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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) on page 87.
This extract was authored by Rebecca Rice.
When Te Wherowhero agreed to become king in May 1857, a flag representing the new dynasty was erected in the centre of a large open space during a ceremonial gathering at Rangiriri in the Waikato.1 The flag had a red border with two red crosses, and the words ‘Potatau, King of New Zealand’ sewn upon it. After much debate between rangatira about whether the Kīngitanga should be established, King Pōtatau was accessioned to office on 2 June 1858. Following the establishment of the Kīngitanga, symbols imbued with the mana and authority of the king proliferated, including pātaka, rūnanga and flags.
No visual record of the original king’s flag survives, but a drawing of the flag hoisted at Mataitawa, south of Waitara in Taranaki, on the anniversary of the accession of Te Wherowhero’s son, King Tāwhiao, on 10 September 1862 was made by amateur artist and historian William Francis Gordon.2 Gordon’s drawing, made many decades later, is based on descriptions provided by Arthur Atkinson, who, as editor of the Taranaki Herald, had accompanied land purchase commissioner Robert Parris to the ceremony.3
The top and bottom flags carry the words ‘Kingi’ and ‘Niu Tireni’ (New Zealand), thereby reasserting Māori sovereignty of New Zealand. The red symbols in the middle flag represent the three main islands of New Zealand, indicating that the Kīngitanga envisaged its sovereignty as extending through the whole of the country. The crosses retain their symbolism as emblems of Christianity.
1 John Gorst, The Maori King, ed. Keith Sinclair (Oxford University Press, London, 1959), p. 59.
2 Bernard J Forster, ‘Maori flags’, in AH McLintock (ed.), An Encyclopedia of New Zealand, vol. 1 (Government Printer, Wellington, 1966), p. 699.
3 Arthur Samuel Atkinson to WF Gordon, ‘Account of hoisting of Kingitanga flag at Mataitawa, 1862’, 28 March 1899, Te Papa Archives, CA000162/001/0014/0003.