Huria Matenga
Date of birth / Date established
Circa 1841
Date of death / Date closed
24 Apr 1909
Place of birth / Place established
Place of death / Place closed
Person/Corporate type
Individual
Biography
Ngarongoa Katene, known later in life as Huria Matenga, was born in Whakapuaka, near Nelson, around 1841. Her parents, Wikitoria Te Amohau Te Keha (Ngāti Te Whiti) and Wiremu Katene Te Puoho (Ngāti Toa) were leaders in the Whakapuaka community and followed the teachings of Te Whiti O Rongomai III and Tohu Kākahi. Matenga’s paternal grandfather was Ngāti Tama rangatira Te Puoho O Te Rangi, died in battle with Ngāi Tahu near Haast in 1836. Her whakapapa traces back to the Tokomaru waka.
In September 1858, Huria married Hemi Matenga Waipunahau at Christ Church in Nelson. Hemi was the son of Metapere Waipunahau of Kāpiti and George Stubbs, a whaler, trader, and Waikanae landowner. Huria and Hemi later adopted a daughter named Mamae.
Huria Matenga rose to national prominence after her role in the rescue of the Delaware shipwreck on the rocks of at Whakapuaka Bay during the night of September 3rd 1863. The colonial trading ship hit a storm on its way from Nelson to Napier and Huria, Hemi, Hohapata Kahupuku, Eraia Te Rei, and Kerei Te Rei swam out and rescued ten of the eleven people on board. At the time the New Zealand wars were well underway, and many settlers sought to establish colonial narratives that secured European culture through the assimilation of Māori. A ceremony took place at Nelson town Hall on the 14th of November, at which the local council awarded Huria a gold watch and dubbed her the ‘Grace Darling’ of New Zealand. Grace Darling similarly rescued four people in a shipwreck in 1838 on the shores of the Farne Islands in England. By equating their experiences, many settlers popularly viewed Matenga through a colonial, assimilationist lens. Treating her as a Māori woman of exceptional character as a hero of masculine proportions, but emphasising her beauty through a gendered archetype, her story received national recognition in which she was memorialised and mythologized for many years to come. Matenga’s commemoration features in three portraits painted by Gottfried Lindauer, photograph portraits taken by the Tyree brothers, in William Francis Gordon’s ‘Some ‘Soldiers of the Queen’ who served in the Maori Wars and Other Notable Persons Connected Herewith’ album, and in the naming of a boat in Nelson Harbour.
Matenga’s position as a rangatira and woman of great mana received less emphasis in New Zealand’s colonial historical narrative, despite her status as a woman of great mana in both Pākehā and Māori communities prior to the rescue of the Delaware. She was a landowner in Taranaki, Porirua, and Nelson, and took a leadership role in important decision making, travelling between these locations to name children and arrange marriages. After the death of her father in April 1880, Matenga inherited 17,739 acres at Whakapuaka. In his life, Wiremu Katene Te Puoho had opposed land sales in the South Island, to which he laid claim as a Ngāti Toa rangatira. Despite her popularity and perceived assimilation, Matenga shared her father’s views on land sales in the South Island, to which she was accused of being ‘very jealous of her rights’ regarding land ownership. She spent the last twenty years of her life in a Whakapuaka land dispute with members of her whanau that continued well after her passing. Huria Matenga passed away on April 24th 1909 at Whakapuaka, where she was buried on the 2nd of May. Over two thousand people attended her tangi.
External Sources:
Mary Louise Ormsby. 'Matenga, Huria', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1990. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1m24/matenga-huria
Pickles, Katie, and Angela Wanhalla. "Embodying the Colonial Encounter: Explaining New Zealand's ‘Grace Darling’, Huria Matenga." Gender & History 22, no. 2 (2010): 361-81.
In September 1858, Huria married Hemi Matenga Waipunahau at Christ Church in Nelson. Hemi was the son of Metapere Waipunahau of Kāpiti and George Stubbs, a whaler, trader, and Waikanae landowner. Huria and Hemi later adopted a daughter named Mamae.
Huria Matenga rose to national prominence after her role in the rescue of the Delaware shipwreck on the rocks of at Whakapuaka Bay during the night of September 3rd 1863. The colonial trading ship hit a storm on its way from Nelson to Napier and Huria, Hemi, Hohapata Kahupuku, Eraia Te Rei, and Kerei Te Rei swam out and rescued ten of the eleven people on board. At the time the New Zealand wars were well underway, and many settlers sought to establish colonial narratives that secured European culture through the assimilation of Māori. A ceremony took place at Nelson town Hall on the 14th of November, at which the local council awarded Huria a gold watch and dubbed her the ‘Grace Darling’ of New Zealand. Grace Darling similarly rescued four people in a shipwreck in 1838 on the shores of the Farne Islands in England. By equating their experiences, many settlers popularly viewed Matenga through a colonial, assimilationist lens. Treating her as a Māori woman of exceptional character as a hero of masculine proportions, but emphasising her beauty through a gendered archetype, her story received national recognition in which she was memorialised and mythologized for many years to come. Matenga’s commemoration features in three portraits painted by Gottfried Lindauer, photograph portraits taken by the Tyree brothers, in William Francis Gordon’s ‘Some ‘Soldiers of the Queen’ who served in the Maori Wars and Other Notable Persons Connected Herewith’ album, and in the naming of a boat in Nelson Harbour.
Matenga’s position as a rangatira and woman of great mana received less emphasis in New Zealand’s colonial historical narrative, despite her status as a woman of great mana in both Pākehā and Māori communities prior to the rescue of the Delaware. She was a landowner in Taranaki, Porirua, and Nelson, and took a leadership role in important decision making, travelling between these locations to name children and arrange marriages. After the death of her father in April 1880, Matenga inherited 17,739 acres at Whakapuaka. In his life, Wiremu Katene Te Puoho had opposed land sales in the South Island, to which he laid claim as a Ngāti Toa rangatira. Despite her popularity and perceived assimilation, Matenga shared her father’s views on land sales in the South Island, to which she was accused of being ‘very jealous of her rights’ regarding land ownership. She spent the last twenty years of her life in a Whakapuaka land dispute with members of her whanau that continued well after her passing. Huria Matenga passed away on April 24th 1909 at Whakapuaka, where she was buried on the 2nd of May. Over two thousand people attended her tangi.
External Sources:
Mary Louise Ormsby. 'Matenga, Huria', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1990. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1m24/matenga-huria
Pickles, Katie, and Angela Wanhalla. "Embodying the Colonial Encounter: Explaining New Zealand's ‘Grace Darling’, Huria Matenga." Gender & History 22, no. 2 (2010): 361-81.
