THE DEFEAT OF the Kingite tribes and the settlement of the confiscated lands with large bodies of drilled men assured peace, albeit a sullen one, in the Waikato, but Cameron's successful campaign, 1863–64, by no means secured the general pacification of the Maoris. While British cannon were battering to dust the last defences of the Kingite warriors, a new and infinitely more desperate and formidable plan of campaign was formulating itself in Taranaki. Less than a week after the fall of Orakau the colony was startled by the reports of a new phase of warfare in Taranaki, accompanied by a fanatic ferocity unknown in the previous campaigns. This hardening-up of the Maori fighting-spirit in a kind of holy war imparted to the racial struggle a savagery and a bitter persistence that carried the war up to the young “seventies.” If it developed to the utmost the Maori amor patriae and the peculiar military tactics in which the natives excelled, it produced also a determination on the part of the British colonists to see the fight through in their own way. The beginning of the Hauhau campaign saw the beginning of New Zealand's policy of self-reliance in matters military. After 1865–66 the numerous campaigns and bush operations were conducted by the colonial forces; and, although there were very critical hours when it seemed as if the aid of Imperial troops would again have to be called for the heavily strained resources of the settlements met the demands, with the assistance of those native tribes which for a variety of reasons, political and otherwise—expediently accepted by the pakeha as loyalty to the Queen—decided to throw the weight of their arms against the Hauhaus. It was in fact only the help of these loyalist or Kupapa tribes, under the leadership of colonial officers, that turned the scale and brought lasting peace to the old frontier.

The confiscation of land, the territory of the so-called rebels, was a prime factor in the renewal of the war. The Native Land Settlement Act, framed by the Whitaker-Fox Ministry, and passed by the Legislature in 1863, entrusted enormous powers of confiscation to a Government which ignored the just protests of such men as Sir William Martin and Bishop Selwyn. Arbitrary appropriation of the land which for centuries had been the property of large tribes—appropriation without adequate consideration for the rights of non-resisters and for the innocent children of the native belligerents—was inevitably a source of bitter and undying hatred. The confiscation of huge areas of Waikato and Taranaki territory enabled the Government to reward its forces with land-grants, but the crude and unjust manner of the seizure, the unconcealed wish of many colonists and even some politicians for a war of extermination of the Maori, went to give strong colour to the native belief that the white man's desire for land was the all-controlling factor. Some thoughtful people perceived the great tactical danger of a confiscation policy, quite apart from any question of ethics. It would stiffen the martial fibre of the race; it would debase a chivalrous kind of warfare into guerrilla campaigns of utter savagery. The Waitara seizure was ever in the Maori mind. The injustice done to Ngati-Awa by that act of spoliation had never been atoned for. The politicians and officials persisted in regarding the Maoris as rebels because they had rightfully defended their home-land. A more reasonable, more just view was that taken by a writer in an English magazine (the “Cornhill”) in 1865. “The Maori revolt,” he declared, “is the more excusable that it is instinctive. The chiefs probably cannot prevent it. They cannot check their intense attachment to their land—their ‘mother’ as the Maori calls it—which belongs to races that have not yet become commercial.”

Early Governments imperfectly appreciated the peculiar depth and strength of the Maori's regard for his ancestral land; they could not understand why a race should fight to the death for a country which for the most part lay in a waste condition. Patience, conciliation, and an honest endeavour to understand the native point of view and to remove mutual misunderstandings were counselled by a few, but in truth the interests operating for strong-handed action were all-powerful. The wrong perpetrated at the Waitara should have been righted generously, but nothing was done, apart from the grudging renunciation of the purchase, to compensate Wiremu Kingi te Rangitaake for the wholly illegal acts which had sent him into an unwilling rebellion. The Taranaki and Ngati-Ruanui Tribes who had come to Ngati-Awa's assistance were punished for their rebellion by measures of potential confiscation which affected more or less the whole West Coast from Waitotara to the White Cliffs. It is true that provision and promises were made for the restoration of land to those who had not rebelled, but these promises were not properly kept. Military settlers were placed on the territory of some hapus that had remained peaceful, and of such complications hostility was the inevitable fruit. Both races were strong and stubborn, and the Maori blood was prone to fire up into savagery at threatened intrusion. The Maori, too, had come to realize that now or never was the time to assert himself to the utmost, and throw off a rule whose character and effects he had not realized to the full when he accepted the British overlordship in 1840. To-day the two races are so indissolubly blended in social intercourse, in national ideals, in a common pride of country, that they can afford to look back without passion on the conflict of race interests in the “sixties,” finding but a pathetic lesson in the spectacle of the two headstrong, independent peoples of our earlier cruder years challenging each other to a death struggle for the prize of the land—in a bounteous country where there was room for twenty times their number. The intense devotion with which the Maori held to his land is difficult, perhaps, for the present generation to realize. Only when one discusses the subject with a native of the olden time, a venerable man or woman who has fought the pakeha and marched chanting around the sacred niu mast, is the power of this land-love made manifest.

The land—always the land, from the days of Wakefield onward—that was the putake o te riri, the grand root of all trouble. But when the white fire of a fanatic religion fused the people in a federation of hate against the pakeha all problems merged into one, that of race-mastery. So, when Pai-marire captured the impressionable and essentially religious Maori nature it spread like a fire in dry fern, and we find tribes who had no grievance whatever against the white man united in casting off semi-civilization, and throwing themselves into the battle for Maori independence.

The Pai-marire or Hauhau religious cult, which welded so many tribes in a bond of passionate hate against the pakeha, was partly a reaction from the teachings of the Christian missionaries, and partly a recrudescence of the long-discredited but unextinguished influence of the Maori tohunga or priest. It was a blend of the ancient faith in spells and incantations and magic ceremonies with smatterings of English knowledge and English phrases and perverted fragments of church services. Ridiculous as they were when analysed, the sum of the teachings had a most powerful effect upon the impressionable Maori. Pai-marire appeared just at the hour when the hostile tribes, embittered by heavy losses in men and property, were in a mood to welcome a new battle-cry and new hope of turning the tide of war against the pakeha. By its appeal to the imagination and the strong religious sentiment of the Maori it took the place of the missionary faith which the people had once embraced with fervour, but stronger still was the appeal which it made to their love of country and kin. It supplied the necessary links of a common aspiration between tribe and tribe, and this chain was the stronger because it was forged in the heat of a great religious revival. That this revival was in the nature of a return to barbarism and superstition did not lessen its irresistible call to the Maori; it was all the more welcome because it enabled him to throw off the last restraints of the now unpopular churches. The old tohunga Maori, schooled in the ancient religion, were the first to accept Pai-marire; they were astute enough to recognize that by adopting it they would secure the ancient ascendancy of their class over the people which the Rongo-Pai had impaired though not destroyed. These priests became so many Mad Mullahs advocating the doctrine of fire and tomahawk so strangely at variance with the title of the religion. No Mohammedan leader preaching a jehad against the infidels was more fiercely passionate in his denunciation of the aliens than were the chief apostles of Hauhauism; and no fighting race was ever more receptive to the gospel of a crusade than the tribes from coast to coast of the Island when Kereopa brandished the smoke-dried head of a slain white soldier before his excited congregations and initiated them in the ceremonies of the niu. The old fanatic fire has burned to ashes, but the haunting, heart-stirring chants remain; and many there remain, too, of the disciples who marched round the sacred mast painted red for war, intoning the song of Te Ua; for Pai-marire, with its variations of Tariao and Wairua-Tapu, endured long after the war. Even to-day the Ringa-tu or Wairua-Tapu ritual, the offshoot of Pai-marire, is a regularly established Church, numbering several thousands of adherents, and the sign and token of this Maori sect to-day is the magic gesture of Te Ua to turn aside the pakeha's bullets, the sign of the upraised hand, the ringa-tu, palm outwards, on a level with the head, as if in the act of warding off the enemy's projectiles. So persists the fanatic sign of old, long after the fiery faith that inspired it has gone.

The Pai-marire faith had its origin in the half-crazed brain of a Maori of the Taranaki Tribe named Te Ua Haumene, whose home was near Cape Egmont. He had taken a Scriptual name, Zerubbabel (maorified into Horopapera). He had imbibed the teachings of the missionaries, and was a close student of the Bible, particularly of the Book of Revelations. The ecstatic visions of the Dreamer he interpreted in his own peculiar fashion. Strange visions appeared to him in the semi-delirium of his night seances with the spirits. Curious stories are related by the Maoris of the first coming to Te Ua of the anahera, or angels, from

NEARLY FIFTY MILES up the Wanganui a low shingly island, roughly diamond-shaped and about half a mile in length, lies in the course of the strong river, with rapids above and below and on either side. The upper part of this island—the only one in the Wanganui—is composed of bare shingle and boulders; the lower half is covered with manuka and fern, with a few trees. This is Moutoa (“Isle of Heroes”), a famous battle-ground of the river tribes. Many a combat to the death has taken place on the desert island, set in the midst of the rapids, and the most celebrated of all was also the last, the battle of the 14th May, 1864, when the Lower Wanganui tribes routed a picked war-party of the up-river Hauhaus, killed fifty of them, and saved Wanganui Town from invasion. Moutoa lies about half a mile above the large native village of Ranana, and two and a half miles below the settlement Hiruharama (Jerusalem). A short distance above the island, on the right bank, is the pretty little village of Tawhitinui, with its abundant groves of fruit-trees. Here an old native war-track comes in from Weraroa, on the Waitotara River. This village was the rendezvous of the Hauhaus before the battle which decided the political destinies of the Wanganui tribes.

Soon after the surprise and slaughter of the British party under Captain Lloyd at Te Ahuahu, Te Ua and his chief adherents in Taranaki determined to send the heads of the slain soldiers (perfectly preserved from decay by the ancient process of drying with heat and smoke) from tribe to tribe throughout the Island, and the Upper Wanganui people were the first selected for the proselytizing process. Matene Rangi-tauira, who came from the Upper Wanganui, was dispatched with a party to the Waitotara and Pipiriki, carrying Lloyd's head. He found the natives of Pipiriki and neighbouring settlements ready and willing to embrace the Pai-marire faith; they were very bitter over the losses their tribes had sustained at Katikara, Tataraimaka, in the previous year, when the casualties in the storming of the entrenchments by the British force were nearly all Wanganui men. The kinsmen of the fallen warriors received Matene and his trophy with savage enthusiasm. A niu mast was erected under the prophet's directions on the marae in the large village of Pipiriki; it stood on the west or proper right bank of the Wanganui, opposite the site of the present hotel and township, which was then a cultivation ground known as Te Kapua, with the flour-mill on the Kaukore Stream. The spot where the pole of worship stood was on a terrace at the landing-place a little below the Rangiahua Hill, the beautiful wooded headland (opposite the steamer-wharf) which is a blaze of kowhai flowers in the spring of the year.

Mr. Booth, who was the Resident Magistrate and Government Agent at Pipiriki, and his brother and family were the only Europeans living in the district. They had a very narrow escape from death in the dangerously changed temper of the people, but were at last permitted to leave in a canoe, leaving all their property behind, and reached Wanganui safely. Living under Mr. Booth's guardianship was a little half-caste boy about eight years of age, the son of a British military officer and a chieftainess of the Atiawa Tribe of Taranaki; the mother was dead, and the father had returned to England, entrusting the boy to Mr. Booth for education. Booth endeavoured to take this lad away with him, but the Hauhaus would not permit it, and kept him with them; and he retains to this day a very vivid memory of the thrilling scenes that followed his guardian's departure.

This eye-witness, Mr. H. D. Bates, is a resident of Wanganui. He is the son of Colonel H. Stretton Bates (65th Regiment), who died in England in 1918. Colonel Bates was a subaltern in New Zealand before and during the first Taranaki War, and acquired a good knowledge of the Maori language. He was at one time A.D.C. to Sir George Grey, and in Taranaki and Waikato he was staff interpreter to General Cameron. His wife, a rangatira woman of Te Atiawa, closely related to Te Whiti, died when the little son was three years old. She was a granddaughter of the chief Matangi, who was the first to sign the deed of sale of the site of Wellington City to the New Zealand Company in 1839; her father was Manihera Matangi, of Ngauranga, Wellington, a fine-looking well-tattooed chief, who was a great favourite with the pioneer colonists. Colonel Bates was a clever artist in water-colours, and some of his drawings of warscenes, lent by his son, are reproduced in Volume I of this History.

It was through the help of the Governor, Sir George Grey, that young Bates was recovered from the Hauhaus on the Waitotara and restored to his guardian, Mr. Booth, at Wanganui.

The white soldier's head (it is known now that it was Captain Lloyd's) was passed round from hand to hand in the Pai-marire ceremonies at the foot of the niu. It is described as that of a fair-whiskered man with shaven chin, in the fashion of those days. The head had been thoroughly dried in the mokomokai or paki-paki-upoko process. Its bearer, the prophet Matene, was a tall man with long hair and a flowing black beard. He led the people in their newly learned chantings, and round and round the sacred mast the half-crazed devotees marched. In their procession they came closer and closer to the niu, until many of them embraced it, one after another, and revolved about it, whirling round and round until they sank at its foot in a fit of giddiness and religious mania. The white man's head was passed from hand to hand among the frenzied worshippers, and there were some extraordinary scenes of fanatic fury. Some of the people, particularly those who had lost relatives in the Taranaki War, gnawed the dried flesh in their demonstrations of hatred and revenge. One, a handsome young woman, who had been brought up in Mr. Booth's family and who had been regarded as a quiet, gentle girl, was so overcome by the new madness that she snatched the pakeha's head from her neighbour at the niu and bit the flesh of the neck with horrible savagery. The people, indeed, were transformed by Matene's teachings; the appeal to the feelings of revenge swept them along irresistibly, and made them easy instruments in the prophet's unauthorized plan of campaign.

