Pei Te Hurinui Jones

Who is Pei Te Hurinui Jones?

Pei Te Hurinui Jones was a New Zealand Ngati Maniapoto leader, interpreter, land officer, writer, translator and genealogist. He wrote the first history of the Tainui people. He gather the information for many years with the help of his friend Leslie Kelly. In 1940, when Jones was suffering from cancer and expected to die, Kelly took the material to a publisher and had it printed under his own name as "Tainui" but Jones had an operation and lived to an old age. Both Pei, his older brother Mick and Kelly were at one time close associates of Te Puea of Turangawaewae. Pei was one of the Kingitanga actively involved in getting compensation for the confiscation of land in 1863 after the defeat of the Kingite rebellion. Of Māori descent, he identified with the Ngati Maniapoto iwi. He was born in Harataunga, Thames/Coromandel, New Zealand on 9 September 1898. Pei had very limited formal education and was largely self-taught. The famous Waikato Kingitanga leader, Te Puea, referred to Pei and his brother Mick as "those bloody Hurai",as their father, Daniel Lewis, was Jewish. Pei was a strong National Party advocate. He considered himself senior in his genealogical ties to Te Puea with whom he worked. He was awarded an honorary degree by Waikato University in 1968 to recognize his major contribution to Waikato Tainui literature and development.