Revised Judgment on Te Rauparaha

New Zealand Listener, Volume 21, Issue 543, 18 November 1949, Page 21

Revised Judgment on Te Rauparaha

T will be 100 years next month since Te Rauparaha died, but his name is still familiar to most New Zealanders because of his part in the Wairau massacre of 1843. But was it really a massacre? When passions are /aroused it is difficult to get a reliable account of happenings that lead to violence, and what we know of Wairau we know from historians whose views of the Maoris could not always have been, in the nature of things, objective. It is not surprising that we have inherited a judgment on Te Rauparaha that makes him appear brutal and treacherous, and his actions indefensible. Recently ‘Sir Apirana Ngata challenged this appraisal and asked whether it could stand the test of historical enquiry. Eric Ramsden, the well-known writer on Maori affairs, has prepared a talk for broadcast from the ZB stations in which he reopens the question of Wairau. Like Sir Apirana Ngata, Mr. Ramsden doubts that it is right to relate judgment of Te Rauparaha to a background of English customs and moral standards, on the assumption that these form an exclusive criterion. From his own researches a different Te Rauparaha from

the legendary one emerges-a man still extraordinary, but a man rather than a monster. The Te Rauparaha centenary is shared by another-that of the building of Rangiatea, the Maori church at Otaki. In the churchyard at Rangiatea a -coffin was buried in December, 1849, and Te Rauparaha’s remains were supposedly in it. It had been largely through his influence that the church was built, though whether or not he actually became a Christian is a matter to be discussed in the second of Mr. Ramsden’s talks, in which he will outline the fascinating history of the church. Certainly the old chieftain’s bones do not lie in consecrated ground today, but in an unknown place on Kapiti. The story of the removal of his body will be told in the first of the talks. Station 1ZB is to present these Eric Ramsden talks on November 20 and 27 at 6.15 p.m. From 2ZB they will be heard on November 27 and December 4 at 4.30 p.m.; from 3ZB on December 4 and 11 at 3.30 p.m.; from 4ZB on December 11 and 18 at 4.0 p.m.; and from 2ZA on December 18 and 25 at 6.0 p.m,