TEOTI TAUWHARE
Teoti Hori Tauwhare (also known as George) is my great great grandfather and was born in Kāwhia in 1837. The following was extracted from the Tauwhare Reunion booklet. The Māori Queen at the time, Dame Te Atairangikaahu attended the Tauwhare reunion (held at Arahura) to acknowledge the Tauwhare connection to the Kīngitanga (the King movement).
Extract from page 15 of the Tauwhare Reunion book (attended by the Māori Queen, Dame Te Atairangikaahu).
"The whare wānanga was opened in 1989, an opening notable for the attendance of the Māori Queen, Dame Te Atairangikaahu, who happened to be on the West Coast at the time attending a Tauwhare family reunion in Hokitika".
From: https://ngaitahu.iwi.nz/opportunities-and-resources-publications/te-karaka-arahura-dreaming/
In the book Poutini: The Ngāi Tahu History of the West Coast (by Paul Madgwick), it says that Teoti Tauwhare "travelled around Te Waipounamu [the South Island] as a missionary". Madgwick says that "Since Tauwhare was already an evangelist, he helped out at St Paul's [see the photograph below], though he was not licensed by Bishop Harper [the Anglican Bishop of Christchurch] as a lay reader until 1887. " Previously, from the stories I have been told, Teoti Tauwhare was originally a Methodist lay minister at Kāwhia.
Teoti Tauwhare had a son, Piripi Hori Tauwhare (my great grandfather). Paul Madgwick wrote that Piripi Tauwhare's mother, Te Riaki, "was one of the largest owners in the reserve through her late father and chief, Tarapuhi". Tarapuhi was the chief of the entire West Coast of the South Island. Hence, it makes sense that my great grandfather Piripi Hori Tauwhare was appointed to the first Ngāi Tahu Trust Board.
My cousin, Lisa Tumahai (nee Tauwhare), was Chair of the Ngāi Tahu Trust Board (now known as Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu) from 2016 to 2023. Ngāi Tahu is one of the largest iwi (tribal entities) in New Zealand and has significant economic and cultural influence.
A grandson of Teoti Hori Tauwhare and son of Piripi Hori Tauwhare, the Reverend Peter Tauwhare would follow in the footsteps of his grandfather and become an Anglican minister. Reverend Peter Tauwhare is my father's first cousin.
My father's first cousin, the late Reverend Peter Tauwhare, presiding at the Eucharist.
