Te Hau Kāinga

Taking readers to the farms and factories, the marae and churches where Maori lived, worked and raised their families, Te Hau Kainga tells the story of the profound transformation in Maori life during the Second World War. While the Maori Battalion fought overseas, the Maori War Effort Organisation and its tribal committees engaged Maori men and women throughout Aotearoa in the home guard, the women's auxiliary forces, and national agricultural and industrial production. Maori mobilisation was an exercise of rangatiratanga and it changed how Maori engaged with the state. And, as Maori men and women took up new roles, the war was to become a watershed event for Maori society that set the stage for post-war urbanisation. From ammunition factories to kumara fields, from Te Puea Herangi to Te Paipera Tapu, Te Hau Kainga provides the first substantial account of how hapori Maori were shaped by the wartime experience at home. It is a story of sacrifice and remarkable resilience among whanau, hapu and iwi Maori. Te Hau Kainga is published alongside its companion volume Raupanga: Nga Pito Korero o te Pakanga Tuarua no te Hau Kainga, edited by Angela Wanhalla and Lachy Paterson. Raupanga features thirty-five succinct, illustrated essays exploring the Maori home front, translated into te reo Maori by Lachy Paterson.

‘The war caused revolutionary changes at all levels: it proved to be astimulus for the Māori leadership at home as well as laying the basis for newdevelopments in the following years. This book provides a lens forunderstanding the years both before and after the war.’ — Dame ClaudiaOrange

‘The depth and detail presented here affordsa greater understanding of the critical roles and significant contributions of Māorithat previously have not been explained and accounted for, or have not beenrecorded in such detail. There is a great need to supply information on theSecond World War from a Māori perspective, and this fills a void that has beenwanting and waiting for rich and detailed contributions.’ — ProfessorTangiwai Rewi, Dean of Māori and Indigenous Studies, Te Whare Wānanga o Waikato– University of Waikato

‘Sir Apirana Ngata spoke of Māori contribution to the war effort as theprice of citizenship; it is a price which should not have had to be paid, andthis book reminds us what a huge opportunity for Māori self-determination wasdestroyed by the power structure at war’s end.’ — JimMcAloon, Professor of History, Te Herenga Waka Victoria University ofWellington

‘This is not simply a story of Māori during the war. Two themes stood outfor me: first, the enormous cost carried by Māori during the war and its impacton communities, whenua and moana. Second, Māori sacrifice – both in terms ofhuman life and hardship – are alongside stories of creative survival in theface of the long-term effects of colonisation. Te Hau Kāinga will attract a general readership, bothPākehā and Māori, while contributing to scholarly arguments around indigenousresponses to global war.’ — Rowan Light, Waipapa Taumata Rau University of Auckland

Sarah Christie was a postdoctoral fellow in the History Programme at ŌtākouWhakaihu Waka, where she completed her doctorate on the social and culturalhistories of women in the workforce in New Zealand. She is currently aresearcher at the Ngāi Tahu Archive, Christchurch.

Erica Newman (Ngāpuhi) is a senior lecturer at Te Tumu: School of Māori,Pacific and Indigenous Studies at Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka. She researchesadoption, whāngai, kinship and identity (internationally and nationally) with afocus on Indigenous perspectives, and has published on transracial adoption inNew Zealand. Erica was awarded a Marsden Fund Fast-Start grant to explore theintergenerational impact of the 1955 Adoption Act and to journey withdescendants of Māori adoptees who are searching for their tūrangawaewae.

Lachy Paterson is emeritus professor at Te Tumu, Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka, where hetaught te reo Māori and Māori history. He researches Māori history, especiallyrelating to newspapers and other texts in Māori, and the relationship betweenMāori and the government in the nineteenth and first half of the twentiethcentury.

Angela Wanhalla (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāi Te Ruahikihiki, Pākehā) is a professor in theHistory Programme, Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka. Her primary research area is Māoriwomen’s history. Her most recent book is Of Love and War: Pacific Brides ofWorld War II (University of Nebraska Press, 2023).

Ross Webb has a PhD from Victoria University of Wellington and is ahistorian with an interest in organised labour and oral history. He isprincipal researcher analyst in the Research Team at the Waitangi TribunalUnit, and is working on a book, ‘In Defence of Living Standards: The Federationof Labour, Politics, and Economic Crisis, 1975–1987’.

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