Newspaper Article 2012 – Te Hokinga Mai – The Return

DETAILED: The brown kiwi feathered cloak side borders are alternatively adorned with orange kaka and bluish-black tui feathers, enhanced with taniko on the bottom edge.

Te Hokinga Mai – the return

BY MOREHU SMITH

A Porangahau taonga, a kiwi feather cloak, recently made the Journey from Te Papa museum to the Ngati Kere hapu to be blessed and named.

The honour came about after discussions between Dr Piri Scia Scia and curators at Te Papa, where the cloak is stored, and on Sunday, May 6, Tainui waka elders accompanied the precious artefact to Rongomaraeroa Marae, Porangahau.

The historical significance of the cloak is that it originally belonged to Rawinia – considered to be a renowned and high ranking rangatira (chieftainess) of the Porangahau district in the 1830s to late 1890s.

Oral history tells us that Rawinia presented her kahu kiwi (kiwi cloak) to Judge Henry St Hill before his return to England in the 1854-1856 era. It’s been said that the Judge and his family leased rather than bought a considerable amount of land owned by Rawinia, and that he encouraged her and her people not to sell their land.

In 1853 Alfred and Sarah Lambert, arrived to manage the property.

There is still a highly respected relationship between the judge’s descendants, Wanda Jamieson and Ashton St Hill-Warren, the numerous Lambert descendants and the Maori community of Porangahau.

After Judge Henry St Hill’s death in 1866 the cloak was sold (not by the judge’s widow) to Miss Judy La Marsh, the Canadian Secretary of State who presented it to the New Zealand High Commissioner in Ottawa on March 13, 1967.

On May 22, 1967 the cloak was presented to the Dominion Museum, where my father Te Rehuka Tuataki and his niece Keita Kura travelled to see it later that year, and it is now a part of a huge collection of prized cloaks at Te Papa. Although frayed on the top side edges the cloak is otherwise in prime condition, however, it is not known who wove it. Written evidence indicates that there were three commissioned cloaks of this ilk but the whereabouts of two of them is not known.

Descendants of Rawinia, namely the Te Kuru and Tutaki families approved the name “Piata” for the cloak, a name that came from a wish to strengthen the respective families’ ties to Ngati Hinewai, a sub tribe of the Ngati Kere cluster. This momentous occasion was attended by descendants, connections and representatives of the St Hill and Lambert families.