Patu quartzite [close combat weapon]

Made in Dunedin by Taranaki Prisoners. These were probably some of the 74 men (including some teenagers) who had surrendered with their women and children near the Patea River in June 1869. They were taken to Dunedin and held as prisoners there from November 1869 to March 1872. During this time the able-bodied prisoners were forced to work on various projects in Dunedin, constructing roads and earthworks and breaking rocks. Thousands of hours of work on these projects were recorded. Reports from the Dunedin Jail for 1870-71 stated that one quarter of the prisoners were invalids and not fit for hard work. The Prisoners were released in March 1872, returning home on board the Luna on 20th March. Taranaki Maori were also punished for defending their right to the land by the confiscation of 162,00 ha (400,000 acres) of land.

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This extract originally appeared in Te Ata o Tū The Shadow of Tūmatauenga: The New Zealand Wars Collections of Te Papa (Te Papa Press, 2024).
This extract was authored by Matiu Baker.

The striking quartzite patu shown [here] was collected by the Rev. Thomas Godfrey Hammond and is part of a collection of Māori material purchased in 1904 by Augustus Hamilton, second director of the Colonial Museum, under the Maori Antiquities Act 1901 . . .

Hammond enjoyed enduring relationships with Māori and was often styled as one of the ‘Māori scholars’ of his time. He also collected a vast collection of taonga Māori, mostly from north and south Taranaki and Whanganui. Several items in the collection have associations with the New Zealand Wars and are mostly from the South Taranaki region, including this unusual patu, which is thought to have been fashioned by Māori prisoners from south Taranaki.