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Matiu Huhu

Nga Tohu

In 1840 more than 500 chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi, New Zealand’s founding document. Ngā Tohu, when complete, will contain a biographical sketch of each signatory.

Signing

Signature Sheet Signed as Probable name Tribe Hapū Signing Occasion
178 Sheet 1 — The Waitangi Sheet Matiu Huhu Matiu Huhu Te Aupōuri, Te Rarawa Kaitāia, 28 April 1840

Matiu Huhu signed the Treaty of Waitangi on 28 April 1840 at Kaitāia. He was the brother of Pāpāhia, who signed the treaty in the Bay of Islands sometime in 1840.

At the signing, he is recorded as saying, ‘If your thoughts are as our thoughts in Christ, let us be one. We believe your hearts to be good. The Pakehas bought all our land and we have no more.’[1]

Huhu also showed doubts about the missionaries. He ‘doubted that the governor came as a shepherd and thought instead that he came to kill them and take the land for many Pakeha who would follow.’[2]


[1] Quoted in T. Lindsay Buick, The Treaty of Waitangi: or, how New Zealand became a British colony, Mackay, Wellington, 1914, p. 149

[2] Adrienne Puckey, Trading cultures: a history of the Far North, Huia, Wellington, 2011, p. 39

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