Te Houhi

TE HOUHI He Pito Kōrero

TE HOUHI

He Pito KĹ?rero All material contained in this publication has been sourced from archival, online, and publically accessible records.

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T E H O U H I - H E P I TO KŌ R E RO The Waiōhau fraud is named for a deceitful deal slipped through the Native Land Court in 1886. It lit a long slow fuse that did not detonate until 1907, when Nāti Haka Patuheuheu were forcibly evicted from Te Houhi, their kāina tūturu on the Waiōhau block.

The 21 years that separate these two critical events were a slowly unfolding disaster for the people of Te Houhi, but the full story of the Waiōhau fraud is much longer still. It did not begin in 1886 and nor did it end in 1907 but extended over more than 50 years – from 1870 to the 1920s – a time when Nāti Haka Patuheuheu and Nāi Tūhoe endured the many harsh impacts and deep betrayals of colonisation.

The Crown’s invasion of Te Urewera in 1869 and its brutal scorched earth campaign destroyed the kāina of Nāti Haka Patuheuheu along the Ranitāiki valley, where they lived beneath their mauna Hikurani. In 1870 the Crown demanded the surrender of the hapū and then exiled them to Te Putere, a small block of confiscated land near the coast west of Whakatāne. It was little more than a prison camp into which they were crowded with other Tūhoe exiles, short of food and relying on Government rations. When they were released in 1872, Nāti Haka Patuheuheu returned to their lands and established their main papakāina at Te Houhi, near where the Manahouhi Stream emptied into the Ranitāiki River.

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Nāti Haka Patuheuheu had lived for generations in the Ranitāiki valley, holding this western border of Te Urewera against Nāti Awa to the north and Te Arawa to the west. They fought again to hold this land during the Crown’s invasion of Te Urewera, when Te Arawa fought for the invader as did Tūhoe’s neighbours, Nāti Manawa. On their return home in 1872, Nāti Haka Patuheuheu resumed their role protecting the western flank of Te Urewera, which had become the new frontier of colonisation. Their ranatira joined with others of Tūhoe to form Te Whitu Tekau in 1872 to define and protect the boundaries of te mana motuhake o Tūhoe. Together they vowed to defend Te Urewera from land selling, roads, surveys, and what was then the primary tool for acquiring Māori land – the Native Land Court.

Other iwi did not share the goals of Te Whitu Tekau and let themselves be used

by Crown purchasers and private land speculators to open the door to surveys, land-selling, and the Native Land Court. During the 1870s Nāti Awa, Te Arawa, and Nāti Manawa again attacked the lands of western Te Urewera, not with patu or firearms but with surveys and land claims. They asserted claims to several blocks in which Nāti Haka Patuheuheu held strong customary rights, including Matahina, Kūhāwāea, and the Waiōhau block itself. These blocks formed part of the ‘ring of fire’; a series of Native Land Court titles along the frontier of Te Urewera that completely encircled the homelands of Nāi Tūhoe.

Like others on the border of Te Urewera, Nāti Haka Patuheuheu faced an impossible choice when other iwi let the Native Land Court and land-selling into their rohe. They could stand strong with Te Whitu Tekau and boycott the Court, but that left the land to whoever claimed it, and then sold it. Or they could participate in the Court in the hope of being awarded some of their land,

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and then strive to protect it from purchase. But the Crown’s costly system of Courts and land titles was stacked against Māori owners. It was designed to promote land purchasing from individual owners and to destroy the collective rights of hapū, led by their ranatira.

The fate of the Matahina block (79,000 acres) showed how the Crown’s system of Courts and purchasing consumed the land. Matahina lay across the Ranitāiki River from Te Houhi and the Waiōhau block and was land they had fought for and retained for generations. It was used for te takina nekeneke; the seasonal migration of whānau to the forests and streams of Matahina, its many birding trees, hunting grounds, and eeling spots. These ties to the land counted for little in the Native Land Court, where Nāti Awa (who had already arranged to sell most of the land to the Crown) claimed the entire block in 1881, and persuaded the gullible Court of their dubious claims of conquest on Matahina.

Nāti Haka Patuheuheu filed appeals and won the right for a rehearing of Matahina in 1884, but the loss of the land had already become inevitable.

