from my gaze.66
It was composed by Te Paea (Sophia) for her husband Ēpiha Pūtini Te Rangiataahua, an important rangatira of the Māungaunga hapū of Ngāti Tīpā, but who had taken up the leadership of his uncle’s tribe, Ngāti Tamaoho. Both tribes were part of the wider Tainui confederation, under the ariki, Pōtatau Te Wherowhero. Ēpiha Pūtini’s wife, Tīaho Te Paea, was the ariki’s daughter (see chapter 4). Although high-born women more commonly composed love songs and men songs of lament, neither genre was limited to one particular gender.67 The Māori text is rather terse (quite unlike the more florid Victorian verse translation in English), utilising a form of presentation, metaphors and geographical references that would have been familiar to those who heard the song sung, or who read the newspaper; Taupiri, a mountain, and Manukau, a harbour, clearly locate the mōteatea as belonging to the Tainui tribes of Waikato and South Auckland. Mōteatea began to appear in Māori-language newspapers from the mid-nineteenth century to communicate widely the death of a significant person, and to enable shared grief.
Women wrote for private reasons, for pleasure, and for creative expression. Of all genres of writing, though, the letter was the most popular due to its versatility. In a letter one was able to communicate all kinds of information ranging from the political to the deeply personal. Because letters travelled and made words move, they carried messages that ensured kinship connections were maintained across large distances. Letters were also popular modes of writing because the genre easily encompassed Māori oral expression, in the form of waiata and laments, compositions in which Māori women were highly skilled. Many of the letters featured in this chapter derive from government records, and although they are often framed as appeals for assistance, it is because they were at times addressed to government officials who were regarded as friends and supporters that these items of correspondence offer windows onto private life and emotional states.