HISTORY UNBUTTONED
When Rangi Topeora’s lover, William Mayhew, an American whaler based on Kāpiti Island in the 1840s, abandoned her to return home, she marked his departure with a waiata that included “for beautiful are the clothes of the whiteman”.
Topeora’s lament is recorded in the opening pages of the richly detailed Dressed: Fashionable dress in Aotearoa New Zealand 1840 to 1910, by the senior curator of New Zealand culture and history at Te Papa, Claire Regnault.
Yes, Topeora – describes her only as Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Raukawa, a signatory of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1840, and “d.1865-73” – was sad to see her man sail away. But
