Matua Tupuna Heta Te Haara

Chief of Ngati Rangi

In August 1872, Heta Te Haara wrote to Sir Donald McLean asking to be granted a liquor licence to open a hotel at Ōhaeawai. He explains Ōhaeawai is between Hokianga and the Bay of Islands and that important Pākehā frequent the area. He states he will send plans for the establishment if his request is approved.

Heta Te Haara was a prominent figure at Kaikohe and Waimate in Northland and one of the last Ngāpuhi chiefs to sign the Treaty of Waitangi. He was the chairman of the Ngāpuhi Kotahitanga movement formed in Kaikohe in 15 April 1891 for the purpose of unifying Ngāpuhi, Te Rarawa, Ngāti Whatua and Te Aupouri. This movement was effectively the first effort to make a Māori Parliament. Te Haara lived at Ōhaeawai in Northland and was involved with the building of churches in Ōhaeawai and Mangākahia and the renovation of a temple at Waimate.

On 20 June 1902, Eru Tahere of Kaikohe visited the Lindauer Art Gallery in Auckland, and left this comment in the Māori Visitors' Book:

Ka nui taku whakapai i taku kitenga i ēnei tāngata, i a Heta arā i a rātou katoa.

I am very pleased to have seen these people, Heta and all the others.

This portrait of Te Haara was exhibited at the St. Louis World's Fair in April 1904.5 The painted is dated 1896 and is annotated as painting No. 4 in Gottfried Lindauer's notebook headed 'for Mr Partridge'.

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH18940414.2.68
New Zealand Herald 14 April 1894
Death and burial of Heta te Haara