This is the seal of the Ringatū Church founded by Te Kooti. Devised by the secretary of the church, Robert Biddle, in 1926, it shows upraised hands (ringa tū). Around the centre is written, ‘Te Ture a te Atua me te Whakapono o Ihu’ (the law of God and the truth of Jesus). ‘Wharekauri 67’ refers to the beginning of the faith on Chatham Island (Wharekauri is the Māori name for the island) in 1867. ‘Wainui 26’ refers to land at Te Wainui, Ōhiwa Harbour, gifted to Ringatū Church trustees in 1926. The eagle is a reference to Deuteronomy 32:11–12 in the Bible:
‘As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him’.
William Greenwood, ‘The upraised hand or the spiritual significance of the rise of the Ringatu faith’, Journal of the Polynesian Society, vol. 51, no. 1, 1942, pp. 1–80
