Page 406 - Puhipi

William Gilbert Puckey (5 May 1805 - 27 March
1878), born in Penryn, England, was a prominent
missionary in Aotearoa. He accompanied his parents
to Aotearoa at the age of 14 and quickly learned the
Māori language, speaking it fluently by age 16, and
becoming widely regarded as one of the best
interpreters of Māori in the fledging mission. He was
able to form relationships of trust with many influential

Māori from a young age, and in particular, with
Nopera Panakareao, of Te Rarawa iwi at Kaitaia.

The night before the signing of te Tiriti O Waitangi at
Kaitaia, Panakareao called for Puckey and spent a
long time discussing and questioning the meaning,
translation, and significance of the term
"kawanatanga" which Henry Williams had used in the
treaty.

In Panakareo's speech to assembled chiefs, (translated by Puckey and
recorded by Richard Taylor at the time), he endorsed te Tiriti. He said he
understood the words of te Tiriti to mean that "the shadow of the land was
passing to the Queen, while the substance remained with Māori", a view he
reversed a year later in light of increasingly bitter practical experience in
subsequent dealings with Pākehā authorities. Puckey's fluency and empathy
in te reo Māori helped him establish effective relationships and
understandings with Māori in Northland.

Beginnings

Growing up in his formative years in close contact with Maori communities,
and witnessing the vicissitudes of the early Mission settlements, was highly
significant to his later development of strong and effective bonds with Māori
around the mission stations he worked in, at Kerikeri, Paihia, Waimate, and
the station he helped found and then stayed at, Kaitaia.

At Waimate North on 11 October 1831 Puckey married Matilda Davis (who
was then aged 17), second daughter of Rev. Richard Davis, thus becoming
the first European couple to be married in Aotearoa. Their first child was born
in early January 1833, but only survived for seven weeks.

Expedition to the Reinga

Puckey was the first Pākehā to travel up the Ninety Mile Beach to 'the Reinga'
which is known today as Cape Reinga. It is the departing point of spirits in the
Māori world-view, and that he was allowed to go there says something about
the relationship he had been able to form with local Māori. In December
1834, not long after his arrival and settlement in Kaitaia, he travelled in the