The adherents of Pai-marire, incited by Matene and other leaders, determined upon a bold attack on Wanganui Town, and a flotilla of war-canoes was prepared. Each waka-taua was decorated with carved figurehead and streaming plumes after the ancient fashion. A message was sent to the Ngati-Hau Tribe at Hiruharama asking them to join in the attack on the whites. Ngati-Hau were otherwise inclined, and immediately summoned the down-river tribes to their assistance against the Hauhaus.

The people of Hiruharama and other Ngati-Hau villages removed down the river in a body to Ranana, below Moutoa Island. Matene and his Pai-marire host—men, women, and children—embarked in their war-canoes and swept down the Wanganui to Tawhitinui Village, which they occupied and fortified. A message was sent to the chiefs at Ranana, saying that they intended to pass down the river to drive the Europeans into the sea. An uncompromising refusal of the right of way was returned by Haimona Hiroti, Mete Kingi, and the other leaders, not so much out of regard for the pakeha of the Town of Wanganui as for the mana of their river. Ngati-Hau, Ngati-Pamoana, and the lower-river men were resolved to resist to the utmost the insolent passage of an enemy war-party. “If you attempt to force your way down the river,” they replied to Matene, “we shall fight you on Moutoa”.

The challenge was accepted, and it was arranged through the messengers between Tawhitinui and Ranana that the issue should be fought out on the following morning, the 14th May.

Both camps were busy all the day before the fight making cartridges, moulding lead into bullets, and drying gunpowder, spread carefully on cloth, and in the evening there were hakas and war dances and fervid whai-korero or speech-making. In the Hauhau quarters the Pai-marire ceremonies and chantings were continued nearly all night, and even the children were schooled in their part for the great conflict on the morrow. The women took them in hand, and (as Mr. Booth's protégé of 1864 relates) they were instructed to give a kind of moral support to the warriors by waving their hands, open palms backward toward their shoulders, calling as they did so, “Hapa! Hapa!” (“Pass over!”), so that the bullets would fly harmlessly past their champions' heads. The children went into this new war-game with enormous zest, and there was little sleep in Tawhitinui that night.

Very early in the morning the picked warriors of the Hauhau force, numbering about a hundred and twenty, crossed over in state to the island for battle. It was little more than a push-off, but they crossed with all ceremony in their great canoes, carved, painted, and plumed for war. Grounding the canoes on the shingly beach at the upper end of the island, they leaped ashore and lined up for the war-dance, the necessary prelude to battle. The eager spectators, gathered on the green terrace at Tawhitinui, saw their warriors dance their peruperu, led off by the big blackbearded prophet, and then watched them move toward the middle of the island and enter the manuka thickets.

The loyalist or friendly Maoris had in the meantime posted a selected band of their fighters in the scrub on the island. This party had crossed from the Ranana side of the river at the break of day. It numbered a hundred. Half of the warriors crouched in the thick cover near the middle of the Island; their leader was a chief of great courage and determination, Tamehana te Aewa. The remaining fifty men, under Haimona Hiroti (of Ngati-Pamoana), another good soldier, were posted at the lower end of the island. The main body of the Lower Wanganui men, who had marched over the hill from Ranana, did not cross to the island, but remained as a reserve on the left bank of the river.

The advance-guard of the friendlies allowed the Hauhaus to come some distance in from the beach and then opened fire. The first volley, fired at close range, was too high, and none of the Hauhaus fell. Many of the Kupapas—the Government party—then were seized by sudden fears; they were doubtful whether after all the Pai-marire devotees were not invulnerable to bullets. The Hauhaus came charging on, and the Lower Wanganui men gave way before them, losing several men. Meanwhile the hundreds of spectators on either bank of the river watched with uncontrollable excitement the progress of the battle on the island

As soon as the first shots were heard all the Hauhau onlookers set to at their magic-working incantations. Seated in rows on the Tawhitinui terrace, they cried their Pai-marire spell prayers. Led by the women, the children waved imaginary bullets back over their shoulders with both hands, exclaiming as they did so, “Hapa! Hapa! Hapa!” The old women were crazy with excitement, running back and forward, reciting their high chants, and crying to the young people, “Kai kaha te hapa! Kia kaha te hapa!” (“Let your hapa be strong!”) bidding them redouble their efforts; and into it the children went as hard as they could go, throwing Kupapa bullets over their shoulders—“Hapa! Hapa! Hapa!”

Down on the smoke-hazed island the battle was turning against the firendlies. The Hauhaus, encouraged by their first success, were steadily forcing Tamehana te Aewa's party toward the lower end of Moutoa. Some were panic-stricken and were ready to abandon the fight, but the gallant Tamehana, by a desperate effort, rallied his men and stayed the Hauhau advance. After shooting two Hauhaus, one with each barrel of his tupara, he killed a third man with a spear, and another with a tomahawk. He continued his fight with another gun, killing a fifth man, when he was put out of action by a bullet which broke his leg, shattering the knee-cap. Haimona Hiroti now dashed into the battle with his supports, and, joined by Tamehana's unwounded men, charged upon the Hauhaus with irresistible force. The combat was hand to hand with tomahawk and gun-butt. The Hauhaus were driven to the beach and into the river; they had no time to think of launching their canoes. More than forty lay dead on the island; some were shot or tomahawked in the water.

The finale to this great tournament was the killing of Matene Rangi-tauira the prophet. He had received a wound, and was swimming across the river to the right bank. Haimona Hiroti, standing on the gravel beach of Moutoa, gave his whalebone club (patu-paraoa) to one of his men, Te Moro (afterwards a policeman in Wanganui), and, pointing to the shaggy black head of the struggling prophet, said, “Yonder is your fish.” Te Moro dashed into the rapid river and overtook Matene just as the prophet reached the Tawhitinui side of the river and grasped an overhanging shrub in an effort to drag himself out of the water. The Kupapa warrior, seizing him by his long hair, killed him with a smashing blow of his patu on the side of the head. Te Moro returned to the island, hauling the dead priest of Paimarire by his hair, and, dragging the body ashore where Haimona stood watching, said to his chief, “Ina to ika!” (“Here is your fish!”)

The Hauhaus lost about fifty killed, and had nearly as many of their number wounded. The Kupapa faction lost less heavily; fifteen men were killed and thirty wounded: the dead included the chiefs Kereti, Hemi Nape, and Riwai Tawhito-rangi. The brave Tamehana, who turned the tide of war against the Hauhaus, was taken down to Wanganui with the other wounded, and had one of his legs amputated. The casualties on both sides were extremely heavy in proportion to the numbers engaged. One European lost his life: this was Lay-Brother Euloge, who was a member of the Roman Catholic Mission, under Father Lampila, at Kauaeroa, a mile above Tawhitinui. He was shot while in charge of a small party of the mission Maoris who had been posted on the left bank opposite the upper end of the island.

The battle over, the downcast spectators on the marae at Tawhitinui were hurriedly joined by the morehu, the survivers of their war-party. In intense sorrow and dejection the defeated braves climbed the bank and stood there before their weeping friends, a long line of weary men. Many had suffered tomahawk-cuts and bullet-wounds, and the blood flowed down their naked chests and limbs. With heads bowed in sorrow and humiliation they stood there by the niu, which had lost its magic virtue, for its prophet lay dead on Moutoa. A little old chief, very fierce and wild, ran up and down in front of them gesticulating with his tongue-pointed taiaha, shouting himself hoarse, and heaping taunts upon them for their defeat.

SOON AFTER THE Battle of Moutoa Island and the skirmishing at Ohoutahi the military authorities determined to establish a post at Pipiriki, fifty-five miles up the Wanganui, in order to hold the river against the passage of the hostile tribes under Pehi Turea, Topine te Mamaku, and other powerful chiefs of the Upper Wanganui. Pipiriki was selected because it was a convenient line of demarcation between the Hauhau tribes and those friendly to the Europeans; it was also the point at which overland tracks from the eastern part of the Island reached the great inland waterway. For some years there had been a Church mission school at Pipiriki; there was a flour-mill driven by water-power, and there was a considerable amount of cultivation on both sides of the river. It was a kind of advanced frontier post, beyond which the chiefs of old Maoridom held undisputed rule. The upper waters of the Wanganui were an almost unknown region to the pakeha; even in the “sixties” very few except adventurous colonial travellers, missionaries, and occasional military officers had ventured up as far as the Manganui-o-te-Ao or to Taumarunui by canoe. One or two pioneer missionaries, such as the Rev. Richard Taylor, were the only men who were at all intimately acquainted with the geography of the people of this wild part of New Zealand, where the swift river, the narrow gorges, and the roadless ranges were the inhabitants' almost impregnable defences.

The force sent up the Wanganui river to Pipiriki at the end of April, 1865, consisted of Nos. 8 and 9 Companies of the Taranaki Military Settlers, under Captains T. Wilson and Pennefather, and a company of the Patea Rangers, under Lieutenant J. Hirst. Major Willoughby Brassey, N.Z. Militia, a veteran of the Indian and Afghan wars, was in command of the expedition. One of the officers of the Patea Rangers was Captain W. Newland, a young Taranaki-born soldier; he served with great distinction throughout the wars from 1860. Dr. J. B. Suther was the surgeon of the force. The expedition was despatched from New Plymouth to Wanganui, and, after being taken a short distance up the river in the steamer “Gundagai” (Captain Fairchild), marched to Parikino and there embarked in canoes for Pipiriki. The European force, numbering two hundred, was joined by a Native Contingent (Lower Wanganui men), about sixty strong. The canoe flotilla, numbering some scores of long river-craft, laden with men, baggage, and stores, paddled and poled up the swift river, the native crews inspired by the stirring chants of their captains. Major Atkinson, then Defence Minister, accompanied the expedition, and returned to Wanganui after he had seen Major Brassey established at Pipiriki.

The position taken up was on the right (west) bank of the river, close to the Pipiriki native settlement and directly opposite the terrace on which the present township and the Pipiriki Hotel stand. Three earthwork redoubts were built close to each other. The main work, No. 1 Redoubt, was built on the ridge at the bend of the Wanganui near the prominent wooded hill called Rangiahua, overlooking the river; there was a much better site, but it was a Maori wahi tapu, or burial-place, and so was not occupied. The second redoubt, Popoia, was built on a spur, a little to the north-west of Rangiahua Hill, nearly opposite the present steamer landing-place; and No. 3 Redoubt was thrown up on the south side, close to an ancient native pa called Koanga-o-Rehua, and about 500 yards from No. 1 Redoubt.

The main position was garrisoned by the Taranaki Military Settlers. The Native Contingent, under Kepa te Rangihiwinui (Captain Kemp, afterwards Major), and the Patea Rangers built the other redoubts. After some weeks the Native contingent was ordered down the river again to assist in the operations against the Weraroa pa, on the Waitotara.

The arrival of the Government force at Pipiriki and the fortification of the positions commanding the river were accepted by the Hauhaus as a challenge, and before long a formidable body of warriors nearly a thousand strong was assembled in camps on both sides of the Wanganui a short distance above the Pipiriki landing.

The Hauhaus included all the Upper Wanganui hapus as high up as Taumarunui, and many men of Ngati-Maniapoto, Ngati-Raukawa, and Ngati-Tuwharetoa. The leading chief was Pehi Turoa, the rangatira of highest rank on the Wanganui. The principal position occupied by the natives was Pukehinau pa, a commanding fortification on a hill about a quarter of a mile in rear of the terrace on which the present township stands. Another large camp was pitched on a terrace about two miles higher up the river, at a place called Ohinemutu, on the same side as the redoubts. The usual Pai-marire pole of worship was erected on each side of the river. That set up by the Pukehinau force stood near the site of the present Pipiriki Hotel. It was 60 feet or 70 feet in height, with a butt 18 inches in diameter; it was crossed with a yard like a ship's, and was firmly stayed; and from its halliards flew the Hauhau war-flags, in designs of black, red, and white.

No hostilities occurred until well on in July. Meanwhile the Upper Wanganui was lively with warrior crews paddling furiously down to reinforce the Pipiriki camps for a grand assault on the pakeha forts. Friendly natives in the village near the redoubts conveyed warnings to Major Brassey, through Lieutenant Newland (who acted as interpreter after Mr. Booth, the Resident Magistrate, had gone to Wanganui). The friendlies predicted an early assault, and the Major took additional precautions. The troops lay down at night fully accoutred, ready to turn out at an instant's call. A picket of six men had been maintained at the store-tent on the river-bank where canoes landed, but on the evening of the 18th July Major Brassey fortunately called in the picket; and this saved it, as was afterwards discovered, from a planned attack which would have annihilated it.

