Te Iki-o-Rangi Pouwhare

Ngāi Tūhoe

1963

Te Iki-o-Rangi Pouwhare was born in Te Houhi, raised in Ruatoki and moved to Waiohau in the 1920s. He became a foreman for the Māori Affairs Department and later managed farms and properties in the Bay of Plenty. Pouwhare was paramount chief of the Tuhoe people during the latter part of his life and was an authority on Tuhoe history, tradition and genealogy. He was a member of the Tuhoe Trust Board and the Tuhoe Māori Land Advisory Committee, and chaired the Southern Tuhoe Tribal Executive. He took his whakapapa not only from the Tuhoe and the Mataatua canoes, but directly back to the original peoples and the eponymous ancestor Toi-Kai-Rakau who settled the Bay of Plenty. Pouwhare held a high position in the Ringatu Church and was presented to Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh during their visit to Waitangi in February 1963. Throughout his life, he was deeply involved in the efforts of his tribe to have their land grievances examined by the courts as well as by the government. He was involved in trying to advance litigation with the government about the Kaingaroa Forest, the cutting rights of which were sold by the Crown for two billion dollars. Pouwhare was a highly literate person and published a number of waiata, dirges and histories. He left a chest full of manuscripts and was considered an expert in many different fields. He died in Whakatane in April 1963 aged 82.

Biographical sources

  • Phone conversation with Robert Pouwhare, 16 August 1998.
  • "Queen Elizabeth Visits Waitangi." Te Ao Hou 42 (1963): 23-24, 28.
  • "Haere Ki O Koutou Tipuna." Te Ao Hou 43 (1963): 63.

    Non-fiction

  • "Waiohou." Te Ao Hou 25 (1958): 19.

  • Other

  • "Tamarau Takarua." In ‘Haere Ki o Koutou Tipuna.’ Te Ao Hou 29 (1959): 3.
  • In Māori.

    • Traditional

  • "Genealogies from Tuhoe." Journal of the Polynesian Society 68.3 (1959): 215-218.
  • Pouwhare lists nine Tuhoe whakapapa which are ‘emendations’ to his article in the December 1958 issue of Te Ao Hou. He notes that ‘the part which was omitted was that which concerned the family of Te Moa and of Tamahore, and the descent of Te Muhuna from Toorere-nui-a-rua.’ (JPS 68.3 (Sept. 1959): 215.)

    Other

  • "Haere Ki O Koutou Tipuna." Te Ao Hou 43 (1963): 63-64.
  • Taylor, C. R. H. A Bibliography of Publications on the New Zealand Māori and the Moriori of the Chatham Islands. Oxford: Clarendon; Oxford UP, 1972. 57.