The Kaingarara letters : the correspondence of Tamati Te Ito Ngamoke in the A.S. Atkinson papers, 1857-1863.

摘要

Tamati Te Ito Ngamoke was the leader of the Kaingarara, a body of people whopractised distinctive rituals, apparently designed to remove the tapu from sacredplaces. Kaingarara people also organised a system of local courts for the governmentof the community, perhaps because they were also supporters of the King Movement,or because they mirrored it. The Kaingarara movement began in Taranaki in the1850s, where it persisted at least into the early 1860s. A Maori-language record of itslife in Taranaki survives in the Arthur Samuel Atkinson Collection, held in theAlexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. This thesis presents an editedtranscription and annotated translation of all the manuscript letters in the AtkinsonCollection that were written by or to Tamati Te Ito Ngamoke. The letters arevariously personal, political and religious in theme. The annotation locates theKaingarara's field of operation through the restoration oflost pa and place names toan historical map of Taranaki. It also assembles scattered information about peoplementioned in the letters, for example, the important chiefs Erueti Te Whiti, WiremuKingi Te Rangitake, Te Kepa and Wiremu Kingi Te Matakatea as a basis for futureexplorations and reconstructions of Taranaki worlds. By tracing the English originalsof transliterated personal names in the annotation, it offers evidence on baptism ratesamong Taranaki Maori.