Story: Ngā hāhi – Māori and Christian denominations

Chief Hirini Te Rito Whaanga (Ngāti Rākaipaaka) and his third wife Mere (the daughter of a Pākehā whaler) lived at Nūhaka in Hawke's Bay. In 1884 they and most of their fellow Māori Anglicans converted to the Mormon faith when three American Mormon missionaries arrived. In 1894 the couple and other family members travelled to the central Mormon temple at Salt Lake City in the US. Whaanga later returned as a Mormon missionary to Māori communities.