An Old New Zealander; or, Te Rauparaha, the Napoleon of the South.

This force, to the number of 120, was led by Te Ahu-karamu, a chief who afterwards became a prominent and progressive leader of the Maori people on the west coast.

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Called by the early European settlers "Jackeytown."

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Kerei te Panau was at this time a lad of about ten years of age, and probably owes the fact that he lived to be about ninety-four years of age to this flight across the river in the canoes.

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Atua – a god.

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This migration is known to the Ngati-Raukawa tribe as the Heke Whirinui, owing to the fact that the whiri, or plaited collars of their mats, were made very large for the journey.

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For this purpose, he and Te Heuheu returned to Taupo, some of the party passing across the Manawatu block, so as to strike the Rangitikei River inland, whilst the others travelled along the beach to the mouth of that river, intending to join the inland party some distance up. The inland party rested at Rangataua, where a female relative of Te Heuheu, famed for her extreme beauty, died of wounds inflicted upon her during the journey by a stray band of Ngati-Apa. A great tangi was held over her remains, and Te Heuheu caused her head to be preserved, he himself calcining her brains and strewing the ashes over the ground, which he declared to be for ever tapu. His people were joined by the party from the beach road at the junction of the Waituna with the Rangitikei, where the chief was presented with three Ngati-Apa prisoners. These were immediately sacrificed, and then the whole party resumed the journey to Taupo. Amongst the special events which occurred on the march was the capture of a Ngati-Apa woman and two children on the south side of the Rangitikei River. The unfortunate children were sacrificed during the performance of some solemn religious rite, and the woman, though in the first instance saved by Te Heuheu, who wished to keep her as a slave, was killed and eaten by Tangaru, one of the Ngati-Raukawa leaders. Shortly after this, Te Whiro, one of the greatest of the Ngati-Apa chiefs, with two women, were taken prisoners, and the former was put to death with great ceremony and cruelty, as utu for the loss of some of Te Heuheu's people who had been killed by Ngati-Apa long before, but the women were saved (Travers).

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The native trade consisted of dressed flax and various kinds of fresh provisions, including potatoes, which, prior to the advent of the Ngati-Toa tribe, had not been planted on the west coast of the North Island.

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The words which Te Pehi is reported to have used were "Go Europe, see King Georgi." Dr. John Savage in his Account of New Zealand, refers to the apparent preference which the natives had for the word Europe over that of England. He says of a native whom he took to London with him, from the Bay of Islands: "I never could make Mayhanger pronounce the word England, therefore I was content to allow him to make use of Europe instead, which he pronounced without difficulty." Possibly Te Pehi experienced the same difficulty of pronunciation.

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The Maori became popular in the Urania, and at Monte Video plunged into the sea and rescued the drowning captain, who had fallen overboard (Rusden).

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Captain Reynolds was allowed a sum of £200 by the British Government as compensation for the trouble and expense to which he had been put by his enforced alliance with Te Pehi (see N.Z. Historical Records). The account of the chief's visit to England will be found in the volume of The Library of Entertaining Knowledge for 1830.

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One of the migrations which took place about this time consisted of 140 Ngati-Raukawa men under the leadership of Nepia Taratoa. It is known in history as the Heke Kariritahi, from the fact that those warriors who were armed with muskets had hit upon the shrewd plan of enlarging the touch-holes of their guns, in order to save the time which otherwise would be occupied in priming. They were thus able to keep up a much more rapid fire upon the enemy. Te Whatanui came down with this heke, to consult further with Te Rauparaha, but finding him absent from Kapiti, he returned to Taupo to prepare for the migration of his own people.

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During the hearing by the Native Land Court in 1869 of the dispute which arose between the Ngati-Raukawa and Ngati-Apa tribes as to the right to sell the Rangitikei-Manawatu block of land to the Provincial Government of Wellington, Chief Judge Fenton remarked to Mr. Travers, who was appearing for Ngati-Raukawa, "The fact is, Mr. Travers, it appears to me that the flaw in your clients' title is that they did not kill and eat all these people."

