Māori Memorial Pou Maumahara - Pohutokawa

More than 2.200 Maori fought in the First World War, out of a population of just 50.000. Most served with the Māori Contingent that fought at Gallipoli in 1915 and then in France and Belgium with the New Zealand Pioneer Battalion, which in 1917 was renamed the New Zealand Māori (Pioneer) Battalion. Pioneers were military labourers who dug trenches, built roads and railways, and performed other logistical tasks on the battlefield. This essential and dangerous work was often carried out under enemy fire. More than 330 Māori died during the war.

Many other Māori supported the war effort in New Zealand through food production, fundraising and patriotic efforts. But men from some of the Iwi (tribes) that had suffered most from New Zealand’s 19th century internal wars and land confiscations refused to serve a government and Empire that had wronged their people – even after conscription was controversially applied to their districts in 1918.

The Māori Pioneers were the only New Zealand Expeditionary Force battalion to return to New Zealand as a complete unit, and their arrival home in April 1919 was a major ceremonial occasion.

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Source

• Text: Luc Van Waeyenberge
• Photos: Luc Van Waeyenberge
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