Tewhatewha (long handled fighting staff)

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 pages 192-193.
This extract was authored by Matiu Baker.

Collector William Ockelford Oldman’s catalogue entry for the tewhatewha shown [here] reads ‘Taken at Te Ranga 21st June. 1864. Illustrated in Illustrated London News, 24 September, 1864’, suggesting that he either understood, or presumed, that this tewhatewha is the item No. 10 depicted in Horatio Gordon Robley’s original drawing. . .

Tewhatewha, made from native hardwoods, are long, bladed, typically two-handed weapons used in close-quarters combat. The weapon was used to thrust, parry and strike. The spatula-like, flat-bladed rau (blade) of the weapon is made from the dense, hard knot where the tree branch joins with the trunk, while the tinana (body) is formed from the length of the branch, making the tewhatewha a dense and durable weapon. In pre-contact battles, tewhatewha, typically dressed with bunches of split feathers called puhi or puhipuhi, were often used by rangatira to direct the movement of warriors on the field.