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At times there were many whalers there – as many as a hundred – of various nations. Here they stayed while whales came near the coast: but when these ceased to come near the coast, the whalers went out on the ocean, and the ships which were full of oil went each to its own land, and Rauparaha went back to his people and home at Kapiti (Ngati-Toa account).

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Toheriri was prominent in the conspiracy of 1822 in connection with the gift of canoes. After that event, he, with his particular hapu, went to the Wairarapa for two years, and then returned to Papaitonga, where he was killed on this occasion, it is said, with great barbarity.

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To the ancient Maori greenstone was invaluable as a material out of which to manufacture weapons and ornaments; but after the introduction of fire-arms the mere was superseded by the musket, and it is doubtful if, when the trinkets of the European were available, the native would take the trouble to laboriously work out an ornament from so hard a substance.

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A shark's tooth fixed upon a stick and used as a knife.

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This could scarcely have been otherwise, for Rerewaka's insolent speech amounted to a kanga, or curse, which, according to the Maori code, could only be atoned for by the shedding of blood.

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The canoe used by Te Rauparaha on many of these southern raids was called Ahu-a-Turanga, and for this reason it is supposed that it came from the Manawatu, that being the name of an ancient track over the Ruahine Ranges near the Manawatu gorge. It is said that this canoe is now lying rotting at Porirua Harbour. Another famous canoe of this period was called Te-Ra-makiri, a vessel captured from the Ngati-Kahu-ngunu at Castle Point by Ngati-Tama, and presented by them to Te Rauparaha. This canoe was held to be exceedingly sacred, and now lies at Mana Island.

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"Having reached at sunset to within a mile of the spot where the Pelorus anchored, we again encamped on a shingly beach in a bay on the east side of the Sound. At this spot there were some ten or fifteen acres of level ground, on which we were shown the remains of a large pa, once the headquarters of the tribe conquered and almost exterminated by Te Rauparaha" (Wakefield).

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It was to this policy of settlement, following upon conquest, that Marlborough owes the presence of the little cluster of northern natives who are settled on the banks of the Wairau River – the most southern outpost that now remains to mark the aggression of Te Rauparaha.

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Hori Kingi Te Anaua, a chief well-known in after years as the firm friend of the Whanganui settlers, escaped from this defeat, as one quaint native account puts it, "by dint of his power to run."

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Some difficulty has been experienced in closely tracing the movements of Te Pehi. He left England on board H.M.S. Thames in October, 1825, and the Thames reached Sydney on April 11, 1826. Whether she came on to New Zealand bringing the chief with her, I have not ascertained. The probabilities are that she did, for the late Judge Mackay, who is an excellent authority, says Te Pehi returned direct to New Zealand, but afterwards made the voyage back to Sydney to procure arms, from which place he returned in 1829, at the juncture referred to in the text.

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Here we meet with one of the many discrepancies in the published histories of the time. The Rev. Canon Stack makes it appear in his Kaiapohia that Rerewaka was killed during the battle, but Mr. Travers (Life and Times of Te Rauparaha) states that he was taken prisoner; and this version is sustained by Tamihana te Rauparaha in his published account of his father's life, wherein he says Rerewaka was taken to Kapiti to be "tamed."

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Canon Stack would seem to imply that Kaikoura and Omihi were one and the same place; but from a petition presented to the House of Representatives in 1869 by the Ngai-Tahu tribe, it seems clear that they were separate places, and that their destruction took place at different times. Omihi is about 15 miles south of Kaikoura, near the Conway River, but the battle took place on the hills near the valley which leads down to the Waipara.

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Some accounts make it appear that Kekerengu was killed by a wandering band of Ngai-Tahu after he landed on the Middle Island, and that, although he had greatly offended Te Rangihaeata by his impropriety, it was really to avenge his death and not to punish him that this raid was made upon Kaikoura and Omihi. But these are variations in tradition that we can scarcely hope to reconcile at this date.

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