On the merning of the 19th July Lieutenant Chapman, of the Patea Rangers, when walking down towards the picket tent, was attacked from ambush at close quarters, but escaped to his redoubt. This was the beginning of fighting which developed into a regular siege and lasted for twelve days. The Hauhaus seized the wahi tapu, or burial-place, and opened a heavy plunging fire on the Taranaki Military Settlers' position (No. 3 Redoubt, called the “Gundagai”). The range was not more than about 30 yards. Other Hauhaus appeared on the ridge in rear of the main redoubt and commenced sniping at the troops. It was necessary to drive the Maoris off Rangiahua at all costs, and this was done by Lieutenant Clery with a party of twenty men, who gallantly stormed the position with the bayonet. Clery was slightly wounded, and two of his men were hit, but none were killed. The Hauhaus lost several shot dead as they fled from the bayonets into the low bush at the foot of the hill. The Maoris had begun to entrench themselves on the hill; these rifle-pits were completed by the captors of the position, and a small field-work was thrown up and defended until the end of the siege.

Meanwhile the position of the Rangers and Military Settlers withstood a general attack by the main body from the broken ground in the rear. The Hauhaus in strong force marched along the right bank of the river from Ohinemutu, and appeared on the side of the range about a third of a mile from Rangiahua. “We had a magnificent view of them as they advanced,” narrated Captain Newland. “It was the finest sight I ever saw. They had fuzzed out their hair in an extraordinary way; none of us had ever seen Maoris do this before. They had wooden trumpets 4 feet or 5 feet long, on which they played some of our bugle-calls.”

The greater number of this war-party halted in a gully, and Newland and the Rangers, who had a better view of their enemy than the men in the headquarters redoubt, opened fire at a range of about 200 yards. The fire was effective; the Hauhaus were in close order, and many of them fell. They abandoned their intended assault in force and scattered for cover, dragging their dead and wounded away. Some hastily dug rifle-pits on the hills; others returned the Rangers' fire under cover of the bush and manuka and the inequalities of the ground. The earthworks of the corps, however, gave good cover; the parapets were high and well loopholed. The tents were struck when the fighting began, and bundled up on top of the parapet, facing the main body of the Hauhaus, to give additional head-protection.

This frustrated rush in a body gave place to sniping and guerrilla tactics. From the 19the to the 30th July the high wooded hills about Pipiriki swarmed with Hauhau musketeers, abundantly supplied with ammunition, and from entrenched positions on the high ground they maintained a persistently heavy and annoying fire. There was little to fire at in return, except the puffs of smoke from the Hauhau guns, and orders were given to be careful of the ammunition, as the reserve supply was not large. Half a dozen of the best shots of the Rangers were told off to reply to the enemy's fire. Three of the snipers were Sergeant J. R. Rushton (now Captain), Sergeant C. MacDonald, and Private George Foreman. Firing steadily, these sharpshooters kept the Hauhaus well to their cover. Sometimes a reckless fanatic would leap on to a parapet showing on the hillside, and yell Hauhau chants and battle-cries. A prophetess, who apparently believed that her Atua Pai-marire had given her imunity from bullet-wounds, was conspicuous in front of one of the entrenchments on the high ground above the redoubts. She paraded up and down, chanting her songs, and cheering on her warriors with cries of “Riria, riria!” (“Fight on, fight on!”) Marvellously she escaped death many times. Sergeant Rushton, after an unsuccessful shot, said to his comrade Sergeant McDonald. “I was low; try her at full 400 yards.” The marksman fired, and Rushton, watching through his glasses, saw the warrior chieftainess fall. It was learned afterwards that she had been shot through the head.

The Hauhaus frequently changed their positions and dug fresh rifle-pits during the night. On the third morning after the fighting began, Newland was ordered out with twenty of his Rangers to storm some freshly dug trenches. He advanced the men by rushes, firing, and charged with fixed bayonets, under a heavy fire, from several positions; and the Hauhaus ran. The rifle-pits were filled in, and the party returned to their redoubt without loss.

By day the swarming Hauhaus kept up a continual fire from the whole face of the hills above the redoubts; the nights were unrestful with their Pai-marire chantings and their loud fighting speeches and watch-cries. They sounded bugle calls in imitation of the soldiers; some of them had learned the “Reveille,” the “Advance,” and other military calls, and played them on their tetere—the trumpets made with twisted-up green flax-leaves or hollowed-out tutu branches with mouthpieces. Similar bush bugles were used by the garrison of Weraroa pa, on the Waitotara. On both sides of the river the Hauhau gunmen were busy, opening their fire at daylight in the mornings. Some of them had good cover in the narrow gorge of the Kaukore, the small stream on which the old flour-mill stands, below the terrace opposite Rangiahua. This flour-mill, driven by the crew, had been built by the Booth brothers for the furtherance of agricultural industry among the natives; it now became the haunt of Pai-marire snipers, who gave the beleaguered force a good deal of trouble. The niu which stood on that side of the river at the cultivation ground called Te Kapua, in full view of the redoubts, was the centre of daily gatherings. Hundreds of Hauhaus, in a fury of fanatic exaltation, marched round and round the flagstaff chanting their hymns. The warriors, as they barked out their “Hau, hau!” at the end of every Pai-marire verse, brought the butts or the muzzles of their guns and rifles sharply down against the foot of the mast. When the siege was over and the Maoris were dispersed the troops found the niu-butt marked with the blows from innumerable guns delivered in this way.

Captain J. R. Rushton, of Kutarere, Ohiwa, narrates the following incident: “For several days we had been much annoyed by a Hauhau sniper, at about 350 yards from our redoubt, across the river. Just on dusk one evening Corporal David White and myself got across in a canoe unseen, and when under cover we drew him by a shot from our hidingplace. He banged at our smoke, and exposed himself, when we covered him, both firing at the same time. We could not go to look, but he never troubled us again. We made exit quick to our canoe and paddled across the Wanganui.”

Captain Rushton adds: “Our enemy Topia Turoa, the chief of the rebels, took the oath of allegiance afterwards and joined Colonel McDonnell's forces in pursuit of Te Kooti in the Bay of Plenty. I was chief scout at Opotiki at the time, and found Topia to be a very good fellow.”

THE WESTERN SIDE of the Island, from Wanganui to the White Cliffs in North Taranaki, was the spacious scene in 1865 of an indecisive campaign and a number of small expeditionary operations. Immediately after the New Year Lieut.-General Cameron took the field in the Wanganui district, under instructions to take possession of the Waitotara Block, which had been purchased by the Crown but reoccupied by the natives, and to operate against the hostile tribes from the Kai-iwi to Taranaki. The campaign was chiefly remarkable for the slowness and caution of Cameron's advance, and for the acrimonious correspondence betwen the General and Governor Grey on the conduct of operations. The West Coast tribes had concentrated their forces on the south side of the Waitotara River, and built a strong fortification on the summit of Weraroa Hill, a bold flat-topped height overlooking the river and the surrounding country for many miles. The position can be seen from the present bridge at Waitotara Township, looking up the river. Here at the large village of Perekama, on the river-side flat below, several hundreds of Hauhaus from the Wanganui to the Waitara had assembled, inspired by the presence of their prophet Te Ua Haumene; and when it became known that the General was about to open a war for the possession of the coast and for the occupation of the newly confiscated lands in Taranaki a formidable effort was made to bar his progress northward from the Kai-iwi, which was then Wanganui's frontier. The Hauhaus had carried their forays to within a few miles of Wanganui, and had lately murdered Captain James Duff Hewett, a settler who lived near the Kai-iwi, about eight miles from the town. He was the son of Lieut.-Colonel W. Hewett, of the Rifle Brigade, the last English officer who fought at Waterloo. Hewett's body was decapitated, and the head was carried about the Hauhau settlements on a pole. His heart was also cut out and taken away.

Cameron, marching from Wanganui with about two thousand Imperial troops and two field-guns, pitched his first camp (24th January, 1865) at Nukumaru, in the South Waitotara district, a short distance inland of the coastal sandhills. The position, on a practically open plain, dotted with small lakes, was fifteen miles from Wanganui; to the north-west was Weraroa pa. High toetoe reeds, with flax and tutu bushes, clothed the level land; near at hand on the right flank of the march was the bush. The camp was suddenly attacked, in daylight, by a strong force of Maoris, supported by a large body in cover. The first volley from the toetoe and flax laid low about a dozen men, and the warriors charged right into the camp with gun and tomahawk. Lieutenant Johnston, A.A.G., and fifteen men were killed and thirty-two wounded in this sharp encounter. Major Witchell and his mounted men (Military Train) charged with the sword and forced the Maoris back into cover. The native loss was rather more than the British, but the Hauhaus had the satisfaction of surprising a British camp in broad daylight, and, as the sequel proved, of giving General Cameron such a dislike to the neighbourhood of the bush that for the rest of the campaign he kept as close as possible to the sea-coast.

On the following day the West Coast native army made an even more determined attack upon the General's forces, and drove in the pickets, killing several men. There was heavy skirmishing in the open, and the Maoris fought with great determination and considerable tactical skill. Their fighting leader was Patohe, a very intelligent and bold Hauhau soldier.

Among the Hauhaus who fought at Nukumaru was the late Te Kahu-pukoro, the Ariki of the Ngati-Ruanui Tribe. Te Kahu-pukoro was then only a lad of about thirteen, but he had already fought and been wounded at Sentry Hill. (See Chapter 2.) Describing the attack on Cameron's camp, the old warrior declared that it was a pakanga pai (an excellent fight), in which the opposing armies met in the open and got to close quarters. Armed with a gun, he took part in the charge into the General's camp, and fought again on the following day. It was a more satisfactory battle than the affair at Sentry Hill in the previous year, where all the odds were against the Maori braves who attempted the assault of a walled fort.

Another Maori veteran of Nukumaru, Tu-Patea te Rongo, gave an animated description of the two days' fighting. Tu-Patea, who lives at Taumaha, is the leading chief of the Pakakohi, Tribe, of the Patea district; he fought all though the West Coast War, and in 1868–69 was one of Titokowaru's picked fighting band, the Tekau-ma-rua. He is a grey-moustached old soldier, of big athletic frame and strong features, a good type of the active fellows who kept the coast in turmoil up to the beginning of the “seventies.”

ON THE WESTERN side of the Urewera Ranges, overlooking the Kaingaroa Plain, are the fern-grown ruins of a series of Maori redoubts, the scene of a war drama, hitherto unchronicled, which probably was the most gallant deed of the friendly natives during the wars. These earthwork pas of Kupapa and Hauhau are arranged with relation to each other somewhat in the figure of the Southern Cross constellation. They stand on the verge of the high country more than 2,000 feet above sea-level, and 1,000 feet above the plains which stretch away for apparently illimitable distances north and south. The locality is some fifteen miles above Murupara, on the Rangitaiki, and can be reached only by a rough horse-track, fording the swift Rangitaiki near its junction with the Wheao, then following up the latter stream for some distance, and striking into the hills by a narrow and rather difficult trail through the tall tutu and fern. As the top of this outermost range of the Urewera rohepotae is reached, two small rounded hills are seen on either side of the track, almost within revolver-shot of each other. Each toropuke is densely covered with tutu bushes, flax, koromiko, shrubs, and fern. Only on close exploration is it discovered that these peaceful verdurous mounds are fortified. Breaking through the shrubbery and flax bushes, an oblong fort of trench and parapet is found crowning each of the hills; in some places the parapet is 5 feet or 6 feet in height, preserved from crumbling by its protective garment of vegetation. These redoubts were built and manned in 1865 by the Ngati-Manawa Tribe and the Ngati-Rangitihi section of the Arawa Tribe, who espoused the Government side against the Hauhaus and bravely barred Kereopa's passage from the Urewera Mountains to the Kaingaroa Plain and the Waikato, after his murder of the missionary Volkner and the conversion of the Urewera tribes to the rebel faith. The larger of the two is Te Tapiri; it is the hill on the north side of the track—the left as one approaches from the Rangitaiki Valley. The earthwork here is about 40 yards in length by 18 yards in width, its greater axis lying north and south, the trend of the range. The pa on the south side of the trail is Okupu. These were the little forts which blocked the way to the west, and held up Kereopa the Eye-eater and his hundreds of newly made disciples. Looking eastward to the interminable ranges and forests of the Urewera, we observe that we are on the scarp of a tableland, much dissected by gullies and creeks, and that this tableland, now fern-covered, was evidently once populated and cultivated. Clumps of native bush stand here and there, but the edge of the main forest is about three-quarters of a mile distant. Half a mile away, in the direction of the forest, about south-east, is the site of the Hauhau camp Te Huruhuru. Farther in, three-quarters of a mile east from Te Tapiri, is a round hill called Hinamoki, close to the bush. This fortified hill was the headquarters of Kereopa and his gang of fanatics and murderers, with their army of Urewera warriors. Then, turning to the north, where the crest of the range breaks into less gentle outlines, we see the steep mountain-top called Te Tuahu-a-te-Atua (“The Altar of the God”). On this height, distant three-quarters of a mile by air-line from Te Tapiri Hill—the intervening terrain is broken into gully and severely slanting hill-slope—a section of the rebels built a fort which formed the objective of a desperate night raid by the Arawa contingent.

