Māui Pū signed the Herald (Bunbury) sheet of the Treaty of Waitangi on 17 June 1840 at Guard’s Cove in Cloudy Bay. He may have been from Ngāti Toa.
He had previously visited Hobart, Tasmania, on HMS Conway. Described as very intelligent and having learned enough English to converse with Europeans, Māui was very supportive of the treaty. He offered to travel with the Herald back to Cloudy Bay, where Nohorua had refused to sign the treaty on the basis that a deed always involved the loss of land. [1]
[1] T.L. Buick, The Treaty of Waitangi, S. & W. Mackay, Wellington, 1914, pp. 186-7; ‘The Coming of the Crown’, The old whaling days: a history of southern New Zealand from 1830 to 1840, Robert McNab, Whitcombe & Tombs, Wellington, 1913, p. 378