May 24, 2024
Tūpuna honoured with street name correction
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A descendant of Te Atiawa chief Hōniana Te Puni says a street name correction in Wellington’s Aro Valley gives proper respect to one of the city’s founders of the city.
Epuni St will now be known as Hōniana Te Puni St.
Morris Love says his tupuna was born in Taranaki before 1800
In the 1820s he traded trading muka flax in Australia for muskets before making the hekenga to Wellington area in the 1830s amid ongoing wars with Waikato iwi.
He settled around Petone where he died in 1870.
Mr Love says Te Puni had a close relationship with the New Zealand Company and its principal agent William Wakefield during the settling of Te Whanganui a Tara.
In 1839, Hōniana Te Puni and fellow Te Atiawa chief Te Wharepōuri, signed an agreement to sell land in the present-day Wellington city to the New Zealand Company, with a tenth of the land to be set apart for Māori.