NgÃÂi Tà «hoe (), often known simply as Tà «hoe, is a MÃÂori iwi (tribe) of New Zealand. It takes its name from an ancestral figure, . is a MÃÂori language word meaning 'steep' or 'high noon'. The Tà «hoe people also bear the sobriquet ('the children of the mist'). Tà «hoe traditional land is at Te Urewera (the former Te Urewera National Park) in eastern North Island, a steep, heavily forested area which includes Lake Waikaremoana. Tà «hoe traditionally relied on the forest for their needs. The iwi territory is vast and undeveloped. Tà «hoe is considered one of the largest landowners in New Zealand. The territory has six main centres of population, including RuatÃÂhuna, Waikaremoana, Waimana Valley, Ruatoki, and TÃÂneatua. Maungapà Âhatu is the inner sanctum of Te Urewera, and is the most sacred of their ancestral mountains. The Tà «hoe country had a reputation among the neighbouring tribes as a graveyard for invading forces.
Tà «hoe people have a reputation for their continued strong adherence to MÃÂori identity and for their unbroken use of the MÃÂori language, which 62% of them speak . The iwi population is estimated to number between 33,000 and 46,000. About 30% still live on their tribal lands; most of the rest live in towns on the fringes of Te Urewera and in the larger North Island cities. At least 5,000 live in Australia. Subtribes of the Tà «hoe include NgÃÂti Koura, NgÃÂti Rongo, NgÃÂti TÃÂwhaki, Tamakaimoana, NgÃÂti Whare, Te WhÃÂnau Pani, NgÃÂti Hinekura and Patuheuheu.
The Tà «hoe continue to maintain camps in Te Urewera and help run conservation programmes for endangered birds, such as the North Island brown kiwi and the North Island kà Âkako. Many Tà «hoe return to their homelands every two years for the Te Hui Ahurei a Tà «hoe (Tà «hoe Festival), which features kapa haka, debates, sports competitions, and fashion shows. The event offers a valuable opportunity to maintain connections with friends and relatives.
Tà «hoe derives its name from , a descendant of Toroa, who came to Aotearoa (New Zealand) as captain of the MÃÂtaatua canoe, and of Toi-te-huatahi and , who had arrived in the region at an earlier date. A traditional saying, ("the land is from Toi and Pà Âtiki, the mana and rangatiratanga is from Tà «hoe") reflects this ancestry. Tà «hoe is thus part of the tribal confederation, along with NgÃÂti Awa and Whakatà Âhea to the north and other iwi further afield.
Tà «hoe had little direct contact with the early European settlers. The first major contact occurred when the iwi fought against the settler colonial government in the Battle of à ÂrÃÂkau in 1864. Rewi Maniapoto, who had some tribal links to Tà «hoe, visited Te Urewera in 1862 and persuaded them to take part in the rebellion against the government; he went against the wishes of some of the elders. Initially reluctant, the Tà «hoe provided Rewi with ammunition to support the rebellion. During a ceasefire in the battle, under a flag of truce, Gilbert Mair, a translator, was shot in the shoulder by a Tà «hoe warrior. Nearly all the Tà «hoe at the battle were killed.
The following year, authorities accused the Tà «hoe of sheltering Kereopa Te Rau, a Hauhau wanted for killing and beheading Carl Sylvius Völkner, a missionary of the Church Mission Society, in what was called the Völkner incident. Initially, the Tà «hoe had cooperated in tracking down the Hauhau leader and had taken him prisoner. The Tà «hoe tried to use him as a bargaining chip, but the government demanded Te Rau be handed over for trial. After the Tà «hoe released him, Te Rau hid in Te Urewera. As punishment, in 1866, the government confiscated or about 7% of Tà «hoe land on its northern coastal border. The confiscated Tà «hoe land adjoined the land confiscated from Bay of Plenty rebels after the Battle of Gate PÃÂ. The Crown took the Tà «hoe's only substantial flat, fertile land, which also provided their only access to the coast for (seafood). The Tà «hoe people retained only interior, more difficult-to-farm land, setting the scene for later famines.
