Te Hau Kainga: The Maori Home Front During the Second World War

Taking readers to the farms and factories, the marae and churches where Maori lived, worked and raised their families, Te Hau Kainga tells the story of the profound transformation in Maori life during the Second World War. While the Maori Battalion fought overseas, the Maori War Effort Organisation and its tribal committees engaged Maori men and women throughout Aotearoa in the home guard, the women's auxiliary forces, and national agricultural and industrial production. Maori mobilisation was an exercise of rangatiratanga and it changed how Maori engaged with the state. And, as Maori men and women took up new roles, the war was to become a watershed event for Maori society that set the stage for post-war urbanisation. From ammunition factories to kumara fields, from Te Puea Herangi to Te Paipera Tapu, Te Hau Kainga provides the first substantial account of how hapori Maori were shaped by the wartime experience at home. It is a story of sacrifice and remarkable resilience among whanau, hapu and iwi Maori.

Author: Lachy Paterson, Sarah Christie, Angela Wanhalla
Publisher: Auckland University Press
Published: 04/07/2025
Pages: 296
Binding Type: Hardcover
ISBN: 9781869409999

About the Author
Lachy Paterson is emeritus professor at Te Tumu, Otakou Whakaihu Waka, where he taught te reo Maori and Maori history. He researches Maori history, especially relating to newspapers and other texts in Maori, and the relationship between Maori and the government in the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century. Sarah Christie was a postdoctoral fellow in the History Programme at Otakou Whakaihu Waka, where she completed her doctorate on the social and cultural histories of women in the workforce in New Zealand. She is currently a researcher at the Ngai Tahu Archive, Christchurch. Angela Wanhalla (Ngai Tahu, Ngai Te Ruahikihiki, Pakeha) is a professor in the History Programme, Otakou Whakaihu Waka. Her primary research area is Maori women's history. Her most recent book is Of Love and War: Pacific Brides of World War II (University of Nebraska Press, 2023). Erica Newman (Ngapuhi) is a senior lecturer at Te Tumu: School of Maori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies at Otakou Whakaihu Waka. She researches adoption, whangai, kinship and identity (internationally and nationally) with a focus on Indigenous perspectives, and has published on transracial adoption in New Zealand. Erica was awarded a Marsden Fund Fast-Start grant to explore the intergenerational impact of the 1955 Adoption Act and to journey with descendants of Maori adoptees who are searching for their turangawaewae. Ross Webb has a PhD from Victoria University of Wellington and is a historian with an interest in organised labour and oral history. He is principal researcher analyst in the Research Team at the Waitangi Tribunal Unit, and is working on a book, ' In Defence of Living Standards: The Federation of Labour, Politics, and Economic Crisis, 1975- 1987' .