The New Zealand Wars: A History of the Maori Campaigns and the Pioneering Period: Volume II: The Hauhau Wars, (1864–72)
PEACE WITH THE KINGITES
PEACE WITH THE KINGITES
The final assurance of peace in Waikato came in a dramatic manner. On the 11th July, 1881, Tawhiao, escorted by between five hundred and six hundred men, many of them armed, came page 474 into Alexandra from his hill settlement at Hikurangi, on the southern shoulder of the Pirongia Range. The settlers assembled to welcome the Maori throng. Tawhiao was accompanied by Wahanui, Manuhiri, and many other chiefs. Major William Mair, the Government Native Officer in the Upper Waikato, went to meet Tawhiao, and there in the main street of the township the Maori King laid down his gun at Mair's feet. Scores of his men followed his example, until seventy-seven guns were lying on the road in front of the Government officer. The herculean Wahanui came forward and said: “Do you know what this means, Mair? This is the outcome of Tawhiao's word to you that there would be no more trouble. This means peace.”
“Yes,” replied Major Mair, “it is clear to me. I call to mind the words that Tawhiao uttered at Tomotomo-waka (Te Kopua) that there would be no more fighting. This is the day that we all have been waiting for. We know now that there will be no more trouble.”
Thereafter Maori and pakeha fraternized, and the frontier settlers rejoiced at the final decision for peace. Tawhiao and his followers made a kind of triumphal progress through the Waikato, spending a week at Kihikihi, where the Kingite warriors encamped around Rewi Maniapoto's house, and made the days and nights lively with their hakas and their Hauhau religious chantings. At Ngaruawahia they wept long and loudly over the grave of Potatau, the first Maori King. Tawhiao visited Auckland as a guest of the Government. On his return to Alexandra, Major Mair, with the Native Minister's approval, handed back to him all the surrendered firearms but one, and for this he gave Tawhiao his own gun in exchange.
But the Kingite chiefs, desiring to assure the Government of their earnestness for peace, declined to take back their guns. “No,” said Wahanui, “we have given them up; you must keep them. But we will accept your gun in token of the peace between us.”
The Maori King's Flag
This drawing of the flag hoisted on the proclamation of Potatau te Wherowhero as Maori King was made at Ngaruawahia by Lieutenant (afterwards Colonel) H. S. Bates, of the 65th Regiment, in 1863, shortly before the Waikato War began.