1889: Te Kooti- Sainted Old Santa?

March 4, 2020

By AHNZ

Today in New Zealand history, 4 March, 1889, Te Kooti was released from Mt Eden Jail to make his return to the Waikato.

The old Maori ‘terrorist’ has lately caused a crisis on the threshold of Poverty Bay (Gisborne.) Some of his followers clearly wanted him back to the place of his birth but many more remembered better that this was also the place of his massacre. It had become a difficult legal question: Did the old chief have the right to lead his large cavalcade in to town?

Premier Harry Atkinson determined not and shipped the old man to Auckland, to the jail. Thanks to non-Maori sympathisers paying the £1500 bond, Te Kooti is out 2 days later. Lawyers for both sides bat the matter back and forth as to Te Kooti’s right to visit.

Before leaving, Te Kooti dons the blue ribbon of Temperance for the Ladies’ Union. Promises to abstain from the drink which, according to all accounts I can find was the lubricant of this adventure. Why a blue ribbon?

The Blue Ribbon movement came out of the USA, spreading to we British outposts by the end of the 1870s*. They were utilising the Bible’s book of Numbers which bid followers fringe their garments with ‘ribband of blue’ to remember God’s Commandments.

My opinion is these do-gooder women were arrogantly trying to tame an original Bad Boy. A taste of danger and rebellion by patronising a make-believe sainted old Santa when really Te Kooti was a stone cold killer and wily public political figure. There’s a certain magnetism about charismatic men like Te Kooti that makes particular women do silly things and abandon their judgement. This will happen again in New Zealand in the future and be very damaging. The last time around was Ahmed Zaoui in the 2000s. I think the current wave of Feminists are ripe for a similar Zaou/Obama/Te Kooti figure to pop up and rampage through a bit more of our social fabric.

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See also: 1889: Te Kooti’s Homecoming; AHNZ

See also: 1866: Te Kooti sent to Chatham Islands; AHNZ

Image ref. Zaoui 2009; stuff.co.nz

* Ref. Wiki
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_ribbon_badge

Image ref. Blue Ribbon; heinzhistorycenter.org

Image ref. Te Kooti sketch; AHNZ

Image ref. Mt Eden jail, wiki

Image ref. Extracted from William Bloomfield comic, Observer; Papers Past

Update 2021: It turned out to be….Behrouz Boochani.

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