He had arrived in New Zealand when colonial troops were engaged in war with Te Kooti, who went into battle under his own distinctive flag. It had three symbols that some claim were meant to signify stars. Bracken's national anthem asks God to "guard Pacific’s triple star", and some historians have reasoned that refers to Te Kooti's flag and is his oblique support for Māori. It has also been suggested that "Pacific’s triple star" simply means the three main islands of New Zealand – Northern, Middle and Stewart as they were referred to at that time. Bracken never explained what he meant, so there is no definitive clarification today. (There have been suggestions that Bracken was referring to Alpha Centauri, the very bright triple star in the Milky Way, visible only in the Southern Hemisphere. That is impossible because Proxima Centauri, the third star in Alpha Centauri, was not discovered until 1915, some 39 years after Bracken wrote his anthem.)