The Tauri whānau has located the unmarked grave of their ancestor, Sergeant Major Whetu Tauri, at Waikumete Cemetery in Auckland.
Sergeant Major Tauri served with the Māori Contingent at Gallipoli during the First World War. Family research and military archives show that after returning home, he faced severe socio-economic hardships and a lack of support experienced by many Indigenous veterans of that era.
The journey of Sergeant Major Whetu Tauri
Born around 1894, Whetu Tauri grew up with deep connections to Pūtiki through his father, Hoani Tauri, and attended Te Aute College in Hawke’s Bay.
Before the war, he built a solid foundation before enlisting in the First Māori Contingent as service number 16/386. He trained at Avondale Racecourse alongside his relative William Hoani Tauri (16/516) and rose to the rank of Sergeant in A Company.
He sailed on the HMNZT Warrimoo to Egypt and Malta before heading to Gallipoli, where he fought on the front lines at Ari Burnu and Chunuk Bair.
After falling ill, he was evacuated on the hospital ship Maheno in September 1915 and later served as a Sergeant Major Instructor in Gisborne. However, the realities of post-war life hit him hard. Stripped of the support systems owed to returning Indigenous veterans, his life took a difficult turn during the 1920s, culminating in a prison sentence at Mt Eden, where he passed away in 1921 at just 26 years old, leaving him to rest in an unmarked grave at Waikumete Cemetery until now.
Honoring their koroua’s legacy
The breakthrough came when the whānau searched his records on the Museum database, uncovering the trail that led them to Waikumete Cemetery.
Guided by the archives and a sexton who walked out with them to the exact spot, they found where he had been laid to rest in a public burial area. Standing at the site, they realized he was buried among other forgotten souls in a communal plot.
For his mokopuna, Tamati McLeod, and the wider family, it was a heavy moment to see their koroua laid in a patch of grass with nothing to mark where he rests.
“This was a sad burden to take on,” Tāmati reflected.
“It showed me that there was an ancestor there in my life who was never treated like the war hero he was deserving of; he was never respected the way he was supposed to be, and somewhere a tree might be growing straight through his coffin, and I didn’t want that for any of my family members.”
Digging deeper into their ancestors’ timeline, the whānau realised that upon returning from war, many of their ancestors were injured and the system failed to cater to them properly.
“They came back to a New Zealand that didn’t know how to accept them, and a lot of them fell into theft,” Tamati notes.
Feeling that he was never given the recognition of a true war hero, the family is determined to change that, and this mission is deeply personal for Tamati.
“Whetu Tauri was a young man who reminded me a lot about my father, to be quite honest,” Tāmati shares.
“He was ambitious, cheeky, funny, and wanting to travel”
The whānau are planning an unveiling by the end of the year and to return one of the few surviving images of him home to Pūtiki.
“I’d like to think he would be super surprised about this,” Tāmati said. “He didn’t seem like an outrageous person who always wanted to be seen, but I think he would appreciate it for sure.”
