New Books: Pakeha Ta Moko, by Trevor Bentley

Pakeha Ta Moko: A History of the Europeans Traditionally Tattooed by Maori
by Trevor Bentley

This book explores the hidden history of the European men and women who were traditionally tattooed by Maori in 19th century New Zealand. Tattooing might seem an unusual subject for an historian, but it was one of the most effective methods Maori used to assimilate Pakehas captives and voluntary culture-crossers into their communities.

While the book describes the Pakeha women and girls who received chin, lip and body moko moko, its primary focus is the lives and fates of the 58 Pakeha men identified to date who were incised with ta moko or full-face tattoos. The tattooing range in location from Northland to Foveaux Strait, and chronologically from 1777, when one of Cook’s runaway sailors was ‘tattowed head to toe’ at Queen Charlotte Sound, to the 1870s, when the last Pakeha men and women adorned with puhoro-raperape (buttock and thigh moko) were seen and reported.

Many Pacific Islands had their semi-indigenised, tattooed beachcombers and in the Marquesas, a number received facial tatau. What set New Zealand apart was the large number of Europeans who became Pakeha-Maori (Europeans gone native) and acquired body and limb moko. Additionally, more Pakeha males were tattooed on the face in New Zealand than anywhere else among the islands of Oceania. Given the numbers of European men and women who crossed cultures semi permanently and permanently in 19th century New Zealand, those described in this work represent but a portion of their original number.

Pakeha men and women with face tattoos are an elusive minority and this work draws on a myriad of sources, including contemporary accounts by Maori, Pakeha and Pakeha-Maori who witnessed and described the moko ritual and/or were themselves tattooed. It also draws on numerous published primary sources as well as the works of Maori and Pakeha historians, anthropologists and moko/tattoo scholars and practitioners, past and present, whose contributions are evident in the text and bibliography.

The book is, in part, a testament of respect to the courage and adaptability of the European men and women who crossed cultures to live and die as tattooed Pakeha-Maori, far from their original kinsfolk and native lands. It is also a testament to the Maori cultural practices of manaakitanga and whanaungatanga, whereby disoriented and vulnerable European shipwreck survivors, captives, runaway sailors and fugitive convict men and women were reassured, shown kindness and integrated into Maori families and communities.

Tauranga Connections

The area between Motiti Island and Mt Maunganui was a main anchorage for whaling vessels seeking provisions in the Bay of Plenty during the early 1800s. Tauranga’s first non-Maori resident was probably ‘Robson’, a convict who fled ashore from the pirated NSW brig Mercury during the early 1820s and became a trading intermediary. When the Sydney whaler Caroline anchored to trade pigs and potatoes for muskets and lead in 1827, the sailor James Heberley recorded that Robson had ‘got tattooed like the natives’.

Robson’s fate is unknown, unlike that of the Ngati Porou flax trader Barnet Burns. Burns claimed to have had one quarter of his face tattooed after being captured by a Ngai Te Rangi raiding party near the Motu River entrance around 1832. He alone survived the attack on his Maori trading party. Held captive for several months, almost certainly at Tauranga, he was befriended by a wahine rangatira who saved his life after he had been caught trying to escape.

Barnet Burn’s elaborate ta moko incorporated both Ngati Porou and Ngai Te Rangi motifs
J. Sutcliffe, ‘Pahe A Rance, The New Zealand chief Barnet Burns’, B-110-061-a, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington

Burns’ Ngai Te Rangi captors insisted that he be tattooed like them, trade and fight for them ‘and in every way become a member of the tribe’. Burns finally consented, and the ta moko operation immediately began. The tohunga ta moko cut his patterns with bone chisels, a process he described as ‘tedious and painful’. Escaping during a storm, Burns eluded his pursuers and following an arduous, barefoot journey, he returned to Ngati Porou and the East Coast where the remainder of his ta moko was completed.

Though based at Maketu during the 1830s, the Danish trader Phillip Tapsell frequently exchanged muskets and munitions for flax at Tauranga, either in person or through his agent James Farrow at Otumoetai Pa. Tapsell’s integration into te ao Maori (the world of Maori), was typical of that made by trader Pakeha-Maori, John B. Williams, the American Consul at the Bay of Islands noted in 1842, [he putting] ‘himself on a footing with the Chiefs, allowing his hair and beard to grow long, having himself occasionally tattooed, assuming the authority of king [and] proclaiming himself as such’.