In the late summer of 1865 Kereopa and his apostles, gathering up a large body of Whakatohea people and carrying with them the preserved head of the murdered missionary Volkner, moved inland to the territory of the Urewera. The niu, or sacred flagpole of worship and incantation, rose in the bush villages, and Kereopa and his fellow-prophets of the new and bloody faith exhorted their savage congregations, teaching them the ritual of the niu as they revolved about the sacred mast-foot, and assuring them that if they embraced the gospel of Pai-marire no Government bullet could touch them. Volkner's head was left for the time being at Tauaroa, on the open Kuhawaea Plain, at the foot of Mount Tawhiuau; it was not taken to Te Tapiri, but presently other human heads were set up on the platform at the foot of Kereopa's niu. The mountain clans were summoned, and by May Kereopa was preaching his doctrine of blood and superstition to a gathering of practically the whole of the Urewera and Ngati-Whare, assembled near Ahi-Kereru. It was the leader's intention, after spreading the principles of the new religion among the bush tribes, to cross the Kaingaroa to Waikato and convert the Kingites to his creed.

Now it was that Ngati-Manawa determined to make an effort to prevent Kereopa penetrating their territory to reach the Waikato. Te Tapiri and Heruiwi, the routes by which the Eye-eater would leave the ranges for the Kaingaroa, were Ngati-Manawa lands, and resentment at the threatened passage of the rebel through their country heightened the animosity born of a determination to join forces with other sections of the Arawa against the Hauhaus. A chief of the Ngati-Manawa had fought against the Government and suffered a wound at Orakau the previous year, but that circumstance did not prejudice the clan's adherence to the Queen. The little tribe did not number more than forty fighting-men, but its pluck and determination made it a formidable antagonist to its truculent neighbours of the mountain country. Moreover, the women took a vigorous hand, and some of them exhibited a courage in no degree inferior to that of the heroines of Orakau.

So, in May of 1865, we find the Ngati-Manawa hurriedly raising an expedition to hold the Tapiri track. The business was urgent; there was no time to collect a large war-party. About forty people of the tribe, half of whom were women and girls, gathered at a rendezvous on the Rangitaiki, and, quickly marching up to the ranges, selected a commanding hill as a site for their post. A redoubt was speedily constructed, consisting of ditch and parapet as already described, reinforced with a timber palisade. This pa they occupied, and a message was sent to the Ngati-Whare and Tuhoe at Te Whaiti informing them that neither Kereopa nor any of his followers would be permitted to cross Ngati-Manawa land to the Kaingaroa Plain. An appeal for help had already been despatched to Arama Karaka Mokonui-a-Rangi, the principal chief of the Arawa Tribe at Lake Tarawera, who in his turn sent out to rally the main body of his people; but the only assistance Ngati-Manawa received in time to be of service was a party of about thirty of the Ngati-Rangitihi from Tapahoro, at the eastern end of Tarawera. When these people arrived, the pa Te Tapiri proved too small for the united force, and therefore another redoubt was constructed on the adjacent hill Okupu. The forces were then rearranged so that some of each tribe garrisoned each pa. Te Tapiri was under the command of Rawiri Tahawai, and Okupu under Peraniko Parakiri Tahawai, both of Ngati-Manawa, and each took in a section of Ngati-Rangitihi.

The larger garrison, that of Te Tapiri, consisted of the following persons, nearly all Ngati-Manawa:—

Men: Rewi Rangiamio, Peraniko Parakiri, Rawiri Parakiri Tahawai, Horomona Rawiri, Waretini te Mutu, Poia te Ririapu, Enoka Unuhia, Te Mau-paraoa, Raharuhi, Kuratau, Heta Tamati Eru te Uru-taia, Ahuriri, Takeke, Ngahere te Wiremu, Ngaharere, Katu Poia, Ngawaka, Nga-Korowai, Rorerika, and Pani Ahuriri (younger brother of Harehare).

A PUNITIVE FORCE was despatched from Wanganui and Wellington to Opotiki early in September, 1865, to conduct operations against the murderers of Mr. Volkner. This expedition consisted of two companies of the Taranaki Military Settlers, two companies of Wanganui and Patea Rangers, a troop of the Wanganui Yeomanry Cavalry, and the Wanganui Native Contingent. There was also a company of men from Waikato under Captain George. The strength of the force was about five hundred men, and Major Brassey, the Indian veteran who had distinguished himself at Pipiriki, was in command. The transports which conveyed the expedition up the coast were the steamers “Stormbird,” “Ladybird,” and “Ahuriri.” At Hicks Bay, East Cape, on the 7th September, they were joined by H.M.S. “Brisk,” and by the small steamer “Huntress” as a tender for the landing at Opotiki. At 10 o'clock on the morning of the 8th September the fleet arrived off the Opotiki bar, and preparations were made to land the force. The Patea Rangers, about fifty strong, and Nos. 8 and 10 Companies of Military Settlers were transferred to the “Huntress.” The little steamer crossed the bar, but grounded on a sandbank, and with the ebbing of the tide she heeled over, with her decks towards the shore. Captain Levy, the coast trader who had been prominent in the episodes at Opotiki earlier in the year, had come up from Wellington with the expedition as pilot and interpreter, and he was at the wheel of the “Huntress” when she took the ground. The Hauhaus on the shore opened fire at long range, but did little damage. An over-confident Pai-marire prophet, strong in his fanatic faith, walked deliberately across the tidal flat to the edge of the channel within close range of the “Huntress,” reciting his incantations and making magic passes with his hands. The old priest took his seat on a log regardless of the heavy fire opened on him, which quickly stretched him dead. When the “Huntress's” men at last got ashore they found he had received eighteen bullets.

HAVING SUCCESSFULLY PROSELYTIZED the tribes of the Bay of Plenty, from the Rangitaiki to Opotiki, Kereopa and Patara in 1865 continued their Pai-marire mission eastward to the tribes of the Tai-Rawhiti (The Coast of the Rising Sun). Kereopa went to Turanganui (now the Gisborne district), where he made hundreds of converts among the Aitanga-a-Mahaki and Rongowhakaata Tribes. The Turanganui Plain around Bishop Williams's mission station at Waerenga-a-Hika was at the time a well-settled, peaceful Maori countryside, covered with cultivations, particularly maize, and rich in fruit-groves. A considerable trade was carried on with Auckland, and numerous schooners and cutters were loaded with produce of the native farms. Into this land of quiet and plenty the cannibal prophet carried his frenzy-exciting religion, and fanaticism, discord, and at last war ruined the long toil of missionaries. The Bishop, in the end, was compelled to abandon the Waerenga establishment to save his life, and the Pai-marire converts reverted to the practices of war and fortified themselves in trenched and palisaded strongholds.

Pata Raukatauri was to some degree a restraining factor; he opposed violence and murder, but he preached Pai-marire throughout the East Cape settlements, and many hundreds of the numerous Ngati-Porou Tribe from Hicks Bay to Waiapu became disciples of the new faith. Hone Pohe was one of the principal advocates of Pai-marire in the Waiapu district, as Pita Tamaturi, of the Aitanga-a-Mahaki, was in Poverty Bay.

One day in the beginning of June, 1865, a large gathering of Ngati-Porou untouched by the Taranaki fanaticism was engaged in the ceremonial opening of a new church at Popoti, near the base of Hikurangi Mountain, when the native minister, Mohi Turei, announced that he had just received a message informing him that a body of Hauhaus had arrived at Pukemaire, in the lower part of the Waiapu Valley. It was at once resolved to make war upon the disturbers of the tribal peace, and an armed party of forty men, chiefly of the Aowera sub-tribe, was selected to march against them. The leaders of the war-party were Makoare Tuatai, Henare Nihoniho, Hika-rukutai, Wiremu Kingi Kuhukuhu, and a very downright and determined man named Ropata Wahawaha, who presently made a great name for himself as a skilful, resolute, and withal ruthless soldier. The small force had only seven muskets and one rifle; for the rest the warriors bore native weapons such as taiaha and patu.

Setting out next day, the taua or war-party reached Mohi Turei's place at Te Hatepe, and in the morning (Sunday, 10th June) continued the march upon the Hauhaus of their tribe. They encountered the fanatics at Mangaone, near Pukemaire, and lost six men killed, including the chief Henare Nihoniho (father of Tuta Nihoniho, who served with distinction on the Queen's side in all the fighting that followed). The Hauhaus' loss was less; nevertheless, although better armed than the Queenite force, they fell back into the cover of the bush. It was in this opening skirmish that Ropata Wahawaha's courage and military genius first attracted the attention and admiration of his tribe.

Several small engagements followed in the Waiapu Valley. The loyal chiefs, headed by Mokena Kohere, Hotene Perourangi, and Henare Potae, appealed to the Government for arms and reinforcements to assist in subduing the Pai-marire revolt, and Mr. McLean (afterwards Sir Donald McLean) quickly sent from Napier a supply of rifles and ammunition, which enabled the Queenite section of Ngati-Perou to take the field satisfactorily equipped for their campaigns. The Government also despatched European forces to the aid of mokena and his people; these included a company of Military Settlers and some Hawke's Bay volunteers. Brevet-Major James Fraser (late of the 73rd Highlanders) and Lieutenant R. Biggs were in command of the troops, numbering about a hundred men. One of the junior officers was Lieutenant (afterwards Major) Frederick Gascoyne, of the Colonial Defence Force Cavalry, Hawke's Bay squadron. H.M.S. “Eclipse” landed Fraser's force at Te Awanui, near the mouth of the Waiapu River, on the night of the 5th July, 1865, and the men were all in Hatepe pa, the stronghold of Mokena Kohere and his friendly natives early next morning. Skirmishing began that day. The “Eclipse” fired a number of shells (some of them 110 ln.) over Te Hatepe into the Hauhau positions.

Some time passed with intermittent skirmishing between the Queenite and Pai-marire factions. Ropata distinguished himself in an affair at Te Horo, where, by making a feigned retreat and laying an ambuscade, he killed several Hauhaus and drove the rest back in disorder. On the 18th July some of Fraser's force had a skirmish in the open, Lieutenant Gascoyne and Ensign Tuke in charge, and inflicted several casualties on the enemy.

THE NORTHERN PART of the East Coast district pacified, it was now possible to begin operations for the defeat of Hauhauism in the Poverty Bay country. Here the position was serious, for the greater part of the native population had fallen to the fascinations of Pai-marire and accepted the new religion, and several hundreds of men had fortified themselves in a strong pa within rifle-shot of the English mission house at Waerenga-a-Hika (“Hika's Clearing”), about seven miles from the present Town of Gisborne. Others occupied two fortified villages further inland, Pukeamionga and Kohanga-Karearea (“The Sparrowhawk's Nest”).

At the end of October, 1865, Mr. Donald McLean, Superintendent of the Province of Hawke's Bay, who had urged the Government to take speedy measures against the Hauhaus of Turanganui, visited Tuparoa in order to enlist Ngati-Porou's assistance in the campaign. In the meantime H.M.S. “Brisk” landed at Poverty Bay a force consisting of the Hawke's Bay Cavalry (Colonial Defence Force) under Captain La Serre, and some Military Settlers under Lieutenant Wilson. Major Fraser and Captain Biggs were also despatched to the bay with their East Cape expeditionary force. Mr. McLean met Hotene Porourangi and Ropata Wahawaha and requested their co-operation in the military work at Turanganui, with the result that three hundred Ngati-Porou volunteered and were taken to the bay by steamer. At Turanganui Mr. McLean sent messages by Hauhau chiefs to the rebel sections of Rongowhakaata and Aitanga-a-Mahaki, warning them that unless they came in and made submission to the Government they would be attacked and deprived of their lands and homes. This offer met with no response, and Major Fraser was then directed to begin operations for the reduction of the enemy fortifications.

In the middle of November the Government force, numbering between a hundred and fifty and two hundred Europeans and three hundred Maoris, moved on Waerenga-a-Hika and took up positions on three sides of the pa. The fortification was built on level land, with a swampy lagoon in rear; in front was the mission station, 300 yards distant. The Hauhau pa consisted of three lines of defence—the outer stockade (wita), the main fence (tuwatawata), and the earth breastwork (parepare). The wita was a sloping fence, about 6 feet high, its top nearly touching the tuwatawata, its base inclining outward 2 feet or 3 feet. Only the main timbers of the wita were in the ground; the rest of the stakes did not touch the earth, but left an opening of about a foot at the bottom as firing-space for the riflemen behind the tuwatawata, which was a stout palisade 10 feet high. Inside it was the earth parepare about 4 feet 6 inches high. In many forts there was also a parakiri, a third stockade, strongly built of stout tree-trunks solidly set in the ground.

Major Fraser occupied the Bishop's house at the mission station as his headquarters, and some of the best shots sniped at the pa from the roof. The Colonial Defence Force and Military Settlers entrenched themselves behind a hawthorn hedge which commanded two faces of the pa, and the Forest Rangers, under Captain Westrup, took up their position on ground near the lagoon.

The siege of the pa occupied seven days. In order to hasten the reduction of the stronghold Lieutenant Wilson and thirty of his Military Settlers were sent to the northern face of the stockade, where a sap was commenced and carried close up to the fort. Here they were attacked by a large body of Hauhau reinforcements from one of the other villages, and came under a very heavy fire from this body as well as from the pa, when they charged with fixed bayonets back to the main body. In this dash Wilson's force had six men killed and five wounded.

Next day (Sunday) the Hauhaus, after the devotions round the niu pole, moved out from the pa in three strong bodies and charged with fanatic determination on the men holding the hawthorn hedge. They came holding up the right hand, palm to the front, in the attitude of warding off or catching the pakeha's bullets. Shouting their Pai-marire war-cries, some of them rushed up to the opposite side of the hedge and fired through into the men in the trench. The reply was vigorous, and was supported by the body in camp. The Hauhaus came on almost up to the rifle-muzzles only to be shot down in scores. They were repulsed, leaving about sixty dead on the field. The Government forces lost none.

