Encircled Lands: Te Urewera, 1820–1921
Judith Binney
Bridget Williams Books
RRP: $79.99
ISBN 978-1-877242-44-1 160 x 185 mm
hardback 680 pages approx 200 full colour illustrations (photographs, paintings, maps)

For Europeans during the nineteenth century, the Urewera was a remote and savagely enticing wilderness; for Tūhoe (and others) who lived there, it was a sheltering heartland. This history documents the first hundred years of Te Rohe Pōtae o Te Urewera – the encircled lands of the Urewera – following European contact.
The terrain was criss-crossed by early missionaries, many French Roman Catholic, and from 1866 by the ‘booted feet’ of government troops. In 1866–67 large areas were taken by confiscation or forced cession from the northern and southern boundaries of Tūhoe’s land. At the end of the fighting in 1872, by the agreed terms of peace, the Urewera became an autonomous district, collectively governed by its own leaders, who named themselves Te Whitu Tekau (The Seventy).

These are men who stand tall in any history of Aotearoa New Zealand – among them, Te Whenuanui I, Erueti Tamaikoha, Kereru Te Pukenui and Te Makarini Tamarau (Tamarau Waiari) – although they are little recognised. The borders of their lands were further circumscribed during the 1880s and early 1890s, yet these leaders worked together to negotiate Te Rohe Pōtae o Te Urewera as a separate tribal district, formally ratified in 1896. This agreement is unique, for it was the only legally recognised tribal enclave in Aotearoa New Zealand. In 1896, the Premier, Richard Seddon, acknowledged that this recognition was made in fulfilment of earlier promises exchanged with Tūhoe’s leaders.
But in 1921–22 the ‘Urewera District Native Reserve’ created in 1896 was abolished in law. Its existence, its history, and even the very name Te Rohe Pōtae for the Urewera became almost totally forgotten – except in local memory. The governance of Te Whitu Tekau was steadily undermined, and Urewera lands progressively alienated from their original owners by the Crown.
Encircled Lands recovers this lost history from a wealth of contemporary archived documents, many written by the Urewera leaders themselves, and over 150 early photographs, along withoral sources and original maps. It explains how the idea of internalself-government for Tūhoe was born – and for a period partly realised. It provides the historical context of an idea that has come again to the negotiating table: Tūhoe’s never-ending quest for a constitutional agreement that restores their authority in their lands.
Judith Binney, DNZM, is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Auckland. She is the author of several prize-winning books including Redemption Songs: A Life of Te Kooti Arikirangi Te Turuki, which won the Montana Book of the Year, 1996. This work followed her earlier writing on the people of Te Urewera – Mihaia: The Prophet Rua Kenana and his Community at Maungapohatu (with Gillian Chaplin and Craig Wallace) and Nga Morehu/The Survivors: The Life Histories of Eight Maori Women (with Gillian Chaplin).

A large and enormously impressive peice of scholarship. A superb piece of publishing too which publisher Bridget Williams regards as "one of the most remarkable books" she has ever published. And when you look at the extensive fine body of work that she has published over the past 33 years that is high praise indeed. My congratulations to the author and the publisher, I share some of the delight the Tuhoe people must be experiencing with the book's publication.

About the author:
A Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Judith Binney was for many years editor of the New Zealand Journal of History. She was given the Prime Minister’s Lifetime Literary Achievement Award for Non Fiction in 2006. In 2009, she received the Polynesian Society’s Elsdon Best Medal. In 2006, she was awarded DCNZM (later DNZM) for her historical research.
Encircled Lands: Te Urewera, 1820–1921 draws on the two-part report she was commissioned by the Crown Forestry Rental Trustto write for the Waitangi Tribunal.

Footnote:
It is reported this morning that author Dame Judith Binney, who suffered serious injuries when hit by a truck in Auckland city last Friday, is now in a stable condition in hospital.
Good news. The Bookman joins with many other admirers in wishing her a complete and speedy recovery.