Pakeha women fully integrated into Maori communities as whangai or adoptees in the Bay of Plenty during the 1800s, were gifted chin and lip tattoos (moko kauae and ngutu purua) if they had served their communities well, were considered deserving and understood the significance of the designs.

In 1864 Major Horatio Robley, a British Army officer and artist, was present in Tauranga during the battles of Gate Pa and Te Ranga. While stationed at Te Papa he encountered a Pakeha woman who had married a sailor named Anaru in  Sydney and was living nearby in one of the local pa. Robley reported  that she had not yet received the womens’ moko kauae or chin moko, suggesting that in due course she may have become eligible.

This privilege may have previously been extended to a fugitive convict woman who, along with two male companions, made their way to the Bay of Plenty during the 1810s and disappeared among the Te Arawa people. This anonymous Bay of Plenty female culture-crosser was by no means alone. According to the Te Arawa knowledge keeper Tui Ranapiri-Ransfield:

The Pakeha women we adopted were expected to marry and become part of the community in every way, including moko and haka. Because they were raised as Maori, and had Maori children and grandchildren, they became part of our whakapapa [genealogy] right down to their receiving land that was gifted or inherited. They do not appear in our whakapapa as Pakeha, but as Maori tupuna [ancestors], because that is what they became and that is how we remember them.

The Author

As many readers know, Trevor Bentley is a member of the society and an active contributor to this blog. He has a special interest in researching and writing about the interaction of Maori and Pakeha in 19^th century New Zealand as well as its maritime and military history. Dr Bentley is the author of six previous New Zealand history books. His interest in New Zealand history began as a teenager when he read Frederick Maning’s rollicking colonial classic, Old New Zealand: A Tale of the Good Old Times by a Pakeha Maori (1863).

Book Details

Pakeha Ta Moko is currently available at all good New Zealand bookshops.

Bentley, Trevor, Pakeha Ta Moko: A History of the Europeans Traditionally Tattooed by Maori, Upstart Press, Auckland, 2022.

ISBN 978-1-990003-69-1

The Active and the Rev. Henry Williams, 1832

Early Sailing Vessels and Visitors to Tauranga
Part X  -  The Active and the Rev. Henry Williams, 1832

Built in Calcutta around 1808, the brigantine Active was purchased by the missionary leader Samuel Marsden at Sydney in March 1814. Marsden, who planned to use the 110 ton vessel to help establish and service Anglican mission stations in New Zealand, paid the purchase price of 1400 pounds sterling himself. The vessel’s previous owner Jonothan McHugo, had been found on his arrival in Sydney to be ‘in a state of outrageous insanity.’ When the vessel and its cargo was auctioned, the proceeds of the sale were sent back to India with McHugo, who was for a time, confined to an asylum there.

During its historic voyage under Captain Hansen to establish the first missionary families at the Bay of Islands in late 1814, the group’s leader, Thomas Kendall noted that the Active ‘sails badly’. Regardless, Marsden kept the Active in constant use as a trading and passenger vessel between Sydney and the mission stations at Rangihoua, Kerikeri and Paihia. The missionary John Butler, who crossed the Tasman in 1819 found the brig ‘a strong and comfortable vessel, kept in good order.’ Appointed leading missionary at the Bay of Islands in 1823, Henry Williams, a former Royal Navy lieutenant, was often frustrated by the brig’s performance, writing:

She has a most unfortunate name and is no better than an old tub. She is not capable of working well off a lee shore, nor able to make sail and run before either a sudden gale or even hostile natives.

The Active off North Cape, November 1814

In March 1833, Williams instructed Captain Wright to take the Active to Tauranga, where he hoped to make peace between the local Ngai Te Rangi People and an invading Ngapuhi taua (military expedition) from the Bay of Islands led by Titore Takiri. Williams had previously visited Tauranga aboard the little missionary schooner Karere during January and February with the same intention He was not successful however, and had returned home. The journal for his second attempt in March/April 1833 records:

Monday, 26. At sunset, Mr. Fairburn and I went on board the Active; weighed and sailed for Tauranga.

Friday, 30. At day light Mayor Island S. W. 6 miles. Shortened sail apprehensive of being driven off the land. Obs'd the fires near Tauranga. Maunganui about 6 miles to windward.

