The early twentieth century was a pivotal time in New Zealand’s development as a nation. After enduring through the Northern War and New Zealand Wars of the mid-late 1800s, the country now faced a handful of other issues, including the looming Great Depression and First World War. One such issue faced was religion: the combination and integration of the Christian religion with the Maori faith. There were many prophets in New Zealand around this time; one of the most influential was Rua Kenana Hepetipa, who called himself Te Mihaia Hou, or the “New Messiah” (Binney, Chaplin & Wallace, 1979, p. 2).
Rua Kenana Tapunui was born in 1869 at Maungapohatu, or “the village lying at the foot of the sacred burial mountain of the same name” (Binney, Chaplin & Wallace, 1979, p. 12). One of the great prophets of the mid-19th century, Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki, predicted sometime before his death in 1893 that he would have a successor, and implied that the successor would come from Maungapohatu (Moon, 2008, p. 104). It is said that Rua discovered his religious destiny after witnessing a vision on the top of Maungapohatu. The story is that Rua and his first wife, Pinepine, were visited by an angel and told to climb the mountain. When they got the top, Christ appeared to Rua and showed him a hidden diamond, whose extraordinary bright light was covered by the shawl of Te Kooti—Rua’s religious predecessor. Rua proceeded to cover the diamond with his own shawl to protect it (Binney, 2012). After seeing the vision on the mountain, Rua gained fame and notoriety, perhaps most notably for his deliberate violations of tapu. For hundreds of years, the Maori people had lived according to the strict principles of tapu, “which acts as a corrective and coherent power within Maori society” (Mana and Tapu, 2003). It’s a system of prohibitory controls on anything deemed to be sacred, meant to protect and progress the people (2003). Rua, however, believed that tapu was being used to manipulate the people and hold them back (Moon, 2008, p. 105). He defied tapu with acts such as walking through cemeteries without giving acknowledgement to those buried beneath him, wearing shoes in the marae, and even entering the sacred Rongopai house while on a pilgrimage to the birthplace of Te Kooti in 1906 (Binney, 2012). A man named Eria Raukura then baptized Rua in the Waipaoa River and gave him the name Hepetipa, which was based on the biblical name Hephzibah, meaning “God delights in you” (Moon, 2008, p. 105).
In June of 1907, Rua and roughly 1000 followers returned to Maungapohatu, to create a ‘City of God’ (Binney, Chaplin & Wallace, 1979, p. 22). The people of the city called themselves Iharaira, and grew their hair out to imitate the original Nazarites (p. 22). Rua constructed an extravagant circular, blue-and-yellow-colored council house called Hiona—Zion—that was modeled after the famous Dome of the Rock mosque in Jerusalem (Binney, 1984). However, over the next several years, partially due to the city’s remote location, the people of Maungapohatu suffered through harsh winters, inadequate diet, and poor housing (Binney, 2012). In 1914, reconstruction began at Maungapohatu; Hiona was destroyed and replaced by a new meetinghouse called Tanenui-a-rangi (2012). Rua and his followers cut their long hair to usher in the age of the New Covenant (2012). They were a peaceful community, committed to the maungarongo, or ‘long-abiding peace,’ and because of this, Rua encouraged his followers not to volunteer for service in the First World War (Binney, 2013).
The government saw Rua as seditious for refusing to volunteer for the War, and in 1915 Rua was arrested on controversial charges of the illicit sale of alcohol (Binney, 2012). When he was summonsed on the charges in early 1916, he refused to go, asking if he could attend court the following month, after the harvest (2012). This request was judged to be in contempt, and a new warrant for Rua’s arrest was issued (2012). The police commissioner, John Cullen, organized an armed police expedition of between fifty and sixty men to make the arrest at Maungapohatu on 2 April 1916, a Sunday (Cowan, 1956). Upon their arrival, Rua attempted to evade arrest. Then, a mysterious shot was fired, and a highly controversial skirmish ensued, which resulted in two Maori deaths—one of them Rua’s son, Toko—and four wounded constables (1956). After one of the longest trials in New Zealand’s history, Rua was found not guilty of sedition but sentenced to one year’s hard labor followed by eighteen months in prison for resisting arrest (Binney, Chaplin & Wallace, 1979, p. 116).
Rua was released from prison in 1918, and returned to Maungapohatu, which was failing again, this time for economic reasons (Binney, 2012). He had the city reconstructed two more times before it’s people starting leaving in the early 1930s in search of food and jobs (2012). Rua moved to Matahi, another community he had founded near the Bay of Plenty, where he eventually died on 20 February 1937 (2012). But his legacy lived on. He had 12 wives throughout his life, and as many as 70 children (Deverson & Kennedy, 2005). He was a strong leader, and helped to shape Maori religion into what it is today. Rua Kenana has been the subject of plays, songs, paintings, and films since his death, as an icon of Maori autonomy, and a crucial character in New Zealand’s history (Binney, 2012).
References
Binney, J., Chaplin, G., & Wallace, C. (1979). Mihaia: The prophet Rua Kenana and his community at Maungapohatu. Auckland, New Zealand: Bridget Williams Books.
Binney, J. (1984). Myth and explanation of the Ringatu tradition: some aspects of the leadership of Te Kooti Arikirangi the Turuki and Rua Kenana Hepetipa. The Journal of the Polynesian Society, 93(4), 54. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20705890
Binney, J. (2013, June). 3. Te Kooti – Ringatū – Māori prophetic movements – ngā poropiti – Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved from http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/maori-prophetic-movements-nga-poropiti/page-3
Binney, J. (2013, June 25). 6. Rua Kēnana – Tūhoe prophet – Māori prophetic movements – ngā poropiti – Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved from http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/maori-prophetic-movements-nga-poropiti/page-6
Binney, J. (2012, October 30). Rua Kenana Hepetipa – Biography – Te Ara Encyclopedia of New Zealand. Retrieved from http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/3r32/rua-kenana-hepetipa
Cowan, J. (1956). Rua Kenana | New Zealand Electronic Text Collection. Retrieved from http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-Cow02NewZ-b12.html
Deverson, T., & Kennedy, G. (2005). Rua Kenana. In The New Zealand Oxford dictionary. Oxford University Press.
Mana and Tapu. (2003). Retrieved from Ministry of Justice, New Zealand website: http://www.justice.govt.nz/publications/publications-archived/2001/he-hinatore-ki-te-ao-maori-a-glimpse-into-the-maori-world/part-1-traditional-maori-concepts/mana-and-tapu
Moon, P. (2008). The Tohunga journal: Hohepa Kereopa, Rua Kenana, and Maungapohatu. Auckland, New Zealand: David Ling Publishing Limited.
'Rua Kenana', (updated 31-Jan-2014). Ministry for Culture and Heritage, Retreived from http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/people/rua-kenana