NORTHLAND
KŌANGA • SPRING 2021
Church listing celebrates Māori heritage
St Mary's Church, Mamaranui.
With a whakapapa connecting it to the very beginnings of Christianity’s arrival in Aotearoa New Zealand, St Mary’s Church (List No. 9663)at Mamaranui has now been listed as a Category 2 historic place. WRITER: John O’Hare
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IMAGE: Alexandra Foster
uilt in the late 1890s, St Mary’s was dedicated in March 1900, “But the whakapapa of the building and the community it serves connect back to the earliest days of Christianity in New Zealand,” says our Heritage Assessment Advisor, Alexandra Foster. Prominent iwi and hapū with links to Ngāti Whatua, Ngāpuhi and Te Rorora settled in the Kaihū Valley, establishing a number KŌANGA • SPRING 2021
of papakāinga by the 1870s. One of these families was Netana Patuawa, with his wife Tarati Puru and their children. Netana had relocated to the valley from the Bay of Islands. “Netana Patuawa brought Christianity to the area some years earlier when he travelled with Henry Williams of the Church Missionary Society – one of the earliest Anglican missionaries in New
Zealand. Netana was later ordained,” says Alexandra. The community pledged to build a church after the Government committed to building a school, and the first Anglican church was built on Māori land south of Te Taita marae, opening in 1875. However, its first life-time was brief. Increasing Crown and Pākehā pressure on land acquisition resulted in a road and Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga Quarterly
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