Saturday, 31. At 9 o'clock came to an anchor close to leeward of Maunganui. Cap. Wright and Mr. Fairburn went on shore to reconnoitre. [W]e learnt that Ngapuhi had shifted quarters and were on the opposite of the river to Maungatapu, that several skirmishes had taken place and some few killed and wounded on both sides.

A former Royal Navy officer and accomplished small boat sailor, Henry Williams found the Active’s slow pace and lack of maneuverability exasperating

Also that the New Zealander Schr. had been in, when a large party of Ngapuhi had fired upon her for a considerable time from the shore, which was returned by the schooner with her great guns, not known whether any killed or wounded. At 2 p.m. the flood tide making in, we weighed and made sail and worked into the harbour.

Sunday, 1 April. At sunrise upwards of a dozen canoes obs. pulling towards us from Ngapuhi full of men. We hoisted a white flag, but they were not satisfied what vessel it was until they hailed us… They told us they had thought we were the schr. which they engaged ten days since and had now come to take her and had brought six great guns.

Monday, 2. In the afternoon, Mr. Fairburn and I went to Ngapuhi. Paid a visit to all, many appeared desirous to return but others obstinately bent on remaining.

Tuesday, 3. We took a view of the fortifications [of Maungatapu Pa] which were stronger than those of Otumoetai.

Thursday, 5. Had short interview with the natives [at Maungatapu Pa] and proceeded on to the Camp of Ngapuhi. We had not been long here before seven Canoes pulled up from Otumoetai to challenge Ngapuhi. At length some canoes were launched and gave chase to the enemy. The two parties firing at each other at long range on the beach opposite the vessel. 

In 1832, Tauranga was invaded by a Ngapuhi musket taua from the Bay of Islands seeking utu for previous defeats by Ngai Te Rangi

Friday, 6. We took leave of all regretting that they retained dispositions to war… Returned on board by noon and as the wind was East we determined to proceed to the Bay of Islands immediately. As it was now high water we weighed and made sail, but were considerably baffled under the lee of Maunganui, the eddy wind catching us first on one side then on the other put us in imminent danger of running on shore. The entrance was narrow on our right, and a bank on our left, with a head sea caused by the tide now setting out strong. As we drew from under the high land the wind was more steady, and the tide assisting us, were enabled by a few tacks to get well clear of the land.
Were obliged to haul close to the Starbd. tack, and carry all possible sail, to endeavour to clear the Aldermen. Sunset, cloudy, symptoms of a gale. At 8 passed close to leeward of the Aldermen, and stood on for the Mercury isles, had great apprehensions that we could not weather, the sea getting up. At 11 saw the islands close to leeward. Wore and stood to the Southd. a rough course night. Waited anxiously for the morning, that we might run in amongst the islands.

Saturday, 7. We bore up in haste and were soon in smooth water under the lee of the Mercury islands and discovered what we had never before seen tho often in this neighbourhood a commodious bay in which we anchored about 10 o'clock, to the unspeakable relief of our minds and bodies. At 6 p.m. we all assembled in the Cabin to offer up prayer and praise to the God of all mercies for our late deliverance, every one being too weary to attend earlier.

Tuesday, 10. Mod and fine. Wind S. S. W. At 7 weighed and made sail and worked out of our bay of refuge, with thankful hearts for the protection afforded to us while here from the raging of the tempest, and for the wind now favourable for our return home.

Wednesday, 11. At sunrise Bay of Islands open to view, wind against us. Worked up by the afternoon, and were thankful to learn that all were well. 

The Active, redrawn by the Auckland Artist Richard Horner in 1988

Soon after the departure of the missionaries, Titore’s taua - unable to achieve any military successes at Tauranga and suffering food and munitions shortages – boarded their waka taua (war canoes) and also returned to the Bay of Islands.

Despite its limitations, the Active provided sterling service for the Church Missionary Society in New Zealand, under a succession of captains between 1814 and 1834. After many close calls, including nearly being ship wrecked on the return voyage from Tauranga in 1832, Williams and the Bay of Islands missionaries decided it was time to replace ‘the old tub’. On their own initiative they sold the brig in June 1834 and replaced it with the more seaworthy schooner Columbine.

The Active was sold to the Sydney merchant Robert Campbell who put it back on the Sydney-Calcutta run. The brig was found to be unseaworthy after just two voyages. Though destined to be broken up in Calcutta, the Active was lost at sea with all hands while returning to India for the last time.

