Who was Louis Hetet, the man who gave generations of King Country Ngati Maniapoto Maori their

surname? We are all agreed that we know very little about the man himself, other than a rich oral collection of family anecdotes and what has been written about him in numerous New Zealand publications including the governments online encyclopedia Te Ara, which says: "Louis Hetet was a French settler who married a Maniapoto woman. He first visited New Zealand around 1835 on a whaling ship, and returned in 1842 to settle at Paripari (near Te Kiti). He married Te Rangituatahi, daughter of the influential Maniapoto chief, Taonui Hkaka. They had four children: George Ngtai, John Taonui, Henry Matengaro, and Mere Te Wai."

Te Aras information may be based on James Cowan, Settlers and Pioneers (1940). Craig, South of the Aukati Line (1962), describes Louis Hetet as a Huguenot, as other scholars do, following him, such as Tony Ballantyne and Brian Moloughney in: Disputed Histories; Imagining New Zealands Pasts (2006) and more recently Judith Binney in: Stories Without End: Essays 1975 2010 (2010). In contrast,Trevor Bentley (1999) describes him more accurately as The Ngati Maniapoto Pakeha Maori. From here onwards of course the Hetet family tree is history, thanks to the admirable work of Te Muri Turner who has painstakingly retraced the diverse family connections of all of those who had their roots in the union of Mata Rangituatahi with the pakeha Louis Hetet. Louis Hetet's own roots however have remained in the dark until recently