In 1868, Tà «hoe sheltered the MÃÂori leader Te Kooti, a fugitive who had escaped from imprisonment on the Chatham Islands. Te Kooti arrived in the area with a large group of escaped convicts, fully armed with modern weapons he had stolen from the ship he had hijacked. It is doubtful that the Tà «hoe could have resisted his demands for sanctuary. Some Tà «hoe joined his armed Ringatà « band, but other Tà «hoe told government forces of Te Kooti's whereabouts. Some joined the armed forces to hunt him down. Government forces punished those Tà «hoe who supported Te Kooti during the manhunt. ', the Online Encyclopedia of New Zealand, notes:
Te Kooti escaped to the King Country, and after the events surrounding the hunt for him, the Tà «hoe isolated themselves, closing off access to their lands by refusing to sell, lease or survey them, and blocking the building of roads.
Twenty years later, Te Urewera leaders, Premier Richard Seddon, and Native Affairs Minister Timi (James) Carroll negotiated the 1896 Urewera District Native Reserve Act (UDNR). It provided for Tà «hoe self-government through a General Committee and local committees, with the MÃÂori Land Court excluded and titles determined instead by a commission comprising two PÃÂkehàand five Tà «hoe commissioners. However the Crown, through a mixture of ineptitude and bad faith, "totally failed to give effect to its promises in the UDNR Act; failed to act fairly, reasonably, and honourably ... and failed to protect the Treaty rights of all the peoples of Te Urewera".
Historian James Belich describes Te Urewera as one of the last zones of MÃÂori autonomy, and the scene of the last case of armed MÃÂori resistance: the 1916 New Zealand Police raid to arrest the Tà «hoe prophet, Rua KÃÂnana Hepetipa.
On 2 April 1916 a 70-strong, and heavily armed, police party arrived at Maungapà Âhatu to arrest him for sedition. Because Rua's village was so remote, the police had to take a lot of equipment and camped on the way. They moved like a small army with wagons and pack-horses, and included The New Zealand Herald photographer Arthur Breckon. So as not to alert Maungapà Âhatu residents of their intention to spring an attack, they did not wear their police uniforms until just before the raid. They were convinced that when they reached the village there would be an ambush.
There was no violent resistance from Rua personally, but his supporters fought a half-hour gun battle with the police in which two MÃÂori, including Rua's son Toko, were killed and two wounded. Four constables were also wounded. Rua was arrested and transported to Rotorua, his hair and beard removed. From Rotorua, with six other MÃÂori prisoners including Whatu, Rua was transferred to Auckland and sent directly to Mount Eden prison. Rua was held, at first, on a nine months sentence imposed for the 1915 charges and now increased by his default of fines. After a trial on sedition which lasted 47 days, New Zealand's longest until 1977, he was found not guilty; but sentenced to one year's imprisonment for resisting the police.
Significant European penetration did not occur in Te Urewera until the 20th century. A road was built by the government from Rotorua to RuatÃÂhuna in 1901 to end the isolation of Tà «hoe by opening up the first motor road.
The Tà «hoe did eventually realise, especially in the Great Depression, that to develop their local economy they needed good roads to the outside world. They donated some land for road rights of way. As early as 1906, Tà «hoe had given land for roads and offered free labour to assist in the construction, but building arterial roads in Te Urewera was a low government priority. In the early 1900s traces of gold were found in Te Urewera, and Rua Te Kanana tried to sell illegal mining rights to raise money. At the same time Rua wished to sell very large areas of land to the government to raise funds for his new Jerusalem, but despite having a petition signed by every Tà «hoe adult, the government insisted that he stick to the law.
In the 1920s Gordon Coates, Minister of Public Works, went to the area to check its suitability for a railway and to discuss roads. The land was very steep, with the Poverty Bay Herald describing the gradient as "one in nothing". Coates knew that by this time, Tà «hoe refused to make any contribution to the road at all. The mountainous terrain was daunting for farming. Tà «hoe could not accumulate any capital to develop land they had cleared from 1907. Instead they sold all their sheep and cattle to pay for legal costs. These debts were not paid until 1931.
In the early 1930s the government helped develop Tà «hoe land at both Ruatoki and RuatÃÂhuna. It understood that, like many New Zealanders in the Great Depression, Tà «hoe was experiencing hard times. In 1934 a teacher wrote that "they have no money apart from what is given by government as Family Allowances and Old Age Pensions". A 1936 report noted that land development at Maungapà Âhatu Mountain (a Ringatà « stronghold) "would be a social success if undertaken". The report pointed out that the venture would probably fail if Tà «hoe were required to pay back both the interest and the capital. In 1937, after several other studies, the government decided that it was uneconomic to invest in roads or settlements. By this time, the isolated Maungapà Âhatu settlement had collapsed anyway.
