Tūhoe Hapū Organization and the Amalgamation Plan

Abstract

This chapter presents an overview of Tūhoe hapū throughout the Urewera District Native Reserve by way of the plan of the commission in 1902 to group the 35 blocks into just 10 larger blocks. In Chap. 3, the various motives behind the plan and the last-minute decision to abort it were considered, concluding that it was primarily an initiative of Tūhoe leaders themselves. Two of the proposed amalgamations are examined here as possible hapū ‘clusters’ with regard to their ecological context, dominant and subordinate hapū, leadership, and marriage alliances: Ōhāua te Rangi and Parekohe, respectively in the middle and northern end of the UDNR. Marriage alliances are discovered in both these possible hapū clusters, strikingly developed in the case of Parekohe. Some insights are gained regarding important issues such as relations with surrounding hapū clusters, specific histories of refuge, migration, assimilation, or schism, and associated questions of relative dominance and subordination between hapū. Te Whaiti Nui a Toi, a third proposed amalgamation at the southwestern end of the UDNR, was also examined but showed few signs of organization as a hapū cluster and was set aside for discussion in Volume 2. A more detailed examination of a third proposed amalgamation between Ruatāhuna and Waikaremoana blocks, at the southeastern end of the UDNR, is undertaken here in Part II in hope of a fuller case-study.