Te Kooti predicted this in 1882, telling the people they had been tempted by the taste of “te huka o te pia i te waha [the froth of beer in the mouth],” but the froth that clings to the mouth would be all that was paid for Matahina and he predicted correctly that the land would be lost:

Haere rā Matahina, e huna i a koe, Haere rā Matahina, te ora o te tanata Haere rā Matahina, te pono o te tanata ki nā tira haere Kauaka te mahara e ranirania mai he mate Ka rōnaki ki te nui raorao Kai Te Kapu o Te Rina na nā i whātoro Tō te tanata hemona, he moni – eei!

Farewell Matahina, for you are lost Farewell Matahina, the well-being of human kind Farewell Matahina, bountiful to travelling parties.

Do not remember it; its burning-off is completed.

It slopes steadily down to the level vastness It was Te Kapu o Te Rina (the cup of the hand) that stretched out Man’s demise is money.

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The 1884 rehearing held out the hope that Te Kooti’s prediction would not be realised, but the Native Land Court soon put paid to that. Its 1884 decision again favoured the land-selling Nāti Awa, granting Nāti Haka Patuheuheu title only to Matahina C and C1, two thousand acres in the south of the block across the river from Te Houhi. This was little consolation for the loss of nearly all of Matahina, and this remnant came burdened with excessive survey charges that threatened their title to the land.

By 1884, the Waiōhau 1 block (14,464 acres) was also under threat. The entire Waiōhau block (15,564 acres) was put through the Native Land Court in 1878, when Nāti Haka Patuheuheu were awarded title to all but the most northern portion (Waiōhau 2 of 1,100 acres which was awarded to Nāti Awa). Nāti Haka Patuheuheu included 111 hapū members in their title, which they agreed to share with 24 Nāti Rono of Tūhoe and 13 Nāti Manawa (148 owners in all). The list of Nāti Haka Patuheuheu owners featured their ranatira Wī Pātene Tarahana, Mēhaka Tokopounamu, and Te Whāiti Pāora. The Nāti Rono owners included Tūhoe leaders such as Tūtakanahau, Te Wakaūnua, Nētana Raniihu, and Mākarīni Te Waru (who lived with his Nāti Haka Patuheuheu wife at Te Houhi).

It was the inclusion of the 13 Nāti Manawa owners that came back to haunt Nāti Haka Patuheuheu. When the Court awarded title to Waiōhau in 1878 it was also hearing the enormous Kainaroa 1 block (104,000 acres) to the west. Nāti Haka Patuheuheu and others of Tūhoe shared interests there with other tribal groups, especially Nāti Manawa who led the claim and agreed to include a few Nāti Haka Patuheuheu in the small list of owners of Kainaroa 1. When the title to Waiōhau was heard, Nāti Haka Patuheuheu met their obligation to reciprocate and included the 13 Nāti Manawa. The problem was that Nāti Manawa had already committed to sell Kainaroa 1 to the Crown, so being on the title meant no more than a share of the purchase money. But Nāti Haka Patuheuheu had no intention of selling Waiōhau 1 and had no purchase money to share in return with Nāti Manawa.

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The land speculator, interpreter, and fraudster Harry Burt arrived a few years later. He exploited the Crown’s loose Native Land Court regime to open up Waiōhau to his unlawful purchasing, and took advantage of the Nāti Manawa owners. When dealing with Māori, Burt called himself ‘Hare Pāti’ (the Māori version of his name) and when committing the Waiōhau fraud he even misrepresented himself to the Court as ‘Hare Rauparaha’ (stealing the name of the Nāti Toa ranatira). Burt wormed his way into Waiōhau by feigning friendship with Nāti Haka Patuheuheu. He helped them with their appeals to the Crown over Matahina in 1881 and began to stay at Te Houhi, living there off and on from 1882 to 1886 with a daughter of Wī Pātene (even though Burt had a Pākehā wife back in Matatā). In truth, Burt was in bed with Australian speculators looking to buy up Māori land in the district, with the help of Auckland solicitor Frederick Whitaker (an influential political and business figure since his selfserving promotion of raupatu in the 1860s).

