TUAI: A Traveller in Two Worlds with Alison Jones   

This is a story about the Māori discovery of England. These voyages between worlds represented risk and opportunity: Tuai chose opportunity, and the rest is history.
Mānuka Henare, Associate Professor, University of Auckland

Alison Jones, co-author of Tuai: A Traveller in Two Worlds (with Kuni Kaa Jenkins) will do a presentation of exhibits plus a Korero at Kororareka Marae this Matariki.

On his epic journey to England, Tuai (of Ngare Raumati, younger brother of Korokoro, nephew of Kaipo), would visit exotic foreign ports, mix with teeming crowds in the huge metropolis of London, and witness the marvels of industrialisation at the Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire. With his lively travelling companion Tītere, he would attend fashionable gatherings and sit for his portrait. He shared his deep understanding of Māori language and culture. And his missionary friends did their best to convert him to Christianity. But on returning to his Māori world in 1819, Tuai found there were difficult choices to be made. His plan to integrate new European knowledge and relationships into his Ngare Raumati community was to be challenged by the rapidly shifting politics of the Bay of Islands.

He lived at Kahuwera Pā and died in the Bay of Islands in 1824.

Alison, a pākeha from Auckland, is a professor at Te Puna Wānanga, School of Māori Indigenous Education at the University of Auckland.