Bay Of Plenty Man’s Claim For £1,000 In Kereopa Bounty Fails

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 12, Issue 2, 28 November 1947, Page 5

Bay Of Plenty Man’s Claim For £I,OOO In Kereopa Bounty Fails

In the House of Representatives on Tuesday the chairman of the Maori Affairs Committee, Mr J. B. F. Cotterill, reported that the committee had no recommendation to make on the petition of Wari Te Waimana, of Bay of Plenty, a son of Te Whiu, the Tuhoe chieftain who performed the actual capture of Kereopa, the murderer of the Rev. Carl Sylvius Volkner at Opotiki in 1865.

The petitioner claimed the bounty of £IOOO which the Government of the day offered for the apprehension of Kereopa, one of the fanatic leaders of the Pai Marire or Hauhau faith, and which was not paid to his father. (Official records state that* it was divided among the small military force of Maori loyalists of which Te Whiu was a member at the time he captured Kereopa. Officers in the force received £25 each and rank and file £lO each. Te Whiu is stated to have accepted his share of £10.) The petitioner also claimed compensation for the ancestral lands of his father and his people which he alleged were wrongfully confiscated. (A Royal Commission set up in 1926 to investigate the land confiscations following the murder of Mr Volkner and James Falloon at Whakatane in 1865 reported in 1928 that the confiscations did not exceed what was fair and just.)