Silhouette portraits of Tooi [Tuai] Teeterree [Tītere] and Francis Hall

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 Rebecca Rice.

Tuai ( c.1797–1824), a young rangatira of Ngare Raumati in the south-eastern Bay of Islands, was an important cultural ‘go-between’ in pre-colonial New Zealand.1 He was early to recognise the importance of gaining Pākehā allies from whom he sought both to learn, and, in turn, educate about the Māori world. By 1814 he was living with the missionary Thomas Kendall near Samuel Marsden’s home at Parramatta, west of Sydney. He was employed by Marsden in the effort to establish a Pākehā settlement in the Bay of Islands by helping Kendall to write a Māori-language school book, published in Sydney in 1815. In 1817, Marsden paid for Tuai and his friend Tītere (from Rangihoua) to travel to England, where they stayed until December 1818. Marsden wanted Tuai and Tītere’s stay to give them an education that would secure them as promoters of Christianity. Tuai and Tītere were more interested in iron, military allies and military technology, priorities not shared or encouraged by their missionary hosts.

These depictions of Tuai, Tītere and their companion and teacher, Francis Hall,2 were made during this time, and the likenesses of the men rendered in popular silhouette portraits offer a distinctive record of their global adventures. In these pared-back portraits, it is apparent that Tuai, on the left, and Tītere, on the right, wore their hair in the style of the time, along with the high collars and Regency dress of fashionable English gentlemen. The deliberate composition of the silhouettes, with Hall in the centre, highlights his role as an intermediary, though it could also be interpreted as a hierarchical arrangement. It indicates, too, that there was an exchange of knowledge and language taking place between the three young men. All three portraits are encased in an original pink fabric and paper portfolio, suggesting they were treasured by the owner.3

When Tuai and Tītere returned to New Zealand in 1819, accompanied by Marsden, Hall and several Pākehā missionary settler families, Tuai and his elder brother, the rangatira Korokoro, hoped that Pākehā settlement would be extended to Ngare Raumati whenua in the south-east Bay of Islands, thereby strengthening their mana within the region. But to their dismay, Hongi Hika, a rival leader of the northern alliance of Ngāpuhi, offered the new settlers their choice of land in his iwi’s territory, including prime sites on the Kerikeri river.

Marsden established his mission at Kerikeri despite warnings from Korokoro, and his decision unbalanced the distribution of settlers in the Bay of Islands, further upsetting the already fragile relations between Ngāpuhi and other iwi, and placing more power and wealth into Hongi Hika’s hands. Marsden left New Zealand soon after, oblivious to the fact that he had set in motion a ‘devastating future for the many non-Ngāpuhi-aligned hapū of the inland and coastal Bay of Islands’.4

Tuai was torn between his desire to maintain relations with Pākehā and his obligations to his iwi. Initially he sought to integrate his Māori and European ideals and relished his role as cultural mediator, negotiating relationships and trade between Māori and visiting Europeans. But by 1821, when Hongi Hika, recently returned from England with muskets procured during his stopover in Sydney, led a taua or war party to Tāmaki and Thames–Hauraki, he was joined by Tuai, Korokoro and Ngare Raumati. Their motives for joining their erstwhile enemy in battle are complicated.

On the one hand, it made sense to combine forces and not turn their newly acquired muskets on each other, but Ngare Raumati also had their own political reasons for joining Ngāpuhi to fight Ngāti Pāoa, having suffered losses at their hands previously.5 Ngare Raumati continued to fight alongside Ngāpuhi during the Musket Wars. In 1823, Korokoro was killed in a battle against Te Arawa near Rotorua and Tuai assumed the mantle of rangatira. He died only a year later from a brief unspecified illness. This left Ngare Raumati vulnerable, and by 1827 their papa kāinga were abandoned and their people dispersed. While Ngāpuhi claimed to have conquered Ngare Raumati, descendants of the latter reject this narrative and instead emphasise their intermarriage with Ngāpuhi, which ensured their survival.

1 Alison Jones and Kuni Kaa Jenkins, ‘Tuai of Ngare Raumati: Teaching Europeans in the early 19th century’, Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 126, no. 1 (2017), p. 10.
2 Francis Hall recorded their impressions of England in words, which Tuai and Tītere then copied into letters to the Church Missionary Society, resulting in 19 letters that constitute the first expressions of Māori in English. Ibid., p. 8. 
3 This set was acquired from the United Kingdom, but Tuai and Tītere had more than one portrait sitting during their stay. Te Papa holds one other pair; see 2006-0012-1/1 and 2006- 0012-1/2. 
4 Alison Jones and Kuni Kaa Jenkins, Tuai: A traveller in two worlds (Bridget Williams Books, Wellington, 2017), p. 165. 
5 Alison Jones and Kuni Kaa Jenkins, ‘Tuai of Ngare Raumati’, p. 20.