Hēni Te Kiri Karamū: A True Wahine Toa

Ngāti Uenukukōpako, Ngāti Hinepare

Hēni Te Kiri Karamū was a Te Arawa woman of mana, a teacher, pioneer, warrior and interpreter. She lived a life outside the expected roles of women of her time.

Her story begins in Kaitaia where her mother, Maraea, had been taken as a child by Hongi Hika after the capture of Mokoia Island in 1823. An Irish sea-captain, Thomas William Kelly, is named as her father on her death certificate.

Hēni belonged to Ngāti Hinepare and Ngāti Uenukukōpako of Te Arawa. She was descended from Ngātoroirangi of the Arawa waka.

Also known as Hēni Pore (Jane Foley), or Jane Russell, Hēni was educated at the notable mission school of Thomas and Anne Chapman at Te Ngae, Rotorua. By the end of her schooling, she was fluent in Māori, English and French, and went on to work as an assistant teacher and governess.

Around the age of 15, in 1855, Hēni married Te Kiri Karamū of Ngāti Rangiteaorere, Te Arawa, and lived at Katikati with him where they had five children.

The 1860s were a time of huge upheaval, with war breaking out in the Waikato in 1863. Hēni took the side of the Kīngitanga (Māori King movement) and emerged from this period as a warrior woman, at times living deep in the forest, secretly, with her followers. They ended up at the village of Wiremu Tāmihana Tarapīpipi near Matamata, where the King’s followers were gathering.

In 1864, Hēni joined the King’s forces at Te Tiki-o-Te-Ihingārangi Pā at Maungatautari. After the fall of Ōrakau, on 2 April, she accompanied a force of Ngāi Te Rangi to Tauranga. This was where the incident that she is most famous for took place.

The battle of Pukehinahina (also known as Gate Pā) took place on 29 April 1864. Although other women had left the pā before the battle, Hēni was allowed to stay and fight because she was thought to be a wahine toa (woman warrior).

When the British troops were repelled, their wounded, left behind in the pā, were treated with kindness by the defenders. This was in accordance with a code of conduct drawn up before the battle by Rāwiri Puhirake and Hēnare Taratoa, a former mission teacher.

Hēni Te Kiri Karamū gave water to Colonel H. J. P. Booth and several other wounded men (some records name Hēnare Taratoa with this act of kindness). After the battle, Hēni went to live on Mokoia Island and, in 1865-1866, fought for the government against the Pai Mārire movement at Rotoiti. She also fought with Major William Gilbert Mair against the Hauhau at Matatā and Te Teko.

Hēni married Denis Stephen Foley at Maketū, in 1869, but he was a violent man, so she separated from him in 1870. She spent her last years in Rotorua where she worked as a licensed interpreter and was active in the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, becoming secretary of the Māori Mission in Rotorua.

She lived to see five generations of her descendants and died on 24 June 1933.

This story comes from the original Great Te Arawa Stories website created by Ngā Pūmanawa e Waru (NPeW) Education Trust in 2018. To ensure consistency, minimal updates were made to the text before it was transferred to this new site.