Page 1: Biography
Tūpaea, Hōri
1879/1880?–1944
Ngāti Te Whatuiāpiti, Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāi Te Rangi leader, farmer
This biography, written by Angela Ballara, was first published in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography in 1998. It was translated into te reo Māori by the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography team.
Hōri Tūpaea was born probably in 1879 or 1880 in the vicinity of Te Hauke, Hawke's Bay, the second child and eldest son of Arihi Te Nahu by her second marriage, to Hāmiora Tūpaea. Arihi was the eldest child of Karanama (Karanema) Te Nahu, who was in turn the eldest son of Ngāti Te Whatuiāpiti leader Te Hāpuku and his senior wife, Te Heipora. Arihi, or Princess Alice, as she was known to Europeans, was thus of supreme rank. Through Te Hāpuku and the ancestor, Te Huki, she had direct links to Kahungunu. One hapū important to her was Ngāti Te Rangikoiānake. Hori’s father was a younger son of the pre-eminent Tauranga chief Hōri Kingi Tūpaea of Ngāi Te Rangi. His marriage to Arihi was arranged to repair the relations between Ngāi Te Rangi and Ngāti Kahungunu; his grandfather had been killed in the wars between them. Hōri Tūpaea was thus of supreme rank on both sides of his whakapapa.
Little is known of Hōri Tūpaea's childhood and education, but it is likely that he attended Te Aute College. Certainly he was part of a group of high-ranking young Anglicans who became the leaders of Ngāti Kahungunu, and who were all disciples of Apirana Ngata in the Te Aute College Students' Association and later the Young Māori Party. He married Rauhina, about whom little has been recorded; they had no surviving children. They lived at Te Hauke with Hori's sister Makua-i-te-rangi Ellison and her family on a property once owned by Te Hāpuku, and farmed family land at Ōpapa, near Lake Poukawa.
Tūpaea emerged as a leader during the First World War, when he was involved in efforts to raise money for the projects of the Church Army of the Anglican Church, and for the Māori Soldiers' Fund of the Eastern Māori Patriotic Association. Tūpaea was a member of the Tamatea Māori Council, a post he was to occupy for several years. With Paraire Tomoana and Taranaki Te Ua he represented the council in planning the grand event of March 1919 at Manutūkē to welcome home the East Coast members of the New Zealand Māori (Pioneer) Battalion, and to raise money for the Māori Soldiers' Fund. Hōri Tūpaea was listed as a 'rising star' among the leaders there. In 1920 he was chairman of a general meeting at Te Hauke which endorsed Ngata's plans for the investment of the Māori Soldiers' Fund.
In 1921, with 26 other East Coast and Hawke's Bay leaders, he received a commemorative medal from the Prince of Wales. Tūpaea was a member of the Heretaunga committee for the support of the Anglican Māori newspaper, Te Kōpara. He was active in sport; in 1923 he was president of the Māori Hockey Club of central and southern Hawke's Bay.
Much of Hōri Tūpaea's energy was poured into the Anglican church. He campaigned for more financial support for the Waiapu diocese and Anglican Māori ministers. In 1925 he was the lay representative of Te Hauke to the district synod and was one of those pressing for a Māori bishopric. He called a meeting of the Waipatu parish at Te Hauke on 27 September 1925, invited the bishop of Waiapu, and asked that the Māori bishop be given the title of bishop of Te Aute and Aotearoa because of the contribution the college had made to the advancement of European education among the Māori people.
In December that year, representing Ngāti Kahungunu and the Waiapu diocese as a layman, he attended a general synod of the Anglican church in Wellington; at that time the bill setting up a Māori bishopric was passed, and Hōri Tūpaea took part in the vigorous debate as to whether the new bishop should be a Māori or a Māori-speaking European. The bishops and Māori of the Auckland diocese wanted a Pākehā, but at the Wellington general synod of September 1926, Hōri Tūpaea and other Māori demanded that the bishop be Māori. Hōri Tūpaea said that in his opinion the Auckland Māori Anglicans were echoing the thoughts of the archbishop; this was confirmed when W. N. Pānapa declared that Ngāpuhi had been warned that if they insisted on a Māori, there would be no Māori bishopric. Frederick Bennett supported Pānapa, but Tūpaea said that if none of the existing Māori ministers were willing to serve, then Ngata, the other lay delegate from the Waiapu diocese, should be consecrated the first bishop. The debate ended when Ngata put a motion, seconded by Tūpaea, that the first bishop be Māori; a counter motion that he be European was voted out. The motion was passed by a majority of only one, and consideration of the issue was postponed.
A district synod at Napier in October 1926 adopted Tūpaea's suggestion that a standing committee be elected to assist the prospective Māori bishop. Eventually, Frederick Bennett, of Ngāti Whakaue, was chosen as the first bishop of Aotearoa. In December 1928 he was consecrated at Pakipaki; Hōri Tūpaea was one of the three principal speakers.
Tūpaea was also involved in local land and political matters; he held a hui at Te Hauke in July 1926 of all the owners of the low-lying Poukawa block near the lake. It was decided that the block should be drained, and the advice of the Native Trustee sought on the best way of preparing it for settlement. He served on a committee set up at Ōmāhu in April 1927 to consider the effects of rating on Māori land. His committee discovered that the rating rolls were out of date, inaccurate, and had taken no account of subdivisions of blocks. They arranged, among other palliatives, that the Native Land Court would hear cases of outstanding rates and excessive rates demands.
Tūpaea’s attention shifted to Napier land issues in the 1930s. In 1907, 1916 and 1919 Ngāti Hinepare and Ngāti Kahungunu had petitioned Parliament or applied to the Native Land Court to recognise and protect their fishing and other rights in Te Whanganui-a-Ōrotu, the Napier inner harbour, without success. They considered that the harbour had not been sold with the Ahuriri block in 1851. The Hawke’s Bay earthquake of 1931 raised the inner harbour, converting it into dry land, and it became even more urgent for the descendants of the owners of Ahuriri to press their claims, as the Napier Harbour Board claimed ownership and moved ahead with plans for the upraised land's development. In 1932, as the most senior living descendant of the owners, Hōri Tūpaea petitioned Parliament, asking for compensation for their right of property in the former inner harbour. A hearing was begun in the Native Land Court in April 1934; Hori's case was conducted by Rāniera Ellison, his kinsman by marriage.
No report was completed in Hōri Tūpaea's lifetime, but further petitions eventually provoked its completion, and an inconclusive royal commission was held on the issue in 1948. The issue came before the Waitangi Tribunal in 1988, and a decision favourable to the Māori owners was reached in 1996.
In both church and lay affairs, Hōri Tūpaea was a tenacious advocate for his people. The satisfactory resolution of the dispute over the Māori bishopric, and the eventual settlement of the Napier harbour claim, owed much to his determination. In his last years he suffered from heart disease. He died in Waipukurau District Hospital on 1 April 1944, and was buried at Te Hauke.