Pūkaki: The Te Arawa leader in our pockets

Inside our wallets and pockets lays a piece of Rotorua and Te Arawa history. For the past 20 years, revered ancestor Pūkaki has ventured across the motu on the 20 cent coin. Local Democracy Reporting's Laura Smith explores his story.

For the past 20 years, a revered ancestor has been carried in the pockets of New Zealanders up and down the motu.

Pūkaki, a Ngāti Whakaue rangatira, is depicted on the 20 cent coin in intricate detail. In his arms are his sons, Wharengaro and Rangitākuku. His wife Ngāpuia (Tūhourangi) can be glimpsed between his legs.

The image is based on a well-loved and well-travelled carving of Pūkaki, which is currently in storage. A decision is expected this year about the carving’s next home.

In his temporary housing while Rotorua Museum - Te Whare Taonga o Te Arawa is closed for renovations, the carving dwarfs Pūkaki Trust trustee Professor Paora Tapsell.

The author, historian, and former Rotorua Museum curator and director shared the chief’s story with Local Democracy Reporting under his ancestor’s watchful eye.

A leader is bornBorn on Lake Rotorua’s Mokoia Island around 1700, Pūkaki was a refuge in a time of constant tribal conflict for his tribe, Ngāti Whakaue.

“Pretty much every season after the kumara was harvested someone would turn up on the horizon looking to attack us,” Tapsell said.

The iwi was envied for its geothermal resources, which warmed homes and negated the need for firewood, providing extra time for carving and weaving.

These were important for making peace with other iwi, through marriage and gifted taonga.

Pūkaki’s birth established peace between Ngāti Whakaue and Ngāti Pikiao, and his marriage to Ōhinemutu’s Ngāpuia was strategic. In times of peace, Pūkaki based his family at his father’s pā, Parawai, west of Lake Rotorua.

Pūkaki became a respected chief. Two of his sons, Wharengaro and Rangitākuku, led Ngāti Whakaue in his name against Tūhourangi, and forced them back to Tarawera.

The Pukeroa-Oruawhata area, the modern-day central city, came into Ngāti Whakaue control and Ōhinemutu became its base.

Pūkaki died soon after.

In 1836 his grandson, Taupua Te Whanoa, carved the rangatira from a tōtara log, fetched from the Ngongotahā stream.

The carving of Pūkaki towered over Ōhinemutu as part of a 5m kuwaha (gateway) on Pukeroa Hill, later being cut down to the tiki (statue) we recognise today.

A symbol of trustCome 1877, the Crown planned to set up a tourist spa town in Rotorua.

Ngāti Whakaue wished to retain its land and under missionary-trained leadership chose to not fight the Crown but to form a union for protection and income.

Tapsell explained it was not as though the iwi could give a daughter to the Crown, but they could gift their treasured Pūkaki tiki as a symbol of trust.

And so they did, to Judge Francis Fenton of the Native Land Court, when he came for initial discussions that led to an agreement to establish the Rotorua township, with Ngāti Whakaue retaining ownership.

The agreement was fraught with issues in the decades to come – not least the Crown’s compulsory purchase of the township lands – but almost immediately, the trust symbolised by Pūkaki was disregarded.

Tapsell said within 10 days, Fenton, aided by Justice Thomas Gillies, presented Pūkaki to the Auckland Museum as their own personal gift.

Why Pūkaki travelled the world - and how he returned homeFor about a century, the carving sat as a museum artefact, most of Ngāti Whakaue unaware he was there.

In about 1984 he came out of obscurity and into the global spotlight as part of the Te Māori exhibition that toured the US for two years.

“It was through Te Māori that Ngāti Whakaue were reunited with Pūkaki and another Ōhinemutu gateway, Tiki. He too had been gifted some seven years after Pūkaki as yet another reminder to the Crown of its solemn promise to uphold the Rotorua Township Agreement,” Tapsell said.

When Ngāti Whakaue elder Hamuera Taiporutu Mitchell joined the Te Māori tour in St Louis, he became upset when told Auckland Museum understood Ngāti Whakaue had sold – not gifted – their taonga.

Mitchell’s emotion at hearing this would prompt a mission to seek the truth.

Pūkaki returned to Auckland in 1987, and in 1994, Tapsell – Rotorua Museum curator at the time – resigned and began his Master of Arts thesis