There were some hand-to-hand encounters during the fighting. On one occasion three Hauhau braves sallied out and challenged their enemies in the open. Young Tuta Nihoniho and two of his Ngati-Porou comrades rushed at them. Tutu was armed with a Minie rifle and fixed bayonet; his opponent had a long huata or spear. The Hauhau made a lunge and speared him in the left hand, but Tutu killed his foe with a bayonet-thrust through the body.

After a week's constant fighting Major Fraser decided to try artillery on the pa. The only gun he had was a 6-pounder brought ashore from the steamer “Sturt.” There was some ineffectual firing in incompetent hands, until Thomas Porter (afterwards Colonel Porter), of the Colonial Defence Force Cavalry, turned his experience as a midshipman in the Royal Navy to account by taking charge of the gun and rigging proper tackle to prevent the recoil capsizing it. There was no shot for it, so salmon-tins were used as cases for shrapnel charges. Two rounds were accurately fired into the pa, and this rough-and-ready but efficient bombardment produced the required effect. The garrison hoisted a white flag and surrendered. A number escaped through the swamp in rear of the pa, but four hundred laid down their arms and gave themselves up as prisoners.

“They could scarcely be recognized as men as they came out after their long defence,” said a member of Ngati-Porou, who had fought at Waerenga-a-Hika; “they were covered with mud, and their hair was long and shaggy.”

The Hauhau losses in this siege, which ended on the 22nd November, 1865, were more than a hundred killed, besides several scores wounded. The Government casualties were eleven killed and twenty wounded.

The capture of Waerenga-a-Hika, followed by the destruction of the fortified position, completely settled the Pai-marire revolt in Poverty Bay. The Hauhau fugitives from the district took refuge in the Wairoa district, in the northern part of Hawke's Bay, and it presently became necessary to open a campaign there. Most of the prisoners taken were released, but a number of the most troublesome of the Rongowhakaata and the Aitanga-a-Mahaki were transported to Chatham Island for safe-keeping until the coast was tranquillized.

During the fighting at Waerenga-a-Hika a man of the Rongowhakaata named Te Kooti Rikirangi, serving on the Government side, was made a prisoner by one of the friendly chiefs on suspicion of treachery. It was declared that he had been removing the bullets from his cartridges and firing only blank at the enemy. He was also accused of being in communication with the Hauhaus. Rikirangi, as he was generally known at that time, strenuously denied these charges, and after some time was released. Later, however, he was arrested on other charges, and although not convicted or even brought to trial, was regarded as too turbulent and unreliable a character to be at liberty, and was therefore shipped off to Wharekauri (Chatham Island) with a number of other prisoners of war. This act of punishment, whether justifiable or not, cost the country dear in lives and money, for Te Kooti made his escape two years later and exacted a fearful revenge. The story of his many and often amazing adventures and his campaigns is narrated in this volume, beginning with Chapter 24, in which his escape from exile by seizing the schooner “Rifleman” is described.

TOWARDS THE END of 1865 trouble developed among the hapus of the Ngati-Kahungunu Tribe occupying the beautiful and fruitful valley of the Wairoa (Hawke's Bay). Pai-marire emissaries in the earlier part of the year spread their doctrine with such success that the ritual of Te Ua became established in many villages, and the arrival of the fugitives from Waerenga-a-Hika brought the temper of the malcontents to fighting-pitch. The chief Te Waru Tamatea, who had fought at Orakau in the previous year, was the principal leader of the Hauhau party. The most vigorous champion of the Government side was Kopu Parapara, of the lower Wairoa, who was supported wholeheartedly by the fine old chief Ihaka Whanga, of Nuhaka and Mahia. The Government, through Mr. Donald McLean, sent arms up from Napier for the loyal faction, and early in December despatched Major Fraser to the Wairoa with a force of volunteers and Hawke's Bay and Taranaki Military Settlers.

The Queenite chiefs of Ngati-Kahungunu also wrote to Ngati-Porou requesting their assistance, and Mr. McLean visited Tuparoa at the beginning of January, 1866, and handed the letter to Ropata and Hotene Porourangi. The writers asked Ngati-Porou to “come and be a backbone for us for a great number of Hauhaus are now assembled here.” “Let your coming be speedy,” the entreaty concluded; “we are living in fear.”

Ngati-Porou's response was prompt. A hundred and fifty men under Ropata and other chiefs embarked in the steamer and reached the Wairoa landing on the 4th. Their pay while on active service was fixed at 3s. per day. Ropata and Hotene were appointed by Mr. McLean to act as assessors of the Magistrate's Court at yearly salaries of £50 each.

In the meantime (25th December, 1865) the European force at the Wairoa, with some of the local Maoris, had fought a sharp action with the Hauhaus at a stockaded settlement called Omaru-hakeke, about twelve miles up the Wairoa River, killing twelve men and losing Captain Hussey (Taranaki Military

Among the volunteers from Wairoa in this engagement was Mr. (now Captain) G. A. Preece, who began on the East Coast a career of distinguished soldiering service. In the Christmas Day fight he was with Captain Biggs on the left; his party fired on the enemy as they fled from the frontal attack. Biggs shot one man as he tried to escape up the creek, and one of Biggs's Hawke's Bay volunteers shot another at 300 yards with an old smoothbore musket. On the Government side the killed, besides Captain Hussey, were a half-caste named Wi Christie and one of Pitiera Kopu's Wairoa men. Next morning (26th December) there was another skirmish at the top of the hill overlooking the Omaruhakeke Village. In this encounter only the Mohaka Maoris and Pitiera Kopu's Wairoa natives were engaged on the Government side; Preece accompanied Kopu's men. The rebel leader Te Waru was shot in the wrist. Of the loyalists a Mohaka man received a bullet through the lungs. The whole force moved out later, but the Hauhaus had abandoned their position and retired towards Whataroa.

Early in January an expedition moved out from Wairoa against the enemy, who were entrenched at the top of Tikorangi Hill. They abandoned this position in the night. Major Fraser then decided to return and await Ngati-Porou reinforcements.

The Hauhau faction, after this affair, moved up to the southern side of Waikare-moana Lake, where they remained until the stern and vigorous Ropata Wahawaha appeared on the scene. On the 13th January, 1866, a force of friendly natives led by Ropata and other chiefs, and Major Fraser and several of his officers, had a sharp and successful engagement with a large body of the rebels at Te Kopane, a defile between steep hills clothed with high fern and some bush about twenty-five miles from the Clyde Township at Wairoa.

The Ngati-Porou numbered one hundred and fifty men. The Ngati-Kahungunu, totalling two hundred, were led by Kopu Parapara and the gallant Ihaka Whanga, of Nuhaka and Mahia. The plan of campaign arranged with Major Fraser was to advance upon Onepoto, where the Waikare-taheke torrent issues from Lake Waikare-moana, and deliver an attack on the Hauhaus, who were known to be in the neighbourhood of that place to the number of several hundred, consisting of many Rongowhakaata men from Poverty Bay, some hapus of Ngati-Kahungunu, Ngati-Ruapani, and Urewera.

Leaving the Wairoa camp on the 9th January and marching by way of Te Tawa, Manu-tawhiorangi, and Te Koareare, the force early on the 13th approached the entrance to an obviously dangerous place where the track ran along the bottom of a valley between two high ridges, a highly suitable spot for an ambuscade. Ropata had pushed on about two miles ahead of the main body, with an advance-guard intently watching the trail. His leading men discovered a footprint in the dust of the track, no doubt that of a Hauhau scout, and passed the word back to Ropata, who called out to them not to tread upon it until he came up. The advance-guard halted and watched a singular war-path rite. Ropata (according to a Ngati-Porou narrative) knelt down and carefully scooped up with both hands the earth bearing the impression of the scout's bare foot and swallowed the whole of it. (In the Maori narrator's words: “Aohia ake nga oneone o te tapuae ra, horomia katoatia ki roto o tona puku.”) This done, he said, addressing his unknown enemy, “Kati noa oti ko to tapuae e pau i au ki roto o taku puku, ko to tinana ano ia ka ngaro atu i au” (“As your footprint has been consumed by me within my stomach, so will your body be destroyed by me”).

This preliminary ceremony satisfactorily performed, the advance-guard was moving forward cautiously, when the first of the foes were descried in the distance on the summit of the height called Raekahu, near the Waikare-taheke River. Ropata ordered a halt until the main body came up, and then allowed Ngati-Kahungunu to take the lead, as it was their district, advising them to fire into places where any enemy was likely to be concealed. This prudent counsel, however, was not followed as the shallow valley at Te Kopane was entered. The Hauhaus were entrenched in rifle-pits and behind earthworks skilfully hidden with fern on the ridges on both flanks of the advance and also directly ahead, where a parapet and firing-trench, not visible at a distance, crossed the flat of the track between the hills. Firing began when this trench was approached, and heavy volleys were poured into the long column of men by Hauhaus in ambush in the fern on either flank. The Ngati-Kahungunu, being crowded closely together, presented a target that could not be missed. Twelve were killed outright by the first volleys, and over a score were wounded. Ngati-Kahungunu were thrown into confusion and replied ineffectively to the enemy's fire. The fearless veteran Ihaka Whanga rushed to the front, calling on his men to charge, but he was not supported. Making his way through the fern, he fired his carbine at the foe, and next moment was shot just behind the hip. He took a rifle from his nearest man and fired again, and then fell with another bullet in the leg. His tribesmen now rushed forward and carried him to the rear.

A retreat was imminent when Ropata, a master of battlefield tactics, came up and ordered the fern on the right-hand side of the gully to be fired. A strong breeze was blowing in the direction of the well-posted Hauhaus. The dry fern was set alight, and the enemy on that flank were compelled to fall back before the onrolling flames and dense smoke. Ropata then led a rush on the hill, shouting “Kokiri, kokiri! Kua whati, kua whati!” (“Charge, charge! They fly, they fly!”) The rebel Rongowhakaata, hearing that dreaded voice, knew that Ngati-Porou were upon them, and took to flight. Ropata dashed up in pursuit of the retreating Hauhaus and found their camp on the summit of Raekahu Mountain, where some of the people were captured.

The enemy made no further stand, but fled towards Onepoto, near the outlet of Lake Waikare-moana. There most of them manned canoes and took shelter on the north side of the lake, where they were secure from further pursuit. Those less swift of foot were captured in the bush or on the shore of the lake.

Ropata and Hotene proposed to Ngati-Kahungunu that Hauhau members of that tribe captured should be spared, but that any men of the Ngati-Porou, Urewera, or Rongowhakaata taken should be killed in order to prevent rebellious assemblages of tribes from outside districts. The Wairoa chiefs Kopu and Paora te Apatu, however, demanded also the execution of any Wairoa Maoris found in the Hauhau band, and accordingly Ropata shot with his revolver the principal prisoner, Te Tuatini Tamaionarangi, a high chief of the Ngati-Kahungunu. Some sixty Hauhaus were killed in the day's fighting; of the friendly natives fourteen were killed, including Rawiri Hika-rukutai, who was Ropata's uncle, and between twenty and thirty were wounded. The only Europeans engaged at Te Kopane, besides Major Fraser, were Lieutenant St. George (Colonial Defence Force Cavalry), Mr. E. Towgood (who was a volunteer with Ihaka Whanga's natives), Mr. Richard J. Deighton, and Major Fraser's two servants and an orderly.

This decisive battle broke the Pai-marire rebellion in the Wairoa district. Ngati-Porou, to whom the success was wholly due, returned to their homes at Tuparoa and Waiapu, and remained at peace until they were called upon to take the field against Te Kooti in 1868.

THE DISTRICT OF Hawke's Bay south of the Wairoa was not seriously troubled by the Hauhau propaganda until late in 1866. Shortly after the Volkner tragedy at Opotiki in 1865 and the arrival of the Pai-marire prophets in the Poverty Bay and East Cape settlements, Mr. Donald McLean (afterwards Sir Donald) and his colleague Mr. J. D. Ormond took measures to influence the Hawke's Bay native chiefs against the spread of Pai-marire in their territory. McLean, before settling permanently in Hawke's Bay, had acted for many years as native adviser and land-purchase agent under successive Governments, and had won the confidence of the leading men in many tribes. At this time he was Superintendent of the Hawke's Bay Province, and was also the Government Native Agent for the East Coast. Mr. Ormond, afterwards for many years a member of the Legislative Council, had been elected to the House of Representatives in 1861; he was a leading settler in the province and a coadjutor with McLean in his public work. McLean's first step was to call meetings of the Hawke's Bay chiefs and urge them to set their faces against the murderous doctrines of the Pai-marire apostles. The principal rangatiras of Ngati-Kahungunu—the old warriors Tareha, Te Moananui, and Renata Kawepo, supported by Karauria, Karaitiana Takamoana, and others—agreed to do their utmost to stay the spread of Hauhau unrest, which they admitted had permeated some sections of their people. The subjugation of the rebellious faction among Ngati-Porou and the defeat of the Poverty Bay Hauhaus at Waerenga-a-Hika produced a good effect among the small doubtful sections of Ngati-Kahungunu, and in fact the only menace to European settlement on the plains of Hawke's Bay did not come from that tribe, but from an outpost of Hauhauism in the interior, on the mountain-track to the Taupo country.