Once Burt’s foot was in the door he exploited the trust Nāti Haka Patuheuheu placed in him, plying them with grog, supplying firearms, and advancing them cash when they were in need. He later presented the informal receipts for these goods and payments as proof of the purchasing of individual interests, even though payment in alcohol or firearms, and the purchasing of individual interests itself, were all unlawful and void. Burt also acted as an interpreter and witness for his dodgy dealings, which was also unlawful. All of this should have rendered his purchases invalid when scrutinised by the Trusts Commissioner, an official appointed under the Native Lands Frauds Prevention Act 1870 to stop such swindles. Burt easily out maneuvered the Commissioner’s weak regime.

In January 1885, Burt applied to the Native Land Court to partition out the interests of the Waiōhau owners he claimed to have purchased. The hapū challenged him and in April he responded by proposing mediation of his claim by a so-called Urewera Committee. As the name suggests it did include some Tūhoe ranatira but it also included the surveyor and disgraced former Crown purchase agent Henry Mitchell (to represent Burt) and two Te Arawa mediators (one of whom, Retireti Tapsell, was a friend of Burt). Burt dishonestly claimed to have paid out £1,200 and in return demanded 7,000 acres of Waiōhau 1 (about half the block). He could not prove to the Committee that much more than £150 had been paid to the owners, as most of his claimed expenditure was for his travel expenses and Whitaker’s costly legal services. The Committee reluctantly offered him 1,200 acres to satisfy his claim, but he flatly refused.

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The Committee met again in January 1886 at Te Houhi, when hundreds attended to hear the outcome. Burt still refused the 1,200 acres, and was instead offered a refund of the meagre payments actually made to the Waiōhau owners, but he held out for all of the £1,200 he claimed to have spent. In order to be rid of him, the Committee agreed to pay him what he wanted. The owners asked for six weeks to raise the money but when they could not come up with such a large sum, Burt turned to the Native Land Court to take by sleight of hand the land that had been denied him. In February 1886, he submitted another Waiōhau 1 subdivision application, this time under the fake name Hare Rauparaha.

Nāti Haka Patuheuheu had by then turned to Te Kooti, entrusting him with the mana of Waiōhau in the hope he could protect the land and help them raise the money to pay Burt. On 15 January 1886, Te Kooti met them at Te Houhi when he delivered his first prediction for the land in the secret language, te reo kē (‘the strange tongue’):

Iu Weni Iu: Inoa nui. Weni. Tinihana.

[Iu: Great name [Jehovah]. Weni. Deceit.]

The promise given in confirmation by Te Kooti was that “Jehovah will not forsake his people, when they remember his great name always.” The tinihana – the deceit – refers to Burt’s corrupt dealing. The promise refers to the Biblical covenant between God and his people – that they will not be forsaken. It was then that Te Kooti bestowed the name Te Umutaoroa (‘the earth oven of long cooking’) on Te Houhi. A fuller explanation of the name and the prediction it embodies was revealed only in 1892. Based on what Te Kooti told them in January 1886, Nāti Haka Patuheuheu wrote to Burt to inform him of Te Kooti’s involvement in the land and tell him that Te Umutaoroa would never be opened up to him – that he would never get the land. Instead, the money he had paid for Waiōhau “would be like a pit of rotten potatoes.”

Burt proceeded with his Court application which was heard in Rotorua in September 1886 (adjourned from June because of the Tarawera eruption).

Nāti Haka Patuheuheu were not notified of the hearing because the Court left notification to Burt, and he ensured they were not told so they would not be there to challenge his fraud. The only owners present were three Nāti Manawa

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who had been bribed to appear and lie for his benefit. Burt claimed to have acquired the interests of 54 owners and told the Court all the other owners had a “voluntary agreement” to allocate him Waiōhau 1B (7,000 acres) by vesting this land in just two Nāti Manawa owners who had never lived on the land, Pani Te Hura and Hira Te Mumuhu.

As there was no one from Nāti Haka Patuheuheu to object, the Court awarded Waiōhau 1B to the pair, and minutes later (in the lobby of the Court with the Judge as a witness) they sold the 7,000 acres to Burt’s banker, the Cambridge speculator John Soutter, for £950. Waiōhau 1B took in Te Houhi, and with it the homes, church, urupā, and cultivations of Nāti Haka Patuheuheu, as well as their best farmland. The Trust Commissioner later certified this purchase by Soutter as valid, but completely failed to look into the prior unlawful purchasing that lay behind it because that was outside his area of responsibility.

