Angata

Angata
Angata during the Mana Expedition, 1914
Born	c. 1853 Easter Island
Died	December 1914 Hanga Roa, Easter Island
Known for	Angata's rebellion
Spouse(s)	Daniel Manu Heu Roroa Pakomīo Māʻori Ure Kino

Angata, full name María Angata Veri Tahi ʻa Pengo Hare Koho (c. 1853 – December 1914) was a Roman Catholic Rapa Nui religious leader from Easter Island during the late 19th and early 20th century. After experiencing a prophetic vision in which God instructed her to retake the land and livestock, she led an unsuccessful rebellion on the island against the Williamson-Balfour Company, intending to create a theocracy centered on Roman Catholicsm and Rapa Nui spiritual values.

Angata was born around 1853 into the Miru clan. Between 1864 and 1866, the French Picpus missionaries established themselves on Easter Island and converted many of the Rapa Nui people to Christianity during a period of severe population collapse caused by Peruvian slave raiding and the introduction of European diseases. In 1871, Angata and her first husband, Daniel Manu Heu Roroa, traveled to Mangareva in the Gambier Islands with Father Hippolyte Roussel. She had two children from this marriage. Her husband reportedly beat her so severely that it caused her to become permanently hunchbacked. Her cousins killed him in retaliation for the abuse. On Mangareva, she started learning the Christian scriptures by heart and was trained by Father Roussel to become a catechist or lay teacher for the new faith.

When Angata returned to Easter Island in October 1879, she worked as co-catechist and assistant to Nicolás Pakarati and Pakomīo Māʻori Ure Kino (c. 1816/1836–1908/1909), whom she had married on Mangareva. These individuals became the island's principal spiritual leaders in the absence of a resident missionary. Angata and her second husband had six children together; they supposedly inherited European Basque features from their father despite both Angata and Pakomio claiming full-blood Rapa Nui descent.

In 1892, Angata organized many of the women on the island to support her cousin Siméon Riro Kāinga (both were members of the Miru clan) for the position of ‘Ariki or King of Rapa Nui left vacant by the death of Atamu Tekena, who had ceded the island to Chile in 1888. It has been argued that he was elected mainly because of his good looks but a significant part of his success was also due Angata's strong influence with the people.