The Parihaka Cult

Parihaka is a Maori community in Taranaki, New Zealand, established during the latter part of the 19th Century as an enclave of “passive resistance” to colonial land development, based around the personality cults of Te Whiti, and his deputy and later rival, Tohu. After years of obstruction, theft and vandalism, Parihaka was occupied by colonial troops and volunteers in 1881 and its non-local inhabitants dispersed in an effort to eliminate the resistance. Te Whiti and Tohu have over the past several decades been accorded the status as precursors of Martin Luther King, Gandhi and Nelson Mandela and the colonial occupation is widely portrayed as one of the greatest injustices inflicted on the Maori. This paper offers a more critical view, and attempts to put the Parihaka phenomenon in context historically and socially.