Sources
Brig Active – 1814. Hansen Family, www.the1814hansenfamilysocietyinc.org
Butler, John, Earliest New Zealand: The Journal and Correspondence of the Rev. John Butler, Palamontein and Petherick, Masterton, 1927
Elder, J. (ed.), The Letters and Journals of Samuel Marsden, 1765-1838, Coulls Somerville Wilkie and A.H. Reed Dunedin, 1932
Nicholas, John, Narrative of a Voyage to New Zealand Performed in the Years 1814 and 1815, James Black, London, 1817
Williams, Henry, The Early Journals of Henry Williams 1826–1840, L.M. Rogers (comp.), Pegasus Press, Christchurch, 1961
Williams, W. and J., The Turanga Journals 1840–1850, Frances Porter (ed.), Price Milburn, Wellington, 1974.

Illustrations
The Active off North Cape in 1814, John Nicholas, Narrative of a Voyage to New Zealand Performed in the Years 1814 and 1815, James Black, London,1817, Frontspiece.
Henry Williams, The Early Journal of Henry Williams, Pegasus Press, Christchurch, 1961, Frontspiece
John Williams, ‘The War Dance’, 1859, PUBLE-0144-1 front, Alexander Turnbull Library Wellington.
Richard Horner, ‘The Active’, 1988, Brig Active – 1814. Hansen Family www.the1814hansenfamilysocietyinc.org

The Voyage of the Venus Pirates, 1806-1807

Early Sailing Vessels and Visitors to Tauranga, Part VIII
The Voyage of the Venus Pirates, 1806-1807

Looking out to sea, most Tauranga residents can identify Taumaihi Island. Situated close to the southern end of Motiti or Flat Island, it is accessible at low tide with permission, via a narrow spit of packed stone and sand. During the first two decades of the 19th century, Motiti was intensely cultivated and supported a large Maori population. Taumaihi Island which had been scarped over the centuries into an impregnable refuge pa known as Matarehua, was in 1806 controlled by the Ngaiterangi rangatira Hukere. The arrival of the Venus, a small, innocuous brigantine (two masted vessel), off Motiti and Taumaihi in 1806 set in motion events that led to the destruction of Matarehua Pa, the death of Hukere and many of the Motiti people.

An early 19th century brigantine

Built in Calcutta, the 45 ton Venus arrived in Sydney on 8th May 1805 with a cargo of tea, rice and jute sacks. Purchased by the Sydney merchants Campbell and Co., the vessel made two sealing voyages to the islands of the Antipodes and Bass Strait. On the 16th June 1806, after transporting a cargo of provisions and rum for the military at Port Dalrymple, Tasmania, the convict crew of 14, seized the Venus and sailed away with the cargo. Despite having little knowledge of navigation, the Venus’s pilot successfully crossed the Tasman, before making landfall among the Te Aupouri people at North Cape. There, the convicts seized and carried off two high born Aupouri women as sex slaves.

The Venus next called at the Bay of Islands where two of the crew and two convict female passengers were marooned ashore, and two Ngapuhi wahine rangatira (chieftainesses) were kidnapped. One of these women was the sister of Te Morenga, who was one of the most powerful chiefs at the Bay. The other was related to Hongi Hika who later achieved fame as the greatest Musket Wars general and conqueror of tribes. Calling at Whangarei, two further high born women were kidnapped, one of them being Tawaputa, the niece of Te Morenga. Entering the Hauraki Gulf, the Venus visited Thames where it was boarded by the leading Ngati Paoa rangatira Te Haupa and his daughter. Noticing that the sails were billowing and that the Venus was underway Te Haupa leapt overboard, but his daughter was carried off by the pirates.

After rounding Cape Brett, the Venus was sailed into the Bay of Plenty. It is not known if the vessel entered Tauranga Harbour, but at Motiti Island, some 10 miles to the north-east, the convicts sold Te Morenga’s niece Tawaputa. Purchased by Hukere in exchange for parawai (superior cloaks), she was kept as his slave wife at Matarehua Pa. In due course, Te Waru, Ngaiterangi’s leading chief came into dispute with Hukere over Tawaputa. Taken across to Tauranga, she was killed either by Te Waru or at his direction at his pa on Mount Maunganui and her body was cooked and eaten.