At the beginning of October 1866, the Ngati-Hineuru Tribe, a small but war-loving clan whose principal villages were Te Haroto and Tarawera—on the present Napier-Taupo Main Road— set out for the East Coast with the intention of delivering an attack on the Town of Napier. This bold scheme was due chiefly to the fiery counsels of the old warrior Te Rangihiroa, the hereditary head of the clan, and the Pai-marire preachings of a prophet named Panapa; and it had obtained the approval of Rewi Maniapoto and other Kingite leaders, to whom emissaries had been sent from Te Haroto. Panapa had sent spies down to the coast to gain what information they could regarding the likelihood of success in a raid on Napier Town. These men went through the town in the guise of peaceful visitors, ascertained where the barracks were, where the arms and ammunition were kept, and returned to Panapa and Te Rangihiroa with the information. A few days later the Ngati-Hineuru war-party, numbering about eighty men, marched over the range at Titiokura and descended to Pohue and the plains. The “Tekau-ma-rua” (“The Twelve”), as the Hauhau war-band was called, irrespective of its numerical strength, included some wild spirits from other tribes, as far away as the King Country. Besides Te Rangihiroa and Panapa, there were four chiefs of Ngati-Hineuru named Kipa and Kingita (who were Rangihiroa's half-brothers), Nikora, and Petera Kahuroa; with them came a powerful and savage fellow from the eastern shore of Lake Taupo, a big black-bearded man named Te Rangitahau, of whom a good deal will be heard hereafter; he was the principal man of Waipahihi and Waitahanui, and was of the Ngati-Tuwharetoa Tribe. From the Ngati-Maniapoto country there was a young warrior named Peita Kotuku, who had fought in Taranaki in 1860 and was one of the gallant three hundred who held Orakau pa in 1864.

At Te Pohue the force appears to have been joined by recruits from other parts, including some from the Wairoa district, for before a move was made on Napier the total strength was about one hundred and thirty. The column was divided, Panapa going on to Omarunui, on the Tutaekuri River, six miles from Napier Town, with the greater portion of the force, while Te Rangihiroa remained with about twenty-five mounted men. The plan of attack was that Te Rangihiroa was to make a night attack on the town by way of Petane (Bethany), the settlement near the sea on the north side, while Panapa, Nikora, and Te Rangitahau were to deal simultaneously with the out-settlements of pakeha and Maori and then join in the sack of Napier. It was expected that at the same time Wi Hapi and Hauhau sections of Ngati-Kahungunu would march on Porangahau and other settlements in the south of the province. In the event of a successful attack on Napier the Hauhaus in other districts were to rise and descend on the pakeha and the friendly Maoris; the Urewera were expected to make forays to the plains, and the Waikato Kingites were to renew the war on their frontier. A disaster at Napier, therefore, would have involved many other parts of the country in razzias and bloodshed.

The arrival at Omarunui of Panapa and a hundred armed men was reported by the friendly natives to Mr. McLean; and Mr. Hamlin, Native Interpreter to the Superintendent, who had been sent out to inquire the intentions of the strangers when they were halted at Petane, was now deputed to warn them to return to their homes, otherwise they would be attacked. For a long time the Hauhaus remained silent. At last Panapa said that peace and war were both good; but nothing more definite could be gathered as to his intentions. The Hauhaus took no notice of the Superintendent's warnings, and it was evident that they meant mischief, although by Panapa's instructions they remained quiet and refrained from any act of violence. The place where they had taken up their quarters, Omarunui, was a fenced village on a flat above the cliffy bank of the Tutaekuri; the chief of the kainga, Paora Kaiwhata, with most of his people left and joined Tareha in the strongly stockaded settlement called Pa-whakairo (“The Carved Fort”), about a mile distant.

The people of Napier were now fully alive to the danger of attack, and preparations were made for action against the invaders from the mountains. The armed force available consisted of the Militia, numbering about one hundred and thirty men and youths, and a company of Napier Rifle Volunteers, forty-five rank and file, under Captain Buchanan. A message was sent to Wairoa for Major Fraser and his company of Military Settlers, who had done good service in the East Cape and Poverty Bay campaign. Fraser and his men, numbering forty, and also a party of Wairoa Maoris under Kopu-Parapara and Ihaka Whanga, reached Napier on the 11th October. The Napier forces were under the command of Colonel George Whitmore, who had been military secretary to General Cameron; he had left the Imperial army and was now a settler in Hawke's Bay. He saw that everything was in readiness for action, and detached Fraser and his veterans to guard the approach from the Petane side. Reports had been received that Te Rangihiroa and his party would pass down the valley at Petane on the morning of the 12th, and Fraser was instructed to await them at a point where the track passed through a defile close to the home of Captain Carr (late R.A.), who had a sheep-station at Petane. Simultaneously Whitmore moved on Omarunui to demand the surrender of Panapa's force.

The Napier citizen soldiers, numbering in all about two hundred, including some twenty-five volunteer cavalry, marched out from the town soon after midnight on the 11th October and took up positions on the Tutaekuri in co-operation with the friendly Maoris under Mr. Locke, Native Agent, and the chiefs Tareha, Renata Kawepo, and other tribal leaders. The Omarunui settlement was surrounded by daylight, the Maori contingent taking up a position on the edge of a swamp in the rear. At daybreak the Hauhaus began their fanatic services round the niu pole of worship which had been erected in the village, Panapa the prophet standing at the foot of the mast and leading the Pai-marire incantations.

Mr. Hamlin was sent into the village under a flag of truce with a message from Mr. McLean demanding the surrender of the Hauhaus in an hour, otherwise they would be fired upon. Hamlin returned and reported that the natives would not listen to any proposal. After waiting an hour the order was given to attack the village.

The Militia, two companies under Major Lambert, were sent forward to ford the river opposite the settlement and take up a position on the bank. The Hauhaus were still undecided how to act, for they had not intended to take the offensive until the signal was given that Te Rangihiroa was attacking Napier, and there was no word from him. At any rate they permitted the Militia to ford the river, cross the wide shingle bed, and ascend the bank near the village without opening fire, and so lost an opportunity of inflicting heavy loss on their pakeha foe. Orders were now given to open fire, and volleys were poured into the village from three sides. The Hauhaus ran for the shelter of their whares and the large meeting-house and returned the fire; some skirmished out to the open, but a number fell, and the huts proved precarious cover. Panapa, the war-priest, came out into the open and was shot dead. The firing continued for over an hour, and the Maori casualties grew heavy. At last, seeing it hopeless to hold the village longer, and disheartened by the fall of their prophet, whom they had believed to be invulnerable to bullets, the majority of the survivors decided to surrender. A number of the defenders rushed out in the rear and attempted to escape to the hills across the swamp, but Captain Gordon and his volunter cavalry galloped round and intercepted the fugitives. All except one or two were killed, wounded, or captured. Those who remained alive in the village hoisted a white flag, and the “Cease fire” was ordered. Nikora was the leader of those who surrendered; he had fought gallantly and received a severe wound. The brothers Kipa and Kingita both were killed. The Hauhaus lost in this short sharp affair twenty-one dead and about thirty wounded, of whom some died in hospital, Fifty-eight unwounded prisoners were taken. Very nearly the whole war-party, therefore, was accounted for by death, wounds, or capture.

AT THE CLOSE of Major-General Chute's campaign on the West Coast there was a brief cessation of active military operations, and the settlement of the confiscated lands was begun, but occupation was precarious, for Ngati-Ruanui, Te Pakakohi, and Nga-Rauru were only waiting their time. Areas totalling about 50,000 acres, mostly open land, south of the Wai-ngongoro, were laid out in military settlements; the townships were Kakaramea, Mokoia, and Ohawe. Many of the Military Settlers took up the occupation of the sections to which their period of service entitled them—there were chiefly men who had already had farming experience—but the majority in the end disposed of their grants and left the district.

When the Government in 1866 came to the decision to occupy the confiscated lands between the Wai-ngongoro and the Waitotara the West Coast portion of the expeditionary Force at Opotiki was recalled, and in June went into camp at Patea. This body consisted of the Patea and Wanganui Rangers, two companies of the Taranaki Military Settlers, and the Wanganui Yeomanry Cavalry. A contingent of the Wanganui friendly Maoris who had been doing garrison duty at Pipiriki now joined the Taranaki column, peace having been established on the Wanganui by a pact with the up-river tribes under Pehi Turoa.

Major Thomas McDonnell was appointed to the command of the force, and shifted camp to Manawapou, a convenient position for operations against the South Taranaki tribes and for covering the survey-parties under Mr. S. Percy Smith and others engaged in the work of laying out township-sites and farm sections in the occupied country. McDonnell opened negotiations for peace with the Ngati-Ruanui and Tangahoe, but their attitude indicated that they intended to resist the confiscation of their lands. This was soon made plain in the usual way by ambuscades and attacks on small parties and on convoys. The newly begun survey work on the plains was carried on under highly adventurous conditions, and on several occasions the Hauhau

On the 16th June, 1866, Mr. S. Percy Smith (afterwards Surveyor-General) and several companions had a narrow escape from an ambush-party. “I was riding across the fern plains at Hawera,” Mr. Smith narrated, “in company with Mr. Octavius Carrington (then Chief Surveyor of Taranaki), Major McDonnell, and Lieutenant Wirihana, of the Native Contingent, on the way back from the Wai-ngongoro to Kakaramea, when we fell into an ambuscade near where the middle of the Town of Hawera now is. We were cantering along the narrow winding track among the fern and bushes. I had a big horse, a brute to hold in. When we reached a point at the junction of General Cameron's old route with the track that turns off to Ketemarae I heard Wirihana, who was behind me, call out, ‘Hauhaus!’ I turned my head towards a clump of flax bushes and fern, and there about 40 yards off saw a lot of black heads popping up above the fern. I could not pull my horse up quickly, and while I was doing my best to stop him we got a heavy volley from the Maoris. None of us was hit; it was an amazing escape, for the bullets knocked up the dust in the track about us, and I could hear and see them striking the flax, and saw the tops of the fern snipped off. I got my horse turned round, and we all galloped back the way we had come, with a lot of shots fired after us. Major McDonnell vowed he would get even for these attacks so near his post, and it was a night or two later that he raided the Hauhaus at Pokaikai. There were more than forty Hauhaus firing at us; our escape was miraculous. If it had not been for Wirihana, who saw their heads moving in the flax, we should all have ridden right into the ambush and have perished. We reached the Waingongoro Redoubt safely, and Captain Dawson gave us an escort of ten troopers and fifty of the 18th Regiment part of the way, and from Manawapou we had another escort on to the camp at Kakaramea.”

After this ambuscade, which occurred at Te Haumi, between Hawera and the Waihi Stream, McDonnell sent to the Ngati-Tupaea hapu at Pokaikai a cartridge, a percussion cap, a bottle of rum, and a white handkerchief bearing the words “Rongo pai” (“Good tidings”), asking them which of the emblems they would accept. They retained the handkerchief and returned the other articles, thus signifying their intention to remain peaceful. However, a short time later (1st August) McDonnell suddenly marched on Pokaikai with two hundred men and attacked the village early in the morning, No. 8 Company of Military Settlers charging in with the bayonet. Two men and a woman were killed, and a girl received four bayonet-wounds. There were many women and children in the place. Most of the Hauhaus escaped to the bush down a gully, the majority of them in their alarm leaving their guns in the huts. They received volley after volley as they fled. One of McDonnell's men was killed, a young man named Spain, who had recently left Mr. Smith's survey-party, then camped at Manawapou. According to one report he had gone into a whare to bring out a dead Hauhau; another version was to the effect that he was searching for loot. At any rate, he was fired on and mortally wounded. It was reported that he was shot in mistake for the renegade Kimble Bent, who was supposed to be in Pokaikai. Bent at the time was in Taiporohenui Village, Ngati-Ruanui's headquarters, three miles away. Three days previously he had been in Pokaikai, sent there by his chief and owner Tito te Hanataua, but had returned to Taiporohenui at the bidding of Te Ua the prophet, who had had a dream of bad omen, portending some disaster, and had counselled the pakeha to leave Pokaikai. The troops captured thirty-five guns of various makes left by the fugitive Hauhaus. The village was burned, and the expedition marched back to Manawapou.

The affair was not very creditable to McDonnell. The natives complained afterwards that they had been lulled into security by the peace messages of the Governor sent through his prophet Te Ua on his return from Wellington (whither he had been taken as a prisoner by General Chute in 1866), and by McDonnell's white-handkerchief message. A Commission of inquiry into the Pokaikai surprise was held, and after taking evidence from both sides the Commissioner (Mr. George Graham) reported that the attack was unnecessary, and that McDonnell's action in lulling the natives into a state of security and then attacking them was “improper and unjust.”

This surprise attack was followed by negotiations with the Tangahoe Tribe and a section of the Pakakohi, resulting in many of these Hauhaus surrendering and signing the declaration of allegiance. The greater part of Ngati-Ruanui, however, still held aloof, and in the beginning of September a reconnaissance-party had a slight skirmish near Ketemarae.

In September a redoubt was built at Waihi, and this position became the field headquarters of the South Taranaki force. Captain Newland and a body of Rangers and the Native Contingent who constructed the redoubt had numerous small skirmishes with the Hauhaus, who frequently fired on the working-parties from the edge of the bush half a mile away.