The 1886 subdivision is the heart of the Waiōhau fraud. It was based on a series of lies and deceptions before, during, and after the brief Court hearing.

Most importantly, Burt’s purchasing was unlawful and there was no voluntary agreement for the award to him of Waiōhau 1B. The partition itself was unlawful because the law required a majority of owners to have sold before any partition for sale could occur. The partition was also unlawful because the Court failed to vet the purchases behind it (which in turn was also unlawful).

The hapū were not slow to protest. Within days of the fraud, Nā Hooro Wahawaha (brother of Wī Pātene) told the Court the owners were unaware of the Court hearing and that the subdivision unjustly took Te Houhi. Another protest came from Wī Pātene, Mēhaka Tokopounamu, and Te Wakaūnua, on behalf of all Nāti Haka Patuheuheu. The owners then applied for a rehearing of the subdivision but the Chief Judge refused this without even hearing from the owners. This too was unlawful.

There was so much that was unlawful in the Waiōhau fraud, but in the end the law upheld it. The reasons for this are both legal and political. On the legal side, Soutter sold Waiōhau 1B back to Burt (through his wife, Margaret). She then mortgaged half the block and sold the other half to Henry Piper. They were second purchasers who, under the Land Transfer Act 1885, were protected from any charge of fraud. Nāti Haka Patuheuheu could go to the Supreme Court to

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overturn Burt’s original title on the basis that it was obtained by fraud. This would leave the Crown’s land title assurance fund liable to compensate Mrs Burt and Piper, which was something the Government wanted to prevent at all costs. The issue became urgent for the hapū in 1889, when the Burts tried to take possession of their half of Waiōhau 1B (which included Te Houhi).

On the political side, Nāti Haka Patuheuheu petitioned Parliament, Mēhaka Tokopounamu delivering the plea in person. The Native Affairs Committee reported to Parliament that the hapū had been victims of a “great injustice,” and recommended a full inquiry. In 1889, Native Land Court Judge Wilson held that inquiry when the lies and illegality behind Burt’s ‘purchase’ of Waiōhau 1B were brought out into the light. After reading Wilson’s report, the Crown’s solicitor, H. D. Bell, wrote that Burt’s original ‘purchases’ were “fraudulent and illegal,” while the partition and sale to Soutter was fraudulent and “void.”

The titles could be overturned only by the Supreme Court. In January 1890 the Government offered Bell’s legal services to the hapū and promised them all the assistance in its power to right the wrong done to them. It also registered a caveat on Burt’s half of Waiōhau 1B (but not Piper’s), which prevented any transactions on the title until the caveat was removed.

Nāti Haka Patuheuheu welcomed the chance to be heard in a proper Court. In April 1890 they told the Government they preferred to use the lawyer Henry Howorth, who was recommended to them by the Māori MP Hirini Taiwhāna (who had used Howorth’s services before). They asked the Government to help pay for their Court case as they could not afford it. The Government hated Taiwhāna for his promotion of Māori autonomy, so it reneged on its promise to help them and washed its hands of the responsibility it had only just taken on. It also removed the caveat on Burt’s land title – the only legal protection Waiōhau 1B had – without telling Howorth or Nāti Haka Patuheuheu. In July 1890, the Government MP James Carroll (a future Native Minister) told them bluntly: “Ko taua whenua hoki, kei roto i te puta o Hine-nui-te-Pō [That land is in the vagina of the goddess of death].”

The law was now on the side of the fraudsters. On 6 February 1890, Piper tried to take possession of ‘his’ land but was turned away by Nāti Haka Patuheuheu.

He had Mēhaka Tokopounamu and Te Whāiti Pāora arrested for trespass, for which they were fined. In August 1890, Te Iho Punoki, Pōkere, Kākā Te Whatu,

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and Nīkora Tukura of Waiōhau were summonsed to Court by Piper for trespass, for which they were fined £10 (or three months in prison for non-payment).

Nāti Haka Patuheuheu appealed to the Crown Prosecutor to take their case to the Supreme Court, as they could not afford to do so, but the Government refused to help.

