IWI / HAPU AFFILIATIONS

Tamati Pirimona Marino died at Nelson in December 1887 and according to the Nelson Evening Mail, he was aged around 80 years¹. Tamati Pirimona Marino used several names including Thomas Freeman and Tamati Freeman.  For part of his life he lived at Aorere (Collingwood) and kept a cultivation of potatoes at Cape Farewell south of Aorere. A diary entry of a Mr Barnicoat offers this account of Aorere.

At the Ouriri (Aorere) Pah we found Chief Arino (Marino) a very intelligent native... Arino took us to a nice house provided with a good chimney and hearth and clean sleeping berths which he told us was for our own use... Arino is building a large weatherboard house...They employ an English carpenter whom they pay in pigs and potatoes.²

Another visitor, Meurant recorded this account:

When I was there in 1856... there were several Māori whares, and the land was covered with Cape gooseberries bushes...loaded with delicious fruit, showing that the Māories had cultivated it...³

In March 1847 Tamati Pirimona Marino was appointed an assessor for the courts to settle disputes between Māori and settlers to do with roaming or trespassing cattle.⁴ He owned at least two coastal ships that operated between the upper half of the South Island and lower half of the North Island for much of the 1840s and 1850s.⁵

Although he did not travel to England, his name was on the list of Māori chiefs eligible to travel to England in 1853 with missionary William Naylor Jenkins to commemorate the Wesleyan Missionary Jubilee and to visit Queen Victoria.⁶

NM