Pei Te Hurinui Jones

Pei Te Hurinui Jones (9 September 1898 – 7 May 1976) was a Māori political leader, writer, genealogist, and historian. As a leader of the Tainui tribal confederation and of the Māori King Movement, he participated in negotiations with the New Zealand Government, seeking compensation for land seizures, served on several boards, and authored a number of works in Māori and English, including the first history of the Tainui people.

Early life Jones's mother was Pare Te Kōrae of the Ngāti Maniapoto tribe. His father, David Lewis, was a Pākehā storekeeper of Jewish descent at Poro-o-Tarāo, Lewis went to the Second Boer War and did not return to New Zealand afterwards. Pare Te Kōrae remarried to David Jones, of Ngā Puhi, and both sons adopted their step-father's surname.

Pei, along with his brother Michael Rotohiko, and Leslie George Kelly, was involved in the Kingitanga, as an advisor to Te Puea of Turangawaewae, Te Puea referred to the Jones brothers as "those bloody Hurai" ('Jews'), as their father was Jewish.

In 1928, the Sim Native Land Confiscation commission recommended that Tainui should be compensated for the land confiscations that followed the invasion of the Waikato in 1863. This initiated a long series of negotiations, in which Jones served as a representative of the Kingitanga, culminating in the Waikato-Maniapoto Maori Claims Settlement Act 1946. Jones served as first chairman of the Tainui Maori Trust Board, established by the act to receive and administer funds received from the New Zealand government. and . although a newspaper report said he was "Unofficial Labour" in 1943.

In the 1961 Queen's Birthday Honours, Jones was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, for services to the Māori people.

Writings Jones wrote extensively in Māori and English. He wrote the first Māori translations of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar, and Othello, as well as Edward FitzGerald's Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. He also published numerous pamphlets regarding the foundations of specific marae.

He was awarded an honorary degree by Waikato University in 1968 to recognise his major contribution to Waikato Tainui literature and development. Jones's 1945 translation of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice was filmed in 2002, and released as The Maori Merchant of Venice. In 2025 King Pōtatau was recognised as one the 180 most significant works of Māori-authored non-fiction.

Personal life Jones met his first partner, Hepina Te Miha Teri of Ngāti Tūwharetoa, around 1916 and married her in hospital in Hāwera on 16 October 1943 while he was suffering from cancer. They adopted three children. Hepina died in December 1957 at Whakarewa on Māhia Peninsula. He married for a second time to Kate Huia Apatari in Palmerston North on 6 January 1958.

Jones died at Taumarunui on 7 May 1976 and is buried at Te Tōkanga-nui-a-noho marae in Te Kūiti next to his foster father, Te Hurinui Te Wano.

Works