Motiti Spit at low tide with Taumaihi Island (Matarehua Pa) in the distance

Responding to rumours about the fate of his abducted niece and sister, Te Morenga sent spies disguised as traders to the Bay of Plenty and East Coast. They reported that some of the women abducted by the Venus convicts had been sold, and later killed and eaten at Tauranga, and at Maraenui Pa, the Te Whanau-a-Apanui fortress located at the mouth of the Motu River in the Eastern Bay of Plenty. Others, including Te Morenga’s sister, they stated, had suffered the same fate at Kawakawa Bay (Hicks Bay) near East Cape in the rohe of the Ngati Porou iwi. It was to be 12 years however, before Te Morenga and Hongi Hika accumulated sufficient muskets to ensure victory over the offending iwi and to exact the utu that custom demanded.
In January 1818, Te Morenga led a fleet of waka taua (war canoes) south to Motiti, where Taumaihi Island and the Pa of Matarehua was besieged by land and sea. Armed only with rakau-Maori weapons of stone, bone and wood, the Ngaiterangi defenders eventually succumbed to the firepower of the northern musketeers. The pa was stormed with great slaughter, but Te Waru escaped to Tauranga. Hukere was killed and several hundred survivors including his wife were taken back to the Bay of Islands as slaves. Matarehua Pa was never reoccupied by Ngaiterangi.

In January 1820, Te Morenga led an expedition against Te Waru at Tauranga and during two battles, many Ngaiterangi were killed by gunfire. With honour satisfied and peace arranged, Te Morenga returned to the Bay of Islands, taking with him with all Te Waru's canoes, 200 prisoners of war, and the toi moko (cured tattooed heads) of several chiefs.

Te Morenga’s moko kanohi (face tattoo)

Eight years after the kidnapping of niece and sister by the Venus pirates, Te Morenga sketched this image of his own ta moko for John Nicholas who was assistant to the leading missionary Samuel Marsden.

What became of the Venus is uncertain. A brig which may well have been the Venus was reported to have been in distress off the Northland coast in May 1808. Te Pahi, a Ngapuhi rangatira was reported to have hanged the pirates when the vessel returned to the Bay of Islands. Maori elsewhere in New Zealand claimed to have captured a vessel about this time. The crew were killed, eaten and the ship burned on the beach to obtain the metal nails.

Regardless, one convict pirate proved a great survivor. John Redmonds, a black veteran whaling sailor who piloted the Venus down the North Island’s east coast, was found living as a Pakeha-Maori at Mercer on the Waikato River during the 1860s and has left descendants. His ‘Wanted’ description posted by the Sydney authorities in 1806 read: ‘broad nosed, thick lips, stout made, wears hair tied, and with holes in his ears, being accustomed to wear large ear-rings’, suggesting a pirate out of a story of the Spanish Main. The actions of Redmonds and his fellow pirates however, cannot be romanticized. Their abduction, enslavement and sale of seven northern wahine rangatira, set in train a cycle of utu that escalated into New Zealand’s longest, and bloodiest conflict – the intertribal Musket Wars (1818-1839).

Sources

Bentley, Trevor, Pakeha Maori: The Exraordinary Story of the Europeans Who Lived as Maori in Early New Zealand, Penguin, Auckland, 1999.
Crosby, R. D; The Musket Wars: A History of Inter-Iwi conflict, 1806-45, Reed, Auckland, 1999.
Foster, Bernard, ‘Te Morenga’, An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand. A. H. Mclintock (ed.), 1966, Te Ara – the Encyclopaedia of New Zealand, www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/1966/te-morenga
Marsden, Samuel, The Letters and Journals of Samuel Marsden, 1765-1838, J. Elder (ed.), Coulls, Somerville Wilkie and A. H./ Reed, Dunedin, 1932.
Nicholas, J. L; Narrative of a Voyage to New Zealand, Vol. I, James Black, London, 1817.
Smith, S, P; Maori Wars of the Nineteenth Century, Whitcombe and Tombs, Christchurch, 1910.
Vennell, C. W; The Brown Frontier: New Zealand, 1806-1877, A. H. and A. W. Reed, Wellington, 1967.

Illustrations

Robinson, John and George Francis Dow, The Sailing Ships of New England, 1607-1907, Marine Research Society, Salem Mass, 1922, plate no. 89.
Motiti Spit at low tide with Taumaihi Island (Matarehua Pa) in the distance. Author’s collection.                   
Te Morenga, self portrait in Nicholas, John, Narrative of a Voyage to New Zealand, Performed in the Years 1814 and 1815, James Black, London, 1817: 216. enzb.auckland.ac.nz