A Ngāti Toa Leader and Tohunga
Born at Kāwhia during the late eighteenth century, Nohorua was a senior Ngāti Toa rangatira, paramount tohunga, and the elder half-brother of Te Rauparaha.1 As a tohunga, he held supreme authority over sacred rituals, genealogical lore, and spiritual governance, guiding tribal decisions through periods of immense transformation.2 During the 1820s, he helped lead the grand Ngāti Toa migrations southwards from Kāwhia to the Cook Strait region, establishing strategic strongholds across Kapiti Island, the Marlborough Sounds, and Port Underwood.3
Nohorua established major residences at Te Awaiti in Tory Channel and around the shores of Port Underwood, where he exercised high customary authority over land and maritime trade.4 Colonial whalers and traders frequently referred to him as Tom Street, seeking his spiritual protection and political sanction to establish shore whaling stations.5 His immediate family included his wife, Te Wainokenoke, and his son, Tuarau, alongside his daughter, Irihāpeti, also recorded as Te Ua Torikiriki.6
During the 1840 visit of colonial artist George French Angas, Nohorua was portrayed in a detailed watercolour alongside his wife and young son.7 The subsequent lithograph by W. Hawkins captured Nohorua wearing traditional garments and carrying symbols of chiefship, preserving an important visual record of Ngāti Toa leadership during the early European contact era.8
The Treaty at Port Underwood
On 17 June 1840, Major Thomas Bunbury formally proclaimed British sovereignty over the South Island at Horahora-kākahu Island in Port Underwood, an event marked by a twenty-one gun salute aboard HMS Herald.9 Two days later, on 19 June 1840, Anglican missionary Henry Williams arrived aboard the schooner Ariel to negotiate Te Tiriti o Waitangi with South Island rangatira.10
Recognising that signing the document carried far-reaching constitutional implications, Nohorua engaged in lengthy debates regarding the protection of customary land rights.11 He expressed deep hesitation that European settlement might eventually displace his people from their ancestral territories.12 To secure a binding guarantee, Nohorua stipulated that his English son-in-law, whaler Joseph Thoms, who had married his daughter Irihāpeti, must also sign the Treaty document.13
Nohorua believed that binding an English relative to the parchment under colonial law would safeguard his whānau against future land confiscation or fraudulent sales.14 Once Joseph Thoms added his signature, Nohorua affixed his mark to the Cook Strait Sheet, joining fellow Ngāti Toa leaders Kanae and Kaikōura.15 The historic parchment sheet is preserved today in the Constitution Room at He Tohu within Archives New Zealand in Wellington.16
Later Years and Enduring Lineage
Nohorua continued living in the Marlborough Sounds throughout the 1840s, observing the steady growth of European settlement, pastoral farming, and commercial shipping across Cook Strait.17 He remained a respected elder figure, guiding Ngāti Toa through early colonial land inquiries and negotiations before passing away in the mid-1840s.18
Following his death, Nohorua's descendants maintained an unbroken physical and cultural presence across Te Tau Ihu.19 Through his daughter Te Ua Torikiriki and her descendants in the Te Kotua whānau, his lineage actively sustained ahi kā across Marlborough and Nelson into the twenty-first century.20 Today, his signature at Port Underwood endures as a cornerstone of Marlborough's regional history, marking a foundational moment of treaty engagement between South Island rangatira and the British Crown.21