Story

Responsibility History Story: Princess Te Puea  © Jenny Jenkins 2015      https://sites.google.com/site/valueslessons

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Tiahuia Herangi was the daughter of King Tawhiao, New Zealand's second Maori king. One day she told her young daughter Te Puea, 'If I should die, return home and take care of my people.'

Te Puea was at school in Auckland when her mother died. She immediately returned to Te Paina, a tiny Maori village on the banks of the Waikato River. At fifteen years old, she took up the leadership of the group of villages where her hapu, her extended family lived.

Around a hundred people lived at Te Paina in 1910. It became a sanctuary where elderly people who had lost their land were welcomed and given a home. (Show Image 2)  Three years later an epidemic struck, and many of her village people fell sick. ‘It looks like chicken pox,’ thought Te Puea. ‘They’re covered in spots.’ But soon she realised that it was much more serious. It was the killer disease smallpox. No-one in her tribe had been vaccinated. She called together those who were well and strong. 'We’ll build open airy shelters down by the river,' she told them. “Then we’ll move the sick into them, so their families don’t catch smallpox too.” (Show Image 3)  Te Puea helped to feed the sick and nurse them back to health. It was exhausting work, and it took several weeks before her patients began to recover. To stop smallpox from spreading, no one was allowed into the village to bring food, so they ate eels and fish from the river, and pigeons from the bush. Although hundreds of New Zealanders died of smallpox, all those Te Puea cared for recovered. World War One began in 1914, but in the tiny village of Te Paina life continued on as it had for centuries. The Waikato Maori were reluctant to go to war. (Show Image 4  King Tawhiao)

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Gasping for breath, she carried it to those who had no one to care for them. She cooked kumara and shared it with the hungry. Then, her body aching, she crawled back into bed.

One morning Te Puea again struggled out of bed. She wanted to get clean water so that people could wash. The whares (homes) were beginning to smell. She felt too weak to carry water up from the river. Her chest hurt each time she drew breath and her arms ached. She stood in the door of her whare, searching for help.

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A few young children hung listlessly around, with no one to tend them. Flies buzzed in and out of doorways. Those who had not fallen sick were busy caring for their families.