Piper departed without gaining possession of Waiōhau and a stalemate ensued.

Nāti Haka Patuheuheu would not leave and neither Piper nor the Burts were yet willing to force them out of their homes. In 1895, another part of the Government – the Education Department – established a Native School on a five-acre site at Te Houhi even though the land was legally owned by the Burts. The Native Schools Inspector said Te Houhi was a large papakāina “ in the old Māori form,” with a large marae and surrounding whare of an “ancient fashion,” being “a real pā of the most interesting character. The people are real Urewera.”

Mēhaka Tokopounamu kept reminding the Crown of its obligation to address the Waiōhau fraud. He raised it with Native Minister Carroll and Premier Richard Seddon when they visited Galatea in 1894, telling them of “the dispute that existed and still exists” and asking the Government to “take this matter into their hands.” Seddon pleaded ignorance of the issue but said Carroll “tells me that an injustice has been done,” so he would look into it and “ if the land has been wrongfully taken from the proper owners, that wrong should be redressed.” It was not redressed.

Mēhaka again reminded Seddon about the Waiohau fraud when Tūhoe delegates met him in Wellington in 1895. It was also raised when Seddon visited Te Urewera with Governor Glasgow in 1896, when the Governor even spent the night in the house of the schoolteacher at Te Houhi on the land Burt had obtained by fraud. Seddon suggested the Crown help pay the costs of taking the case to Court but a few months later the Government pleaded ignorance and claimed all the papers on the Waiōhau fraud had been “mislaid.”

They were somehow rediscovered in 1903.

The commitment of Nāti Haka Patuheuheu to remain at Te Houhi was visible in the renewal of their papakāina in the early 1900s, with new wooden houses replacing old whare. Their determination to hold firm was also manifested in the 1904 opening of their new wharenui, Tama-ki-Hikurani, named for their founding

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tipuna whose name echoes that of their mauna Hikurani. The wharenui was partly decorated in the Rinatū style; its paintings illustrating the origins and histories of its people, and reflecting their commitment to Te Kooti. It was more than a link to the past; it was a statement of their faith in the future.

But the future for Te Houhi soon looked dark. In 1904 a new player entered the frame when Margaret Beale purchased the southern half of Waiōhau 1B for £1,025, after the Burts had defaulted on their mortgage. She reacted to the defiant opening of Tama-ki-Hikurani by serving notice on the people of Te Houhi to quit the land on 30 June 1904. She knew she was buying disputed land because her husband and solicitor, Ernest Beale, had been involved in earlier eviction notices at Te Houhi. Native Minister Carroll approached Beale with a confidential offer to buy back the land but she refused to sell, even after the Government told her the 1886 purchase had been “a gross injustice” to the owners.

Mika Te Tāwhao of Te Houhi, and a member of the Mātaatua Māori Council, asked Carroll to help them fight the eviction in court. As in 1890, the Government refused to help. Instead, it was left to the hapū’s own solicitor, Frederick Earl, to act and left to the hapū to pay. Earl applied to the Crown for the 1886 Waiōhau 1B title to be re-examined under the Land Titles Protection Act 1902. This Act was passed to protect Pākehā land titles after the Nāti Kahununu leader Nireaha Tāmaki successfully challenged a defective title all the way to the Privy Council. Under the Act, Māori were denied the legal right to challenge defective titles in court, and had to instead appeal to the Governor for consent to take a case.

The Attorney-General told Cabinet in 1904 that the people of Te Houhi had a good case, but the Crown refused to help with the case or pass special legislation to remove the injustice, because that would open it up to payment of compensation to Beale and to Piper’s heirs (he had died in August 1904).

It was left to Beale to make the first move, which she did by having the local policeman serve writs against 15 Te Houhi men for trespass. Those picked out were Tīhema Te Hau, Rikiriki Mēhaka (son of Mēhaka Tokopounamu), Wī Pātene Tarahana, Te Whāiti Pāora, Mika Te Tāwhao, Wharepapa Peita, Hāhone Hemi, Nāhōro Tarahana, Kākā Rāmeka, Te Rama Te Whāiti, Wī Teremoana, Hoani Te Mumuhu, Te Atarau Te Mumuhu, Hira Mumuhu, and Tīkino Te Mumuhu.

