Tōrere, previously known as Torere, is a small settlement in the

Ōpōtiki District Ōpōtiki District is a territorial authority district in the North Island of New Zealand. The Ōpōtiki District Council is headquartered in the largest town, Ōpōtiki. The district falls within the Bay of Plenty region. Lyn Riesterer has be ...

of the Bay of Plenty Region on New Zealand's North Island. It is the ancestral home of the

Ngāitai Ngāitai is a Māori ''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 pl ...

people. One of the area's largest businesses is Torere Macadamias, an organic-

macadamia ''Macadamia'' is a genus of four species of trees in the flowering plant family Proteaceae. They are indigenous to Australia, native to northeastern New South Wales and central and southeastern Queensland specifically. Two species of the genus ...

farm established on land not suited to other forms of agriculture. The farm featured on '' Country Calendar'' in 2017. Macadamia research from the farm has been presented at the

University of Hawaii A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, th ...

. The farm is now a major global producer of macadamias and related products.

History

Tōrere was one of the earliest places visited by the ''

Tainui Tainui is a tribal waka confederation of New Zealand Māori iwi. The Tainui confederation comprises four principal related Māori iwi of the central North Island of New Zealand: Hauraki, Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Raukawa and Waikato. There are ...

'' migratory waka. Traditional histories tell of Tōrere-nui-ā-rua, eldest daughter of

Hoturoa According to Māori tradition, Hoturoa was the leader of the ''Tainui'' canoe, during the migration of the Māori people to New Zealand, around 1400. He is considered the founding ancestor of the Tainui confederation of tribes ( iwi), who now in ...

, disembarking from the waka to get away from the advances of a man on the canoe. While ashore, Tōrere wed a local

rangatira In Māori culture, () are tribal chiefs, the hereditary Māori leaders of a hapū. Ideally, rangatira were people of great practical wisdom who held authority () on behalf of the tribe and maintained boundaries between a tribe's land and that ...

, Manaakiao. Their descendants became known as the

people, and the area was named after Tōrere-nui-ā-rua. The bodies of two girls washed ashore at Torere in 1900. They were among 16 children and two adults who had drowned while crossing the Moto River, 13 kilometres south-west, days earlier. The body of a 54-year-old woman washed ashore at Torere in 2017. A

hui The Hui people ( zh, c=, p=Huízú, w=Hui2-tsu2, Xiao'erjing: , dng, Хуэйзў, ) are an East Asian ethnoreligious group predominantly composed of Chinese-speaking adherents of Islam. They are distributed throughout China, mainly in the n ...

, held in Torere in August 2018, found locals were opposed to a national Māori Battalion Museum being established at Waitangi to commemorate local men who served or died during World War II.

Marae

Tōrere has a

marae A ' (in New Zealand Māori, Cook Islands Māori, Tahitian), ' (in Tongan), ' (in Marquesan) or ' (in Samoan) is a communal or sacred place that serves religious and social purposes in Polynesian societies. In all these languages, the term a ...

. It includes the Holy Trinity Memorial Church, a 1950s church decorated with carved pillars,

tukutuku Tukutuku panelling is a distinctive art form of the Māori people of New Zealand, a traditional latticework used to decorate meeting houses (wharenui). Other names are tuitui and arapaki. Tukutuku flank the posts around the edge of the wharenui ...

panels and stained-glass windows. Its

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

Roll of Honour includes the names of almost 40 local men who served in the

Māori Battalion The 28th (Māori) Battalion, more commonly known as the Māori Battalion, was an infantry battalion of the New Zealand Army that served during the Second World War. It formed following pressure on the Labour government from some Māori Memb ...

, including eight killed in action.

Education

Te Kura o Torere is a co-educational Māori immersion primary school, with a roll of as of It was established on 27 February 1878 with as a Māori school with fifteen pupils. It functioned as a post office, telephone exchange and birth, death and marriage registry during the early 19th century. It became a general school in 1969, and became a Māori immersion school in 2001. The school features a carved gateway.

References

{{Ōpōtiki District Ōpōtiki District Populated places in the Bay of Plenty Region