He tohu, he tohu, he tohu,
He honore he kororia,
He tohu, he tohu. He tohu,
He tohu o taku maramatanga
x 2

He tohu, he tohu, he tohu,
He honore he kororia …

A token, a symbol, an emblem
of honour and glory
A token, a symbol, an emblem
A symbol of my enlightenment

I hope my translation and comments are helpfu..My thanks to those whose improvements and corrections have made these kupu more accurate. [email protected]

A people gains security and happiness through both religious and political unity, and after World War One, when Maori were at risk of extinction, W.T.Ratana led them as a mangai, or prophet (a mouthpiece of the Holy Spirit during a particular era) to achieve both religious and political unity.

Traditionally, Māori society was based around tribal affiliations, but Kotahitanga were political/military and/or religious movements to unify Māori on a larger, non-tribal basis, to counter the power of British colonists.

In 1834 a group of chiefs, mainly from the north of the North Island, signed a Declaration of Independence, declaring an independent state.

In 1840 a large number of chiefs signed the Treaty of Waitangi that made Queen Victoria the head of state in New Zealand, and giving Maori the same rights as colonists.

In 1858 many chiefs came together to select a king, in order to protect Māori land. The government saw this Kīngitanga  as a threat to their desire for more 1st-class farmland, and invaded the Waikato. King Tāwhiao and his followers were exiled into the Taumarunui/Te Kuiti region, now known as the King Country.

In 1862 the prophet Te Ua Haumēne (The Rain Windman) founded Pai Mārire (Goodness & Peace) to stop land-grabbing in Taranaki by uniting Maori through corrected Christianity.

In the 1870s Te Kooti called for tribes to unite against land-grabbing on the East Coast, eventually forming the Ringatū (Raised Hand) religion to do so.

In 1867, Te Ua Haumēne's nephew Te Whiti had founded a peaceful open community at Parihaka with the utopian dream of a new social order for Maori and Pakeha based on respect, equity, peace and harmony. Crooked government politicians saw this pacifist centre as a threat, and in 1881 militia moved in, and totally ignoring the 1840 treaty giving equal rights to Maori, they razed the township and locked up the leaders without trial.

In the 1890s, a Kotahitanga Parliament met in the Wairarapa, but after a final meeting in 1902, it faded out.

In the 1890s and 1900s, many Maori villages had become slums ravaged by epidemics of measles, typhoid, scarlet fever, smallpox, diptheria and influenza. The frightened superstitious people were preyed upon by charlatan "tohunga" whom they paid to remove the evil "atua kikokiko" spirits that the tricksters claimed were the cause of these diseases.

With our Maori population reduced to about 40,000, the final straw was in the spring of 1918, when an influenza epidemic killed another 1600 to 2000, many of them young adults.

After the 1860s land wars, the destruction of Parihaka, and the devastation caused by the epidemics, Tahupōtiki Wiremu Rātana brought together the dispirited morehu (2), the dispossessed remnants of many Māori tribes, by inspiring and unifying them with his religious and political leadership.

He reminded Maori of the hoped-for better times that several Maori prophets had spoken of, relating to the Bible and the promises of the Treaty of Waitangi. He was an important catalyst for revival of Maori spirit and Maori mana, and for the healing of this nation’s divisions.

In the 1920s and 30s, he gave hope and a vision for the future to Maori. After he spent a time of retreat near a Mt Taranaki waterfall, he discovered how to heal people of their physical, mental and spiritual ills. This made him the most successful faith healer this country has ever seen. He countered the influence of the 'tohunga' con-men by showing people how to utilise the power of the Holy Spirit within themselves. He collected up all the taiaha, god-sticks and pounamu stage-props used by various charlatans, and he symbolically locked them in a strong-room at Ratana marae.

There is very little public information about Rātana and the movement he founded, and many who called themselves morehu did not have a strong understanding of their own history, nor of T.W. Rātana’s role in New Zealand and Maori history. Consequently their focus has been on Rātana’s more arcane teachings rather than on the simplicity of his Gospel message.

So in this song, the House of Shem have re-focused listeners' attention on TW's central Gospel message of good news.