Maungapohatu Revisited OR, HOW the GOVERNMENT UNDERDEVELOPED a MAORI COMMUNITY
New Zealand Journal of History, 38, 2 (2004) Maungapohatu Revisited OR, HOW THE GOVERNMENT UNDERDEVELOPED A MAORI COMMUNITY EARLY THIS CENTURY, segments of the Tuhoe and Whakatohea tribes, under the leadership of the Tuhoe prophet Rua Kenana Hepetipa, built themselves a new community. It lay at the foot of the sacred mountain of the Tuhoe, Maungapohatu, and was a conscious recreation by them of the biblical city of Jerusalem. Constructed during 1907–1908, it was an impressive settlement with its own courthouse, bank, and council room [Figures 1 and 2]. The streets were lit with oil lamps and it had its own water system, with separated pools for washing and cooking. The families set up their own rules of conduct, which were enforced through a council of elders and their prophet leader. In these first years, about 500 or 600 people lived at Maungapohatu.1 Figure 1: Maungapohatu, Christmas 1908. The large double-gabled house, built of sawn timber, which stood in the upper part of the pa, was Rua’s. It was called Hiruharama Hou, New Jerusalem. The circular building near the bottom of the slope was the courthouse and meeting house. It was build of sawn totara, and was called Hiona, Zion. The wooden houses inside the enclosed wahi tapu have replaced the earlier tent homes, and the fence has been rebuilt since the foundation of the settlement. Two formal entrance gates are visible. This photograph taken by George Bourne, appeared in the Auckland Weekly News, 14 January 1909. Evening Post collection, Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, F-75710-1/2.
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