The Tà «hoe population was always small and living conditions were poor. School records from the 1920s and 1930s show very high death rates, especially of children. 75% of those who died were people under 25. The main causes of death were infectious diseases, such as influenza, gastroenteritis, typhoid fever and whooping cough. Between 1924 and 1936, the Depression period, 57 people died in a community of 30 families.
From the late 1990s, some Tà «hoe started identifying as the Tà «hoe nation, and emphasising widespread Tà «hoe rejection of what they call rule. It has been argued that because no Tà «hoe or Tà «hoe representative ever signed the Treaty of Waitangi, they never gave up their sovereignty.
Tà «hoe and other local iwi brought the Te Urewera claim to the Waitangi Tribunal in 2002, with submissions accepted up until 2005.
There was a major armed-police raid in Te Urewera on 15 October 2007 amid claims that some Tà «hoe had run terrorist training-camps there. Roadblocks were set up between Ruatoki and TÃÂneatua by armed police, who searched and questioned everyone who passed through, including a school bus, and locals said they felt intimidated.
No terrorism charges were laid, and Police Commissioner Howard Broad later publicly apologised for the actions of his officers during the raid, acknowledging they had set back relations between police and the Tà «hoe people: "We regret the hurt and stress caused to the community of Ruatoki and we will seek an appropriate way to repair the damage done to police-Maori relations. History tells us that episodes such as this can and do take decades to heal." A 2013 IPCA review found "...police searches, vehicle stops, roadblocks and photographs taken in Tuhoe country on October 15, 2007, unlawful, unjustified and unreasonable."
A final settlement was signed in June 2013, after being ratified by all Tà «hoe members. Under the deal, Tà «hoe received financial, commercial and cultural redress valued at approximately $170 million; an historical account and Crown apology; and the co-governance of a new legal entity, Te Urewera. It was put into law by the passing of the Tà «hoe Claims Settlement Act 2014.
The representative organisation of the iwi is Tà «hoeTe Uru Taumatua. This is a common law trust, with a board consisting of seven board members, appointed from four local organisations, referred to as Tribals or (short for Tà «hoe Tribal Executive Committees). As of 2025 its chair was Tamati Kruger and its CEO was Kirsti Luke. The organisation represents the iwi for the purposes of the Resource Management Act 1991 and the MÃÂori Fisheries Act 2004, and is the post-settlement entity responsible for the iwi's interests under both the Central North Island Forests Land Collective Settlement 2008 and the Tà «hoe Claims Settlement Act 2014. The organisation governs the Tà «hoe Trust Fund, which holds the iwi's taonga and assets. This fund is managed by an independent investment committee.
Tà «hoe - Te Uru Taumatua is divided into four departments:
It also oversees or has a stake in three major subsidiary entities:
The board was responsible for appointing the initial Tà «hoe representatives on the Te Urewera Board, which is responsible for speaking for Te Urewera, which is a legal entity that owns itself under the Te Urewera Act 2014.
The territory of the iwi is divided into four Tribals or Taraipara (short for Tà «hoe Tribal Executive Committees). These are non-registered entities which were established in the mid-twentieth century. Each Tribal meets monthly and consists of two delegates from each marae within their region, selected by the individual hapà «. They each appoint a chair, secretary, and treasurer for a three-year term. For the and in their respective regions, they serve as the formal venue for decision making, the collective voice, the contact point for external stakeholders, and a forum for matters relating to thee iwi's reo and tikanga (language and traditional knowledge). They are representative organisations; authority and mana remain with the individual and . Since 2011, they also serve as the interface between the individual and of the iwi and Tà «hoeTe Uru Taumatua.
The four Tribals are:
Tà «hoe consists of 39 , some of which are shared by multiple . As of 2011, there are 65 within Tà «hoe, but the number has varied over time as hapà « lapse, split or reform.
NgÃÂti Koura is a (subtribe) in the eastern Bay of Plenty on North Island. Two are traditionally associated with NgÃÂti Koura: Otenuku and Te Papakainga. Otenuku is the site of Te Tapuwae, a cemetery in which many Tà «hoe chiefs are buried.