The Ngati-Tupaea and others of Ngati-Ruanui presently exacted utu for the attack on Pokaikai. On the 23rd September a cart convoy escorted by three troopers of the Wanganui Yeomanry Cavalry left the post at the Round Bush, near the present Town of Hawera, for the redoubt at Waihi. The cart was loaded with fresh meat and bread, and contained also an invalided Wanganui Ranger, Michael Emerson, formerly of the 65th Regiment. It was driven by Private George Tuffin (afterwards one of the defenders of Turuturu-mokai Redoubt, where he received five wounds). Two of the troopers, William Wallace and Haggerty, rode ahead, and the third, Michael Noonan (killed near Waikare-moana, 1869), was rearguard. When about half-way between Hawera and Waihi the little convoy was ambushed by a party of twenty Maoris from the cover of high fern and tutu bushes. A volley was suddenly delivered at Haggerty, whose horse received six bullets and fell dead. Haggerty was thrown on the track with a wound in the leg, and instantly there was a rush of Hauhaus from the fern and a flash of tomahawks as they despatched him. “They were on him like a pack of wolves,” says Wallace, the sole survivor to-day of that escort. Wallace was the target for the second volley, but, as if by a miracle, he escaped. The Maoris then shot the shaft horse in the cart team; a wounded Hauhau rode the leader away. Tuffin, who was unarmed, jumped out of the cart and ran for his life; he reached Waihi Redoubt unhurt. Emerson, who was suffering great pain, got out and appealed to the troopers not to let the Hauhaus get him. “It's all right, Mick,” shouted Wallace, “we won't leave you.” Emerson was unable to mount a horse, but hobbled along between the two cavalrymen, who kept the Hauhaus off with their carbines and revolvers until a party of Rangers, volunteers, and Wanganui natives came doubling up from Waihi, led by Captain Newland. The Hauhaus secured Haggerty's carbine, revolver, and sword, but had not time to plunder the cart. Captain Smith, commanding at Hawera, was put under arrest for sending so small an escort through perilous country.

Captain J. R. Rushton, of Kutarere, Ohiwa, describes how vengeance was exacted for Haggerty's death. Rushton had been a sergeant in the Patea Rangers, and had resigned, but was now serving as a volunteer without pay. “The Maoris,” he says, “now became very enterprising, and often fired from a point of bush about 800 yards away. I think I suggested this trap for them. I took six or seven men out, and when some distance from the bush started a sham survey—that is, I told the men to use their carbines as if cutting lines. I stood at a distance as surveyor, directing them towards the part of bush the firing had come from. A party under Ensign Northcroft had come out of our redoubt unseen by the Maoris, and as we moved forward kept in touch with our flank. Now came what we expected—a heavy volley right at us; but luckily no hits. Our supports now sprang up, charging right into the bush. We thought that our ruse had failed, when our brave little comrade Winiata fired point-blank at a Maori trying to shelter behind a rimu tree, and killed him. ‘This is utu for my friend Haggerty,’ cried Winiata, as he ran up to tomahawk the fallen Hauhau. We followed up the rest, who bolted. After this we prepared to attack Pungarehu, as that place and Te Ngutu-o-te-manu were the chief strongholds of the Hauhaus.”

The principal engagement of the campaign was fought at Te Pungarehu, a village in the bush on the western side of the Wai-ngongoro and not far from the afterwards celebrated Te Ngutu-o-te-manu. The position of the place was not exactly known for this bush country was unmapped and unexplored by Europeans; but McDonnell's practice was to scout about until a well-marked track was found, and then follow it up. With a force of about a hundred and ten men he crossed the Waingongoro late on the night of the 1st October and marched in past Mawhitiwhiti, following a trail which led to a clearing in the heavy timber. Whares were scattered about this clearing, which was found after the fight to be Pungarehu, peopled by many families of the Nga-Ruahine Tribe. Lieutenant C. A. M. Hirtzel (Palmerston North), then in the Wanganui Yeomanry Cavalry, thus describes the attack on the kainga:—

“We lay in the bush on the outskirts of the village, after crossing a small creek, until dawn; the cocks were crowing in the settlement as we halted. Just at daylight one of the men's rifles went off accidentally, and so we had to rush the place at once. I jumped up, calling to my corps—the cavalry, dismounted—to follow me, and ran for the village. Our sergeant-major, Duff, dashed past me, and was into the place first, I think. Some men rushed to each whare, and McDonnell demanded the surrender of the people. The Maoris opened fire, and we replied, firing into the whares. Some of the natives rushed out; others fired at us from the hut doorways. Sergeant-Major Duff was stooping down to look into the doorway of one of the dug-in huts when he was shot and mortally wounded. I saw a woman with a baby in her arms come out of the largest whare—the one where Duff was hit—and walk away into the bush on the right flank of the clearing. One of our men was about to shoot her when I stopped him and protected her. She stood looking at me a moment and then disappeared in the bush. I asked Captain Newland to send some men to help me get Duff's body away, and I was just in the act of getting over a fence when I was shot in the back, and after I was carried to the rear I saw no more of the fight. The bullet struck near my spine below the shoulder and went right round the back. Meanwhile there was hot firing, and the village was in a blaze. Ensign Northcroft, as I heard afterwards, ran up and carried Duff off into shelter. The Maoris kept up a heavy fire from the bush at the rear end of the clearing, and more came up from Te Ngutu-o-te-manu to assist them when they heard the firing; they tried to work round on our left flank and surround us, and the withdrawal of our force was risky and difficult, but McDonnell carried it out well.”

Five of the whares in the village were fortified, according to McDonnell's report. In order to dislodge the occupants, who had fired heavy volleys on being called on to surrender, the troops scraped off the earth which covered the roofs and pulled down the slabs to fire into the defenders. In half an hour the attackers were masters of the position, and firing ceased. Then the force, when engaged in setting fire to the whares, was suddenly fired on heavily from the bush, and as this firing increased it was evident that the Hauhaus had been reinforced strongly, and the withdrawal of the troops began. Some casks of gunpowder exploded in the burning houses as the force moved off.

Besides Duff, two men had been mortally wounded, and several others were hit in the heavy skirmishing which followed the first attack, and these were carried off in blankets by the main body when the return march was ordered. Captain Newland, Captain Kepa, Ensign Northcroft, and a few men held the Hauhaus in check while the main body withdrew, and fought a gallant rearguard action with a much larger body of Hauhaus. Those who had escaped from the whares in the clearing were reinforced by warriors hurrying down from Te Ngutu-o-te-manu, and they hotly pressed the retiring force through the bush and the gullies. Those who particularly distinguished themselves in this hard-fought affair were Ensign (afterwards Captain) Northcroft, Poma Haunui (of Hiruharama), and volunteers J. R. Rushton and David White. The rescue of the dying sergeant-major from the Hauhau tomahawks was one of a series of brave deeds which earned for Northcroft the decoration of the New Zealand Cross, tardily bestowed on him long afterwards.

Lieut.-Colonel McDonnell wrote as follows to the Under-Secretary of the Defence Office, under date 30th March, 1871: “For the consideration of the Hon. the Defence Minister, I have the honour to state that at the attack on Pungarehu in October, 1866, Ensign Northcroft, of the Patea Rangers, and now a Sub-Inspector in the Armed Constabulary, did, with great bravery, and at the risk of his life, rescue Sergeant-Major Duff, who was mortally wounded and helpless, from the enemy; also at the attack upon Tirotiro-moana, in November of the same year, Mr. Northcroft, being on that occasion in front in the bush with Private Economedes, was met by the enemy, who fired and killed the latter. Mr. Northcroft held his ground until assistance came up, preventing mutilation of the body and the capture of carbine and revolver, besides a considerable sum of money the man had on his person. This officer would have been recommended by me for the above to the Hon. Colonel Haultain as deserving the Victoria Cross could it have been conferred on a colonial soldier.” It was not, however, until after the lapse of forty years that Captain Northcroft was awarded the New Zealand Cross for his gallant deeds.

The Ngati-Ruanui Tribe, chiefly the Nga-Ruahine section, lost about thirty men in Pungarehu and in the bush skirmishing thence to the Wai-ngongoro. Twenty-one dead were counted, and others were buried in the burning ruins when the whares were destroyed. One of the fighting chiefs, Toi Whakataka, was wounded in escaping from a large whare in the clearing. Young Te Kahu-pukoro, who afterwards became one of Titokowaru's warriors of the “Tekau-ma-rua,”, succeeded in bursting out of one of the burning huts. Nine of the Nga-Ruahine were taken to Waihi as prisoners, and the victors also captured about thirty stand of arms. Next day the three dead of McDonnell's force were buried with military honours in the little military cemetery at Ohawe, on the south side of the Wai-ngongoro.

After this well-planned and well-executed blow against the bush-dwellers Major McDonnell carried out several surprise raids upon forest settlements, compelling those Hauhaus who did not deem it expedient to make submission to retire farther into the interior. Keteonetea, Te Popoia, Tirotiro-moana, and other settlements (lying to the east of the present railway-line) were the principal objectives of these expeditions. There was a brisk action on the 18th October at Te Popoia. The force advanced to the attack just before dawn, but at a place where the Maoris had felled trees across the narrow bush-track heavy volleys were fired into the advance-party, and, as it was still dark, a retirement was ordered. Captain William McDonnell, who was leading, was severely wounded in the hip.

In another expedition to this place on the 22nd October a detachment of the 18th Regiment from the Wai-ngongoro Redoubt took part; the column was commanded by Major Rocke of that regiment. This was a more successful attack, for it was delivered in daylight. The Maoris made resistance at the barricade of logs, but the troops rushed it, killed two Hauhaus, and destroyed the village. The British had one man killed.

The Hauhaus at this place made use of a curious bush-engine against their enemies. Just alongside the tracks leading to Te Popoia they set some formidable tawhiti, or spring traps, formed of growing trees. The tawhiti was a sapling of some tough and elastic timber, preferably matipo. Such a tree by the trail-side was stripped of its branches and bent down and back without breaking it, until it was lying as nearly horizontal as possible, in such a position as to sweep the road. The end was fastened with a flax-line carried across the track, so laid than any unsuspecting invader coming along the track in the darkness or uncertain light would release the trap and the next instant receive the full force of the rebounding tree. (A very similar device, consisting of a bent sapling, an invisible trap-line, and a spear has been encountered by explorers and punitive parties in the Solomon Islands and in Papua.) The old Hauhaus of Taranaki claim that some of the Kupapas (Wanganui Native Contingent) were injured by these tawhiti in the night advance on Te Popoia; however, any casualties thus caused could not have been serious.

Kimble Bent, the pakeha-Maori, told me that in 1866, when he was living with the Ngati-Tupaea, he saw ten or twelve of these sapling spring traps, or tawhiti, set on the tracks just outside Te Popoia.

On the 5th November Major McDonnell took a force much farther inland, intending to surprise the Ngati-Tupaea clan at their village, Tirotiro-moana, by approaching it from the rear. The column had a long bush march, working round over what is now the Eltham district. On crossing the Mangemange Creek, which flows out of the Ngaere Swamp and joins the Tangahoe below Otapawa, the leading files received a volley from a Hauhau party in ambush behind some logs on the high bank. Economedes, a Greek—an excellent soldier—was killed. The force rushed up into Tirotiro-moana Village, which was a short distance above the creek, but found it deserted. Natives were seen in considerable numbers in a clearing, but McDonnell's force was scarcely in condition to follow them up after the long and wearying march, and the order was given to return to Waihi.

Another expedition about this time was of importance because it was the first visit of a Government force to Te Ngutu-o-te-manu, and also because it was the last occasion on which the 18th Royal Irish Regiment took the field against the Maoris. The force included, besides a detachment of the 18th from the Wai-ngongoro Redoubt, the Wanganui Yeomanry Cavalry, a useful little corps which did a great deal of dismounted work in Taranaki. Sir George Grey had come to oversee McDonnell's operations, and he accompanied this expedition. A veteran of the Wanganui Yeomanry Cavalry, Mr. William Wallace afterwards sergeant in No. 2 Division Armed Constabulary), gives the following account of the discovery of Titokowaru's forest stronghold:—

“In the summer of 1866 we had seen great columns of smoke rising from the heart of the bush, and we knew that in the forest inland of Waihi the Hauhaus were preparing large clearings for growing food; for these we were now searching. After a march through the heavy timber that then covered the plain we came to a wide clearing on both sides of a small watercourse. This we discovered was the stream (the Mangotahi) which formed part of the western and southern boundaries of Te Ngutu-o-te-manu clearing. The place was a little distance to the north of the present Domain paddock. On the northern or inland side of the creek many whares were scattered about the clearing. The place was quite deserted, but I think the Maoris could not have been very far away. The houses were of a different style of construction to anything I have seen before or have seen since among the natives. They were log cabins much after the pattern of those used in the backwoods of North America. Each hut was built of small unbarked logs laid horizontally on one another, and notched at the ends so as to interlock closely. The sides of the huts were low, not more than 4 feet or 5 feet high; the interior was hollowed out of the earth to a depth of about 2 feet, so that in entering, as in the usual wharepuni of those days, one had to step downwards through the low doorway. Loopholes for rifle-fire were cut in the log walls, 2 feet or 3 feet above the ground. The roofs were thatched with raupo reeds and nikau-palm fronds. There was a large number of these whares scattered about on each side of the track ahead. Had they been occupied that day we should have had a very bad time of it indeed, for each hut was a little blockhouse and rifle-pit combined in itself, and each could have been defended independently of the others. Through the gun-apertures in these strongly built huts, impervious to bullets, they could have shot down our men in scores with perfect safety. It was a regular death-trap; and when we discovered the real strength of the apparently unfortified village we were very thankful that the Hauhaus were not at home to receive us that day. We burned the settlement, and returned through the bush without meeting the enemy.”

