The forgotten prophet and the Taranaki iconoclasm — Part of Friends of the Turnbull Public Programme

Name: The forgotten prophet and the Taranaki iconoclasm — Part of Friends of the Turnbull Public Programme
Start: 2025-11-11T07:30:00+13:00
End: 2025-11-11T08:30:00+13:00
Location: Corner Molesworth and Aitken Streets, Thorndon, Wellington, New Zealand 6011

Schedule

Tue Nov 11 2025 at 07:30 am to 08:30 am

UTC+13:00

Location

Corner Molesworth and Aitken Streets, Thorndon, Wellington, New Zealand 6011 | Wellington, WG

The Taranaki iconoclasm was a major political event that involved many Māori leaders from the region. In this talk, Jeffrey Sissons will revisit material from his book, ‘The Forgotten Prophet: Tāmati Te Ito and His Kaingārara Movement’.
Join us at the Library or online. Register for a Zoom link: https://dia-nz.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_rIsWduErQL-Qy3k-k-5P2Q#/

A fresh look at the Taranaki iconoclasm
In this talk, Jeffrey Sissons will revisit material from his 2023 book, The Forgotten Prophet: Tāmati Te Ito and His Kaingārara Movement. He’ll sketch a new trajectory for the Taranaki iconoclasm, which took place from the late 1830s to the 1850s. It was an event of enormous political significance as Māori leaders discarded tapu objects associated with atua from their land.
The Forgotten Prophet: Tāmati Te Ito and His Kaingārara Movement
The destruction of tapu objects
Most whakapakoko (Māori ‘godsticks’) were hidden or destroyed at the time of Christian conversion in the late 1830s and early 1840s. It now appears that this constituted the first phase of the Taranaki iconoclasm. Later phases included the desecration of sacred sites (1851–1853), the unearthing and reburial of sacred mauri stones (1853–1856), and the destruction of taonga in large bonfires (1857).
The prophet Tāmati Te Ito played a key role in these later actions. He continued what had begun with the arrival of Christianity.
A Friends of the Turnbull Library event
The Friends of the Turnbull Library, Ngā Hoa o te Whare Pukapuka Turnbull, offers a monthly programme of free public talks. These talks are held at the National Library in Wellington and on Zoom. Some of these talks will be repeated in Auckland. The public programme highlights the work of researchers who draw on Turnbull material for their projects and staff who care for and research the collections.
About the speaker
Jeffrey Sissons is an anthropologist and writer who recently retired as an Associate Professor in the Cultural Anthropology Programme at Te Herenga Waka/Victoria University of Wellington. His extensive research encompasses colonialism, Māori tribal history, and Christian conversion within Polynesia and Māori society. He is the author of six books, most recently The Polynesian Iconoclasm: Religious Revolution and the Seasonality of Power (Berghahn) and The Forgotten Prophet: Tāmati Te Ito and His Kaingārara Movement (Bridget Williams Books).