Redemption Songs: A Life of TE Kooti Arikirangi TE Turuki [Hardcover]

Judith Binney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1995 | ISBN-10: 186940131X | ISBN-13: 978-1869401313

Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki was one of the best-known Maori leaders of the 19th century. Today he is remembered mostly as a guerrilla fighter: a feared opponent of colonial forces with a price on his head. The stereotype does him little justice. Throughout his adult life, in both war and peace, he sought to redeem his people and the land. He founded the Ringatu church, which continues to this day. The causes of Te Kooti's struggles are larger than personal injustice: he fought a war against land confiscation and illegal land purchases. Though frequently described as a murderer, he limited his attacks—even the most notorious, at Matawhero, Poverty Bay in 1868—to specific targets for precise reasons. Judith Binney has drawn on numerous sources in writing this book. Traces of Te Kooti's many journeys remain throughout the North Island, and he left records of his remarkable life not only in government files but in personal letters and diaries, as well as in songs, stories and sayings among his own people in many places. This biography conveys the Ringatu perspectives alongside a fresh account of major events in New Zealand's 19th-century history.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 666 pages
• Publisher: Auckland University Press (November 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 186940131X
• ISBN-13: 978-1869401313
• Product Dimensions: 10.7 x 7.5 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,647,263 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A classic of New Zealand literature, January 3, 2000

By 

R Boast/D Edmunds - See all my reviews

This review is from: Redemption Songs: A Life of TE Kooti Arikirangi TE Turuki (Hardcover)

Judith Binney teaches history at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and has written a brilliant and monumental biography of Te Kooti, a Maori guerilla leader and (above all) prophet who lived in nineteenth-century New Zealand. American readers will probably have little awareness of the complexity and fascination of nineteenth century New Zealand history and may find the world the book describes bewildering and unfamiliar at first.

Te Kooti came from the East Coast of the North Island and was wrongfully exiled to a penal colony for a crime he didn't commit. Later he escaped from the island, returned home and led a force of Maori _whakarau_ (exiles) into the heart of the North Island. The government forces never succeeded in capturing him. Te Kooti had many enemies, Maori and Pakeha, and the complexity of the Maori world at this time is brilliantly conveyed. The book is very strong on Te Kooti as a religious leader and prophet and is methodologically extremely interesting as well. I don't agree with every detail of the story, but that is only to be expected in a work of such richness and scope. American readers and scholars interested in the interaction between colonial empires and indigenous peoples will gain most from this book, which compares in many ways with Noel Mostert's _Frontiers_ or Roger Milliss' _Waterloo Creek_.

5.0 out of 5 stars A great New Zealand Maori Guerilla Leader and founder of the Ringatu Chuch, August 30, 2010

By 

Kiwi (Mississauga, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Redemption Songs: A Life of TE Kooti Arikirangi TE Turuki (Hardcover)

The subject of this biography, Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki (c.1830 - 1891) was a New Zealand Maori leader and the founder of the Ringatu Church. In the past, Te Kooti's reputation has been of a bloodthirsty rebel, guerilla fighter and leader of armed resistance to the colonial government of New Zealand who founded the Ringatu Church, to which approximately 8,000 New Zealand Maori (2%) nominally belong. Te Kooti was, and is, a well known historical personage in New Zealand, and the imposing length and large format of Redemption Songs (crown octavo & 666 pages) indicates Te Kooti's uniqueness as a biographical subject. While it's a large book, it's well-written and superbly produced. As for the author: Judith Binney is one of New Zealand's most respected historians, and this life of Te Kooti Rikirangi is a masterpiece. The author's unique access to the Ringatu culture, informants and privately held manuscripts suggests that she has built an impressive rapport with the morehu (believing remnant). In a historiographical field strained by modern politics, political correctness and an old legacy of intercultural suspicion, Binney's unique access has resulted in an outstandingly convincing biography. History at it's best.

Most nineteenth-century Maori lives were undocumented (outside their dealings with officialdom). Te Kooti, by contrast, lived in the glare of both Maori and pakeha (European) publicity. From his celebrated escape from exile on the Chatham Islands in 1868 until his death in 1893, he was chronicled by officials, reporters, and "secretaries"; his own writings also survive. For this reason Redemption Songs is able to draw on an unusual wealth of sources, many of them original sources, most in Maori, and this has resulted in the first serious study of Te Kooti's life and actions. The size of the book is in large part due to its extensive quotation of Maori text (with English translation) on almost every page.

Here one can find the seminal narratives of Te Kooti's teachings, restored, for the first time, to a usable chronology. These narratives are interwoven with the later interpretations of the faithful, who still believe in his prophecies, miracles, and hidden words of power. In her book, Te Kooti emerges as a much more complex and interesting person than has been presented in earlier histories which largely relied on Pakeha (New Zealand European) sources, with a much stronger spiritual element. His skills as a fighter, preacher, composer and resistance leader are given their due.

As far as Te Kooti is concerned: here's a brief bio: His early years are obscure. He was born in the Gisborne region around 1830. In 1865 Te Kooti fought for the government forces suppressing the local Maori Pai Marire. However, he was arrested as a spy and exiled to the Chatham Islands, together with the rebels he had been fighting against. While in exile, Te Kooti experienced visions and became a religious leader. On July 4, 1868 Te Kooti led a dramatic prison break, and together with 168 other prisoners seized a sailing ship and set off back to the North Island. Upon their arrival Te Kooti asked the King movement and the Tuhoe tribes for refuge but was rejected. On reaching the mainland Te Kooti made for the ancient stronghold of Puketapu. He was intercepted and engaged by no less than three colonial forces. At Paparatu, Te Koneke and Ruakituri Te Kooti successfully defeated his foes in a series of battles varying in intensity. The Colonial Government, by now stretched by war on two coasts, offered Te Kooti a generous peace offer which he refused.

On November 10, 1868 Te Kooti and his followers attacked a local settlement. Some 54 people were slaughtered, including women and children. The dead included some local Maori chiefs as well as European settlers. This was probably a revenge attack, motivated by Te Kooti's false imprisonment as a spy. Te Kooti was then pursued by colonial and Maori forces. After the raid Te Kooti retired to another ancient fortress, Ngatapa. During the retreat his warriors successfully fought three rearguard actions, one at Ngatapa itself. His community was surrounded at Ngatapa, but Te Kooti and his warriors managed to escape. Those he left behind were rounded up and all the men summarily executed. From there, Te Kooti was chased to Te Porere. There, he set up a pa and withstood an attack from the British forces, including some opposing Maori troops, under Major Kepa. After much fighting, the British broke through into the pa and Te Kooti had to abandon it, leaving many dead and wounded. Te Kooti himself was shot in the finger on his escape.

Te Kooti then escaped into the Urewera and made an alliance with the Tuhoe leadership. For four years, from 1869 to 1872, Te Kooti and his followers waged the most effective guerilla campaign in New Zealand's history, raiding throughout the central North Island while being pursued by their colonial and Maori enemies. In this time his actions constituted a major threat to European activities and settlement on the East coast. His power was only broken once his Tuhoe allies were systematically conquered by his enemies. But once again Te Kooti managed to escape, this time to the King Country where he spent the next decade under the protection of the Maori King. Te Kooti used this time to develop his religion. In 1883 Te Kooti was pardoned by the government and began to travel New Zealand. His followers grew and he decided to return to his old home. However, his past deeds had not been forgotten and the local magistrate arrested him and imprisoned him, citing an anticipatory breach of the peace. Te Kooti was released on the condition that he never again try to return to his old home.