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Overview
Muzzle loading, double barrelled percussion shotgun. The gun was made by the English gunsmith William Morter, about 1860. The stock has been finely carved by an unknown Māori artist.
Guns of this type, known as 'Tupara', were widely used by Māori during the New Zealand wars.
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 204-205.
This extract was authored by Michael Fitzgerald.
Rifles were used by both sides in the New Zealand Wars, but it was Māori who exploited to the full that most iconic weapon of the conflict – the tūpara or double-barrelled shotgun – which could fire two shots while an enemy soldier was still reloading his rifle. The twin barrels gave the shooter two chances to hit the target, and their light weight also made it easy to follow a fast-moving target, ideal in a bush environment. Tūpara off ered obvious advantages, and Māori were quick to see their benefits against the cumbersome Enfields of their enemies.
The disadvantage was that the munitions required (gunpowder, percussion caps to ignite the gunpowder and lead) had to be bought or captured, and were often in short supply. The barrels of tūpara, designed to fire small pellets of birdshot, were also not suited to firing the heavy, solid bullets needed to kill humans, and so wore out quickly. Sometimes, lead was so scarce that wooden ‘bullets’ or even apricot or peach stones were used instead.
[This tūpara], obviously treasured by its Māori owner, is a particularly fine example. Its stock has been carved in beautiful but unconventional Māori motifs by an unknown artist, transforming the weapon into a work of art. Tūpara of this quality were highly valued and given their own names. This tūpara entered Te Papa’s collections in 1907, when the Dominion Museum acquired it from the Whanganui collector and war veteran John Handley. How Handley obtained the weapon is unknown.