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The case – known as Beale v Tīhema Te Hau and others – was heard in the Auckland Supreme Court in June 1905. The Government gave consent under the 1902 Act for the Te Houhi defendants to challenge the Waiōhau 1B title as part of their case, but then it withheld the Government’s file on Te Houhi. This denied the Court the evidence it needed. The Attorney-General was a party to the case but did nothing and said nothing. This ensured that the outcome for Nāti Haka Patuheuheu was a disaster. Judge Edwards could see that they had “suffered a grievous wrong” and that Burt’s 1886 title was “obtained by fraud,” but he found that Beale herself was not legally at fault. No matter how unfairly it had been obtained, her legal title overrode their right to justice.

The Court’s finding and the threat that the people of Te Houhi would lose everything – homes, wharenui, church, school, urupā, and cultivations – led the Government to again propose buying Beale’s half of Waiōhau 1B (3,500 acres), which was then valued at £1,640. She rejected all offers, bitterly contesting the finding of fraud and wrongly blaming the owners for their plight. At the same time, she had already agreed to sell the land to local farmer James Grant for £2,000, but this deal could not be done until the people were removed from Te Houhi. The Government had already budgeted £2,000 to buy Te Houhi, but Beale didn’t just want the money; she wanted the people evicted.

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On 27 October 1905, John Beale (Margaret’s solicitor) arrived at Te Houhi with the sheriff, four bailiffs, and three police officers. As there were 70 or 80 people at the kāina the sheriff decided not to force an eviction but he did take possession of the school and evicted the teachers and their children. The owners could not be arrested as they offered no resistance. Beale tried to force the issue by bringing criminal charges against 55 people of Te Houhi for “detainment” of the land and for obstructing the sheriff. The case came to court in Rotorua in December 1905, when the 14 people from Te Houhi who were present were arrested. Only eight of them were sent to Auckland for a full trial, being imprisoned for a month while they waited for the case to be heard in February 1906. They were the elderly Wī Pātene, Rikiriki Mēhaka, Mika Te Tāwhao, Tīhema Te Hau, Tūkino Te Mumuhu, Te Whāiti Pāora, Hēmi Mōrea, and Te Puia.

Before the case was heard, the Beales tried to provoke the people of Te Houhi to obstruct them, sending bailiffs to seize stock and horses grazing at Te Houhi.

They claimed a crowd of 300 Māori intimidated the bailiffs and that guns were fired, but it was a lie: the police found that the few people present had been peaceful and treated the bailiffs “very kindly.” The Beales filed further charges and used their willing ally, local Police Constable Andy Grant, to intimidate Nāti Haka Patuheuheu by serving dozens of summonses on them and spending weeks tracking down those who evaded him.

Unfortunately for Beale, the case set down in Auckland in February 1906 was heard

by Judge Edwards, who knew her and the facts all too well. He directed the jury to throw out the charges as there was not “a single shred of evidence” of active resistance to the sheriff at Te Houhi, and passive resistance was not a crime. But this did not give the hapū the right to remain on “their ancestral home.” The Judge urged them to leave and turn to the Government for help, reminding it that the people of Te Houhi had suffered a “grievous wrong…which it was the duty of the colony to rectify,” preferably by acquiring the land from Beale.

The Government was willing to buy the land for the hapū, but it was no longer Beale but James Grant who had to agree to any sale, and he refused to negotiate.

The Government had the power to take and pay for the land under a law used to promote settlement but it failed to apply this law. It did set aside £2,000 in 1906 to settle the fraud but right from the start this was earmarked for buying other land for Nāti Haka Patuheuheu, not returning Te Houhi to them.

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Beale completed her sale to Grant in 1907, and he began to drive the people out of Te Houhi, uprooting their crops. The remaining occupants were forced out in June 1907, which is when the last birth at Te Houhi was recorded.

Nāti Haka Patuheuheu had looked to the law to uphold their rights, but the law that should have overturned the Waiōhau fraud failed them in 1886, and continued to fail them in 1907. The exercise of law had become an exercise in injustice.

