Tukumana Taiwīwī Te Taniwha (1862/63–1941) was a notable New Zealand

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the C ...

tribal leader and historian. He was a leader of the Ngāti Maru and

Ngāti Whanaunga Ngāti Whanaunga is a Māori ''iwi'' (tribe) of the Coromandel Peninsula in New Zealand, descended from Whanaunga, the third son of Marutūāhu. It is one of the tribes of the Marutūāhu confederation, the others being Ngāti Maru, Ngāti Ron ...

iwi Iwi () are the largest social units in New Zealand Māori society. In Māori roughly means "people" or "nation", and is often translated as "tribe", or "a confederation of tribes". The word is both singular and plural in the Māori language, an ...

. He was born in the

Coromandel Coromandel may refer to: Places India *Coromandel Coast, India **Presidency of Coromandel and Bengal Settlements **Dutch Coromandel *Coromandel, KGF, Karnataka, India New Zealand *Coromandel, New Zealand, a town on the Coromandel Peninsula *Corom ...

, New Zealand in probably 1862 or 63. His mother, Karukino Te Taniwha, was the daughter of Te Horeta Te Taniwha.

Early life

Writing in his 1929 manuscript entitled �
Marutuahu
��, Tukumana states that he was 11 years of age when he attended the great Ngāti Paoa hākari (feast) which took place in 1874. This means that Tukumana was born in 1863, during the first year of the Waikato War. Tukumana’s father was Reihana Poto, of Ngāti Whanaunga and Ngāti Maru, and his mother was Karukino Te Taniwha of Ngāti Whanaunga. Karukino was a daughter of Te Hōreta Te Taniwha and a half sister to Hori Ngakapa Te Whanaunga. Tukumana Te Taniwha was variously known as Tukumana Reihana (taking his father’s first name as his surname, a custom of the time) as well as Tukumana Te Taniwha and Taiwīwī Te Taniwha. The latter names were derived from his mother’s family.

Death

Tukumana Te Taniwha passed away on 28 March 1941. He was mourned at his ancestral home of Waimangō, Firth of Thames, before being interred in the family cemetery there.

References

1860s births 1941 deaths 20th-century New Zealand historians Ngāti Maru (Hauraki) people Ngāti Whanaunga People from Coromandel Peninsula Colony of New Zealand people {{Māori-bio-stub