Rongowhakaata Halbert

Rongowhakaata "Rongo" Pere Halbert (2 February 1894 – 11 April 1973) was a New Zealand tribal leader, interpreter, historian, genealogist. He was born on 2 February 1894 in Waerenga-a-Hika, Gisborne.

Halbert was the son of Hetekia Te Kani Pere (or Halbert), and a grandson of Wi Pere. He attended Nelson College from 1911 to 1914, where he was a prefect and played for the school's 1st XV rugby and 1st XI cricket teams. He was used as a cultural expert for John Hikawera Mitchell's (1871–1945) Takitimu (1944), a record of the migration of the Ngati Kahungunu, and he was a correspondent of Āpirana Ngata.

He was on the Takitimu Maori Council from 1928 to at least 1946. He was secretary of the Waihirere Maori Land Blocks Incorporation, and was chair of the Mangatu Incorporation from 1943 to 1949. He was on the Maori Purposes Fund Board from 1950 to 1968.

He had devoted his life to writing a definitive history of Horouta called Horouta: The History of the Horouta Canoe, Gisborne and East Coast. It was published posthumously in 1999 by Reed Publishing and is considered a classic of tribal history.

Halbert died at Lavington Private Hospital in Epsom, Auckland, and was buried in Gisborne.

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