The main theme of this Composition is the contradictory advantages of civilisation combined with the still novel but bitter pill of taxation.

It has come down the generations and had its greatest revival with topical adaptations in 1888, when the Porourangi meeting house was formally opened. Led by Tuta Nihoniho, a section of Ngati Porou registered their protest against the rating of their lands and the taxation of articles of every day consumption, specifying the "pua torori" or the tobacco plant.

Reference was also made to the British Land Company which came out to New Zealand for the purpose of buying whatever land was available. They bought quite a lot of land around Turanga (Gisborne) and Tuta viewed their activities with some apprehension.

Te Kiri Ngutu is still frequently performed by East Coast groups on important occasions, as a means of expressing his approval or disapproval.

Although the text, taken strictly, would suggest that the performers are hostile to the European, recent performers do not really feel the haka in that way. For instance, it was performed before Lord Bledisloe when the Waitangi Treaty House was opened in 1934; then, it undoubtedly symbolized deep gratitude.

When performed before Prime Ministers on East Coast marae, Te Kiri Ngutu is intended as a respectful greeting, expressing the proud and defiant spirit of Ngati Porou.

It was was adopted by the Returned Servicemen of the 9th and 10th Maori Reinforcements as the "piece de resistance" of the 1959 celebration of the opening of Tamatekapua meeting house at Rotorua.

1850 - Matutaera (Methuselah) Nihoniho was born near Waipiro Bay.

1860 - He attended William Williams's mission school near Gisborne in 1860. His father, Henare Nihoniho, had also entered this school, intending to study for the Anglican ministry.

Early in 1865 word was brought that the Pai Marire leaders involved in the killing of the missionary C.S. Volkner had entered Ngati Porou territory. Henare led Te Aowera against them but was defeated and killed. As he lay dying he gave his rifle to a relative to take to Tuta so that his 15-year-old son could avenge him, and Tuta consequently took part in the fighting with Ngati Porou forces against Pai Marire and Te Kooti.

1871 - The wars ended, and Tuta became a storekeeper at Whangaparaoa, in the Bay of Plenty.

As an interpreter and later as an assessor, Nihoniho took part in the work of the Native Land Court.

1886 - He was gazetted captain in the Ngati Porou Rifles, formed in response to the threat of war with Russia.

1887 - Nihoniho and other Te Aowera people founded the settlement of Hiruharama.

1900 - He helped draft the Maori Councils Act. PHOTO.

1913 - He published his "Narrative of the fighting on the East Coast 1885-71." Some of this can be read online as Advice to young soldiers when going into action. The book was republished by John Mackay in 1997.

From 1867 the Native Land Acts came into operation in the Wairoa district. The intention and policy of the Legislature in introducing the Act of 1865 was to facilitate the transfer of Maori lands to Pakeha by overcoming the strict use of the Crown's right of pre-emption, and by individualising tribal holdings through the issuing of certificates of title.

The certificate of title was to be treated as the authoritative instrument which would free Maori land from any impediment to its transfer. Europeans were able to purchase Maori land, without having to wait for 'any preliminary sale or direct cession to the Crown, as stipulated for by the Treaty of Waitangi'.

Because any single native could bring land before the court, every single Maori person in the country became a potential target for land-hungry settlers or speculators and their lawyers or agents.

Once one individual had taken tribal lands before the court, the other members of the tribe were forced to attend or risk losing their property. As Ward says:

The Maori people were consequently exposed to a thirty-year period during which a predatory horde of storekeepers, grog-sellers, surveyors, lawyers, land agents and money-lenders made advances to rival groups of Maori claimants to land, pressed the claim of their faction in the Courts and recouped the costs in land.

Rightful Maori owners could not avoid litigation and expensive surveys if false claims were put forward, since Fenton, seeking to inflate the status of the Court, insisted that judgements be based only upon evidence presented before it.

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Published on the internet August 2006