In 2004, Kaa Williams told the Waitani Tribunal about the eviction from Te Houhi, relating the memories passed on by her mother, Te Autā Te Hākiri, who was about nine-years old in 1907 and had been attending Te Houhi School until Beale’s bailiffs shut it down. Te Autā remembered the impact of the eviction on her foster parents: She suffered their anguish and hurt as their homeland was wrested from under their feet and they were physically forced to leave everything behind. All the food they had planted in their gardens, all their eeling places, and all their crops were left behind in Te Houhi.

Many Nāti Haka Patuheuheu moved north to a new papakāina on poorer land at Waiōhau. Kaa and some others moved to Painoaiho at Murupara, “living in poverty with barely enough to eat.”

As the eviction took place, the Government found another way to betray Nāti Haka Patuheuheu. In June 1907, it applied to the Native Land Court to take most of Matahina C and C1 to pay for survey charges of £108. Legal costs, interest, and the cost of surveying out the part being taken increased this to £223 (equal to about $40,000 today). When the application was heard, the Crown was awarded 1,334 of the 2,000 acres held by the hapū. This confirmed Te Kooti’s prediction and brought the story of Matahina back full circle: the survey debts had belonged to Burt’s associate Mitchell. When he was bankrupted the Crown took over the debts and used them against the hapū. The exercise of law at Matahina was another exercise in injustice.

During the eviction Grant let some whānau move their wooden houses from Te Houhi but he refused to let the hapū remove the schoolhouse they had built for their children, and instead used it as his shearers’ quarters. He also refused to let them remove Tama-ki-Hikurani, storing hay in it until the Government persuaded him to take £140 to release it. This money came from

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the £2,000 the Government had previously budgeted for the Waiōhau fraud.

The wharenui was a bargain compared to the £217 the Government spent on the sheriff and his bailiffs to enforce the eviction.

In the winter of 1909, Tama-ki-Hikurani was taken down and hauled in pieces to Waiōhau, where it was re-established. That was not the end of this ordeal for Nāti Haka Patuheuheu. The Government insisted that the rest of the £2,000 it had set aside for them be used to buy other land. In 1909 it used £1,400 of that money to buy 300 acres of confiscated land at Te Teko, which the hapū did not choose and could not use. They were not even given title to the land until 1920, when the Crown formally acknowledged they had been “wrongfully dispossessed” of Te Houhi and Waiōhau 1B. Finally, in 1924, Nāti Haka Patuheuheu returned to Te Houhi to remove the bones of their tipuna from the urupā for reburial at Waiōhau.

What endures at Te Houhi is the land, the memories of Nāti Haka Patuheuheu, and the prediction given for Te Umutaoroa by Te Kooti, whose words and deeds are woven into the history of Te Houhi and its people. In 1892, when it was clear the Government had failed to resolve the Waiōhau fraud, Te Kooti returned to the vision he had near Te Houhi in 1886, and explained his prophecy:

Te kupu ki te Umutaoroa – Te Houhi Ka taona e ahau tēnei hāni mā taku tamaiti e hura.

Tēnei mea hāni, ko nā kai o roto hei ora mō te tanata.

The word concerning Te Umutaoroa – Te Houhi I am preparing this hani for my child to unearth.

The food inside this hani will be for the salvation of the people.

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It was for his successor to find Te Umutaoroa, uncover it, and save the people.

Today, the site of Te Umutaoroa is believed to lie drowned beneath the waters of the lake behind Aniwhenua dam. It endures, hidden, waiting to be uncovered. Te Kooti placed eight mauri in Te Umutaoroa:

Te mauri atua: the essence of spirituality; the belief in god Te mauri whenua: the life force of the land Te mauri tanata: the life force of the people Te mauri whakapono: the power of belief, or faith Te mauri whakaora i nā iwi: the power to heal the people Te mauri hōhonu: the mauri of hidden wealth – minerals, gold, diamonds, and oil (perhaps), which lie underground

Te mauri ārai atu i nā pakana: the power to return war from this land to other countries

Te mauri whakahoki i nā iwi: the power to return people to their land.

The eight mauri – remembered today in the Waiōhau waiata ‘Te Umutaoroa’ – promise renewal and regeneration for Te Houhi and its people. The prophecy of Te Umutaoroa looks toward a day when the land will again sustain and nourish its true owners, Nāti Haka Patuheuheu.

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T E HOUHI