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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 11, Issue 9 (December 1, 1936)

[section]

Kua hinga te rata whakamarumaru” (“The sheltering rata tree has fallen to the ground”) is a classic phrase of the Maori in lamenting the death of a chief and leader. The ancient saying came poignantly to the mind with the news of the death of Tahu Potiki, the greatest figure in the Maori world of Taranaki. The pakeha world knew him as the Rev. Robert Haddon, Methodist Missionary. His home was near Normanby. For thirty-five years—half his lifetime—he was a minister; he was a power for moral good and education among his people; and his preachings and influence extended to every Maori district.

But over and above that side of his life and character Tahu Potiki was a great and noble leader of his race. He was a chief by long and sacred lineage of the Ngati-Ruanui tribe; the great warrior Titokowaru was his granduncle. He looked the thoroughbred rangatira. He stood two inches over six feet in height; his weight was sixteen stone; he was as straight as one of his native kahikatea pines to the end of his seventy years of life. Like “poor Tom Bowling” of the song (and a Captain Tom Bowling I knew in life), his form was of the manliest beauty. His features were strong and intellectual; there was a warrior flash in his eyes; yet—again, like Dibdin's sailor, “his heart was kind and soft” to those in trouble and brimming over with aroha for the distressed people of his race. He was utterly unselfish in his life and aspirations; he sacrificed much for the sake of humanity.

“Aroha ki te iwi”—love for the people—was the motivating principle of his long labours.

In one of our talks together in Taranaki I told him it was perhaps a pity he had not been born a generation earlier. Then he would have been in the thick of the Hauhau war, and would have been an active young warrior under Titokowaru, against the pakeha.

“Not a doubt of it,” he agreed, laughing; “I'd certainly have had a hand in all the fighting.” Indeed, this stalwart of Ngati-Ruanui, fiery and determined and brainy, would have made a formidable leader of the tribes who fought so desperately to regain the lands taken from them by arbitrary Government confiscation. We frequently discussed those wars and their causes; and Tahu Potiki took me to see and talk with several of the old warriors who lived in secluded villages.