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Maui Wiremu Piti Naera Pomare was one of the generation of Maori leaders educated at Te Aute College in the 1890s who were to assume positions of leadership in both the Maori and Pakeha worlds. His birthplace was Pahau pa, Onaera, near Urenui, Taranaki. According to a school register he was born on 24 August 1875, but his death certificate gives the date 13 January 1876. His mother, Mere Hautonga Nicoll (also known as Mary Nichols) of Ngati Toa, was the daughter of Kahe Te Rau-o-te-rangi, one of the few women to sign the Treaty of Waitangi. His father, Wiremu Naera Pomare, was of Ngati Mutunga, and had connections with Te Ati Awa. He was the adopted nephew of Wiremu Piti Pomare, who in the 1820s migrated with other Taranaki leaders to join Te Rauparaha at Kapiti Island. Wiremu Piti was given the land around Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington Harbour), but quarrels with Ngati Toa led to his taking the dissatisfied Ngati Mutunga and Ngati Tama to the Chatham Islands in 1835. Maui Pomare's father thus found himself with land interests in Taranaki, the Chathams and Wellington.
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