Mohi Te Harere? Mohi Te Ahi-ā-Te-Ngū?

Nga Tohu

In 1840 more than 500 chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding document. Ngā Tohu, when complete, will contain a biographical sketch of each signatory.


Signing

SignatureSheetSigned asProbable nameTribeHapūSigning Occasion
164Sheet 1 — The Waitangi SheetMohiMohi Te Harere?/Mohi Te Ahi-ā-Te-Ngū?Ngāti Pāoa?/Ngāti Tamaoho?Te Ākitai?Karaka Bay 4 March 1840

Mohi signed the Treaty of Waitangi on 4 March 1840 at Karaka Bay, Tāmaki (Auckland).

Historian Paul Monin believed this was Mohi Te Harere, an important chief of Ngāti Pāoa. Claudia Orange has also identified this Mohi as coming from Ngāti Pāoa. However, the majority of the signatories on 4 March were from Hauraki.

Apirana Ngata believed that this was actually Mohi Te Ahi-ā-Te-Ngū of Te Ākitai and Ngāti Tamaoho of Auckland.

Mohi Te Ahi-ā-Te-Ngū was involved in the Waikato War of 1863–64. As the war began he was visited at Te Aparangi, near Papakura, by Native Minister Dillon Bell, who asked Mohi to declare his loyalty to the queen. Mohi replied that if the minister ‘had arrived a few days earlier with such an offer he and most of his people would have remained peacefully in their homes. But the Governor had crossed the Manga-tawhiri and invaded Waikato, and the Ngati-Tamaoho hapus, who previously had opposed Rewi and his war-party, now felt it their duty to join Waikato.’ [1]


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