Since the mid-1800's Te Kingitanga has been a force in New Zealand society. The Maori King movement combines spiritual and political elements which conserve the "turangawaewae" (standpoints) of the past with practical leadership in the contemporary Maori world. This collection of 14 biographies of leaders has been put together to celebrate the settlement of the Tainui claim and the royal apology given by Queen Elizabeth to the Tainui people in 1995.
This book details the background to the Kingitanga and also tells the story of the first king, Potatau Te Wherowhero. It details all the momentous events of Te Wherowhero's life from around 1775 to his death in 1860, including his status as Lord of the Waikato and the famous battles and conflicts with other tribes, his raising up as the First Maori King, and Mana Motuhake, the Maori Kingship, set apart as the symbol of the spiritual and cultural life of the Maori. Pei Te Hurinui's biography of King Potatau tells this story in a Maori voice employing waiata, poetry and whakapapa as well as prose text in English and English translations so that the book is accessible to both Maori language speakers and those with no knowledge of Maori.
After the battle of Orakau in 1864 and the end of the war in the Waikato, Tawhiao, the second Maori King, and his supporters were forced into an armed isolation in the Rohe Potae, the King Country. For the next twenty years, the King Country operated as an independent state – a land governed by the Maori King where settlers and the Crown entered at risk of their lives. Dancing with the King is the story of the King Country when it was the King's country, and of the negotiations between the King and the Queen that finally opened the area to European settlement. For twenty years, the King and the Queen's representatives engaged in a dance of diplomacy involving gamesmanship, conspiracy, pageantry and hard headed politics, with the occasional act of violence or threat of it. While the Crown refused to acknowledge the King's legitimacy, the colonial government and the settlers were forced to treat Tawhiao as a King, to negotiate with him as the ruler and representative of a sovereign state, and to accord him the respect and formality that this involved. Colonial negotiators even made Tawhiao offers of settlement that came very close to recognising his sovereign authority. Dancing with the King is a riveting account of a key moment in New Zealand history as an extraordinary cast of characters – Tawhiao and Rewi Maniapoto, Donald McLean and George Grey – negotiated the role of the King and the Queen, of Maori and Pakeha, in New Zealand.
In Maori, renowned historian Michael King (1945-2004) presents a comprehensive and searching documentary of Maori culture and society. From the earliest daguerreotype around 1852 to the strong protest images of the 1990s, King records and analyses changes and upheaval in commentary that is always intelligent and objective. This book leaves the reader with not only a better understanding of the past but a challenge for the future.
