Identity
Title
Forenames
Hemi AWMM
Surname
Maaka AWMM
Ingoa
Also known as
Rihari Watson AWMM
Service number
WWI 19562 AWMM
Gender
Iwi
Hapū
Waka
Rohe
Religion
Church of England
Public - Lorraine M - Researcher - 9 April 2016 - Military Record
Service
Capture details
Days interned
Liberation date
Liberation Repatriation
POW liberation details
POW serial number
Roll of Honour
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Hemi Maaka

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Hemi Maaka is my grandfather. My father is Wati Heemi Maaka aka Wati James.
My journey started when I realised that my father was a Maaka not James. I said to my mother why didn't dad put me under Maaka instead of James. She said why. I said James not our name. She said that is his name. Yes his second name not his last name.
It is nice to have this information for my children. I have always felt lost to my whanau on this side of my whanau. Now I see it all here so excited.
Public - Eunice - Direct descendant - 12 August 2017
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My father is Maaka Heemi - his father is Maaka Heemi - His father was Wati James - I believe Hemi Maaka was Wati's father.
To know that our whanau name is not Heemi but actually Maaka was a revelation
My father told me when I was a young girl that when my grandfather first joined the army and went to serve in Korea and I think Vietnam - He changed his name - from Hemi Maaka to Maaka Heemi - He added an extra 'E' to Hemi to make it different - and I heard they had a habit of using their first names and swapping it around to be their last name so its always an interesting story when people ask me Heemi...are you from the bay? and I reply well actually I'm not a real Heemi...I'm a Maaka from Ahipara. That always seems to raise a few eyebrows as I explain it to them.
Public - Sammie - Direct descendant - 17 February 2017
Sources
External links
Documents
- New Zealand Army Expeditionary Force. (1918). Nominal Rolls of New Zealand Expeditionary Force Volume III. Wellington, N.Z.: Govt. Printer. AWMM
67: 41 AWMM - Soutar, M. (2019). Whitiki! Whiti! Whiti! E!: Maori In the First World War. New Zealand: David Bateman Ltd. AWMM
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