5/26/2018 Who Was Louis Hetet

1/2

Who was Louis Hetet, the man who gave generations of King Country Ngati Maniapoto Maori their

surname? We are all agreed that we know very little about the man himself, other than a rich oral

collection of family anecdotes and what has been written about him in numerous New Zealand

publications including the governments online encyclopedia Te Ara, which says: "Louis Hetet was a

French settler who married a Maniapoto woman. He first visited New Zealand around 1835 on a

whaling ship, and returned in 1842 to settle at Paripari (near Te Kiti). He married Te Rangituatahi,

daughter of the influential Maniapoto chief, Taonui Hkaka. They had four children: George Ngtai,

John Taonui, Henry Matengaro, and Mere Te Wai."

Te Aras information may be based on James Cowan, Settlers and Pioneers (1940). Craig, South of

the Aukati Line (1962), describes Louis Hetet as a Huguenot, as other scholars do, following him,

such as Tony Ballantyne and Brian Moloughney in: Disputed Histories; Imagining New Zealands

Pasts (2006) and more recently Judith Binney in: Stories Without End: Essays 19752010 (2010). In

contrast,Trevor Bentley (1999) describes him more accurately as The Ngati Maniapoto Pakeha

Maori.

From here onwards of course the Hetet family tree is history, thanks to the admirable work of Te

Muri Turner who has painstakingly retraced the diverse family connections of all of those who had

their roots in the union of Mata Rangituatahi with the pakeha Louis Hetet. Louis Hetet's own roots

however have remained in the dark until recently

5/26/2018 Who Was Louis Hetet

2/2