Ngāti Naho, Ngāti Haua, Ngāti Whawhakia
IWI / HAPU AFFILIATIONS
Reputed to be nearly 90 at his death, Kewene Te Haho is reported
in the West Coast Times as having died in July
1902 at his home at Te Makaka on the shores of Aotea harbour.1 Makaka was a Wesleyan
outpost.2 A newspaper account
estimates Kewene was born around 1813. He fought in the 1830
Taumatawiwi3 battle between Te
Waharoa of Tainui and Ngāti Maru of Hauraki. Between 1835-6 Kewene
Te Haho accompanied Te Waharoa on a fighting excursion to Rotorua
and Maketu.4
Kewene Te Haho's son Ratapu Kewene signed the Māori
Visitors' Book at the Lindauer Art Gallery on 31 January 1902 and
acknowledged his father.
This portrait was exhibited at the St Louis World's Fair in 1904.
A similar portrait is held in the collection of the Waikato Museum
and Art Gallery.5
NM
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Contributed stories
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Contributed story - Kewene Te Haho
contributed by
Moana Heimberg on
17 July 2012
I am a direct descendant of Kewene Te Haho through his daughter
Raihi Miraka of Aotea (Great Barrier Island).
I noticed on the comment section that someone had purchased a
copy of this portrait in a second hand shop in Zurich. My
father is Swiss and I was raised in Switzerland... and I would be
very interested in meeting the person who purchased this
portrait.
I have been returning to New Zealand for the past few years to
explore what our family could do with our land holdings on the
Great Barrier Island. I'm starting to get a sense of what my
ancestor would have wanted his descendants in today's world.
His strength and that of his daughter Raihi Miraka continue to
guide us on our path to accepting the responsibilities we carry as
tribal members in today's world.
We are all of mixed blood but the Maori heritage compels us to
return to our land and unlock the mysteries is holds. It is
my deepest desire to find solutions to the problems we face with
today's political realities and I sense our ancestor's strong
commitment to family is guiding us to make the right choices.
Malibu, California
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