Regarding this unusual type of Maori whare, the Rev. R. Haddon (Tahu-Potiki), who is closely related to Titokowaru's family, in a conversation on the subject at Nga-pua-rata, Normanby, said: “I have heard from my old people of this whare-rakau or whare-tuwatawata settlement. I believe they got the idea in the early days before the war from the Rev. Skevington, the missionary, who lived in a house built in log-cabin fashion down at the Inaha, where the Riverdale Cheese-factory now stands. It was from this whare probably that they learned how to notch the ends of the poles and saplings so that they would fit in closely together.”

This log-cabin kainga is very close to the place where McDonnell was defeated in the second attack on Te Ngutu-o-te-manu in 1868.

IN THE EARLY part of 1867 the tribe called Piri-Rakau (“Cling to the Forest”), descended from ancient aboriginal clans, came into conflict with the Government forces in a series of sharp skirmishes along the northern edge of the bush-covered tableland in rear of Tauranga Harbour. These Piri-Rakau, assisted by parties of men from other districts, were all Hauhaus, and the Pai-marire pole of worship was a feature of each village. The edge of the Hautere plateau, much dissected by ravines, at a general altitude of 1,100 feet above the sea, was the scene of engagements in which a few Imperial troops co-operated with the Colonial Militia and a contingent of Arawa Maoris against numerous war-parties of the bush-dwellers. The conditions of campaigning were difficult because of the very broken character of the country, but the Arawa friendlies and a few skilful colonials made conditions so precarious for the Hauhaus by seeking them out in their bush villages and destroying their crops that the little campaign soon convinced the rebels of the futility of active resistance.

Towards the end of 1866 twelve survey-parties began the work of cutting up the confiscated lands for settlement. These lands were on the upper parts of the Wairoa and Waimapu Rivers and in rear of Te Puna. The Piri-Rakau and their kinsmen and allies of the Hauhau faction soon exhibited their hostility by sending warnings to some of the surveyors to remove from the district on pain of death. These threats were followed by armed raids on several camps, and the theodolites of Messrs Graham and Gundry, two of the surveyors, were carried off. About this time a settler named Campbell was murdered on his section near Waimapu.

Besides the resentment of the Hauhaus at the preparations for the settlement of the country taken from them, there was a strong desire to avenge the deaths of the scores of their people who fell in the battle at Te Ranga, 1864. Pene Taka, the Ngai-te-Rangi man who was chiefly accredited with the laying-out of the Gate Pa entrenchments, had joined the Piri-Rakau with a number of his people—the majority of Ngai-te-Rangi remained neutral—and he announced that he intended to obtain utu for the death of his relative Rawiri Puhirake at Te Ranga. Prominent among the Hauhaus was the old warrior priest, and prophet Hakaraia, from Kenana (Canaan), near Te Puke. A number of Ngati-Porou from the Moehau Peninsula had cast in their fighting fortunes with the Piri-Rakau under the chiefs Te Popata and Te Kewene, and many Ngati-Raukawa and some Waikato also joined them.

The opening action of the campaign occurred on the 18th January, 1867, at the village of Te Irihanga. On the previous day a force of the 1st Waikato Militia was moved out to the Omanawa Redoubt for the purpose of covering the arrest of Pene Taka and others of Ngai-te-Rangi, and Te Kewene and others of Ngati-Porou, on charges of interference with the surveyors by taking their instruments and threatening them with death. On the morning of the 18th the officer in charge of the force at Omanawa crossed over towards Te Irihanga with forty men. This movement, which was premature, quickly brought on a fight. A volley from the Hauhaus, as the small force began its ascent of Te Irihanga Hill, mortally wounded Sergeant-Major Emus of the Militia; he died four days later. On receiving this surprise volley the Militia quickly extended in skirmishing order, and hot firing lasted for about three-quarters of an hour. After an indecisive encounter the Militia force drew off and returned to the Omanawa post.

The next expedition (21st-22nd January) consisted of detachments of the 1st Waikato Regiment of Militia, under Colonel Harrington, and the 12th Regiment, commanded by Colonel Hamilton. The force crossed the Wairoa River at Poteriwhi in canoes and boats (just above the present bridge), and ascended the long fern-clad slopes of Minden Peak, where the 12th Regiment bivouacked for the night. Mr. Gilbert Mair, who was soon afterwards given a commission as ensign and received promotion to lieutenant, was attached to the Imperials as interpreter, but obtained Colonel Hamilton's permission to act in that capacity for Colonel Harrington's force which was in the advance, and which did all the fighting.

Passing through Te Irihanga the Militia skirmished through the belt of bush which separated it from the next settlement, Whakamarama. On entering the large fields of maize and potatoes at Whakamarama the Militia came under a heavy fire from the edge of the forest all round. The tall maize afforded good cover, and no casualties occurred just then. Gilbert Mair was one of the few who were on horseback and led the attack on the village. Seeing a party of seven Hauhaus making for a slab hut, he galloped up, trying to turn them to the right, where they would have run against Captain A. C. Turner's company of Militia. The enemy reached the shelter first, and fired a volley at short range through the doorway and two open windows. Mair's horse, a heavy one, fell dead, its spine smashed by a bullet, and other shots through its head and heart. In its fall it pinned Mair's left leg and spurred boot so that he could not move. In the meantime the natives rushed out, reloading as they ran toward him, while he kept snapping his revolver, which had been wet through when he swam the Judea estuary at high water that morning. Fortunately one cartridge exploded, wounding the foremost man, which checked the rush, and Captain Turner, hurrying up, extracted Mair from his perilous position. A bullet had cut the peak of his cap, another grazed his sleeve, and another cut the pommel of his saddle. Several 1st Waikato men now ran up, and the party gave chase to the natives. The Hauhaus retired into the bush, and the pursuers got in among some fallen timber. Here Private Henry Jeffs was mortally wounded at close range, and was brought out with great difficulty. While the advance-party was so engaged, the main body of the Militia reached the spot where Mair's dead horse was lying, and Private Burslem, by way of a joke, stood up on the animal and began soliciting bids, when a dozen shots rang out from the edge of the bush and a bullet deprived the self-constituted auctioneer of part of an ear.

At the request of the Government, Major William Mair, R.M. at Maketu, raised a force of two hundred armed Arawa, at a pay of 3s. a day, for the purpose of following up the Hauhaus to their forest villages and dispersing them and destroying their cultivations. Mair was instructed to begin at Te Puke, then the headquarters of Hakaraia's band (Waitaha and Tapuika clans), to destroy food crops there, and then to push on to Oropi. After burning the village and making havoc in the food-gardens the Arawa pushed on along the edge of the bush. The instruments belonging to Mr. Graham, the surveyor, were found at Te Puke. Oropi was found unoccupied and was destroyed. Here a large quantity of loot and some gunpowder was found, and Hakaraia's great flag and other Hauhau banners were discovered in the bush.

On the 4th February a combined attack was made on the Hauhaus assembled at Te Akeake, a short distance inland of the redoubt called Pye's Pa (after Captain Pye, V.C., of the Colonial Defence Force Cavalry) at Otupuraho. The column was made up of the 1st Waikato Militia under Colonel Harrington, Mair's Arawa, and some other Arawa under Captain Walker. The Hauhaus were collected in some strength in a wooded gorge. After some sharp skirmishing from tree to tree they were driven back into the dense forest. Akeake and Taumata Villages were taken, with five prisoners, from whom it was ascertained that Hakaraia had been there with forty-five men. Gilbert Mair led the attack on the rifle-pits at Taumata, and the Defence Minister, Colonel Haultain, who accompanied the expedition, gave him a commission as ensign of Militia. The work of cutting down and otherwise destroying the food crops in the captured settlements occupied the Militia for three days. From here the Arawa went on inland to Paengaroa, where the Hauhaus retired into the forest after firing a few heavy volleys. The settlement here, too, was burned down.

In the middle of February a strong expedition was organized at Tauranga to attack Te Irihanga and Whakamarama again. On this occasion the force was composed almost entirely of Arawa natives commanded by Major William Mair and his brother Gilbert. Captain H. L. Skeet's company of volunteer engineers, a fine body of young surveyors, all well accustomed to bushwork formed part of the column, and several companies of the 1st Waikato Militia acted as supports. The expedition followed the route taken by the first attacking column, up the right (proper) bank of the Wairoa, fording that river at the lower falls. The first night out was spent in bivouac at Awangarara, near the ford. On reaching the Irihanga village, on the eastern fringe of the forest, on the 15th February, the place was found strongly held by the enemy. The Hauhaus did not fire until the troops got into the open ground near the top of the hill on which the village stood. The summit was about 150 yards from the bush. The fern on each side of the narrow road was 8 feet or 10 feet high. The Hauhaus had cleared a space of about 10 yards wide between the hill and the bush by treading the fern down, and the heads of the fern were pressed over in the direction of the line of march of the troops. This was done in order to enable the defenders of the hill to fire destructive volleys while the attackers were passing over the ground between the summit and the bush—a task of difficulty and slowness on account of the artful manner in which the fern had been pressed over. As the troops approached the hilltop the Hauhaus opened fire. Major Mair's Arawa, who were leading, waited until the enemy had delivered a heavy volley, and then, before the Hauhaus could reload, charged and captured the settlement, and drove the Hauhaus into the bush. The force advanced and penetrated to Whakamarama, the headquarters settlement of the Piri-Rakau and their chief source of food-supplies. (The present sawmill at Whakamarama, fifteen miles inland from Tauranga by the Wairoa route, is close to this spot.) The village and cultivations occupied a beautiful tract of fertile country, with a thin belt of bush on the front and the dense forest and deep gorges of the hinterland in the rear—a perfect retreat and refuge in case of need. The Piri-Rakau had over 100 acres down in food crops, chiefly potatoes and maize; the cultivations occupied a shallow sunny saucer of country slightly inclined to the northeast, divided by a low ridge. In rear there was heavy timber—rimu, tawa, and even puriri, a tree not often seen on this part of the coast. Comfortable thatched whares, with some slab houses, were scattered all over this terrain, among the plots of maize and potatoes; the place had recently been cleared of forest, and burnt logs and stumps were dotted about the fields. A tall niu, the pole of worship, stood in the principal part of the settlement; its foot was encircled by a red-painted railing modelled on church altar-rails. There were similar niu masts at other villages along the edge of the forest—Irihanga, Oropi, and other kaingas. In some cases the mast was painted red as high as the crosstrees.

The retreating enemy were pursued through the belt of forest, about a quarter of a mile in length, separating Irihanga from the eastern end of the Whakamarama village and fields. The strip of heavy timber between the two settlements is still standing; then, as now, it was fairly clear of undergrowth. There was a sledge-track through it connecting the two villages, which were half a mile apart. Mair's Arawa contingent, dashing ahead, fell in with the Hauhaus in the middle of the bush. The enemy made a determined stand behind the cover of some very large trees and logs. Their resistance was broken by Harete te Whanarere, one of a famous fighting family of Ngati-Pikiao, from Rotoiti. On the side of the track, where the huge, densely foliaged trees make a twilight gloom, he pluckily grappled the foremost of the antagonists, a big Hauhau, whom he threw to the ground. The two warriors were engaged in a desperate struggle when another Hauhau dashed out from his cover, and, placing the muzzle of his Tower musket against Harete's body, fired and smashed both the hip-joints. (Though terribly wounded, Harete survived for some years.) Hemana then dashed up and killed the man who had shot Harete. Several of the Piri-Rakau were wounded in the tree-to-tree fighting here. It was typical bush warfare for a few minutes. Only the black heads of the combatants were to be seen now and again, and the muzzle of a gun showing for an instant, followed by a puff of smoke, then an instant dash for another tree. The Hauhaus presently broke and fell back on their main body at the Whakamarama village.

Just after the Piri-Rakau had retreated from the scene of this skirmish midway through the belt of bush Ensign Mair noticed a trail of blood leading down to a deep gorge on the left, or east, in the direction of Poripori. There was a faint track here through the forest to Poripori, which the Piri-Rakau had marked by breaking and doubling over the fronds of the fern called tu-taumata (Lomaria discolor), which are silvery-white underneath. When doubled over, the white under-surface of the fern showed conspicuously against the dark green of the ferns, moss, and tree-trunks around it. Mair observed that these white fronds were splashed with blood; and, diverging from the route followed by the others, he scouted down to the creek in the gorge. Hot on the trail, he followed the blood-marks to a cave, over the mouth of which a little waterfall came down. A shot rang out from the cave, narrowly missing him. Mair rushed in and encountered a wounded Maori kneeling behind the rocks in the gloom, and shot the man dead just as he was levelling his long single-barrel gun for another shot. Taking the dead warrior's gun and whakakai pendant of tangiwai greenstone as trophies, Mair hurried back to the scene of the fight. He found by inquiry afterwards that the man he had shot, a big tattooed warrior, was a Piri-Rakau named Rota, one of the leading men of the turbulent tribe.

Ensign Mair soon overtook his brother William, who, with his Arawa, was hotly engaged with the enemy at Whakamarama. The contingent skirmished through the maize-fields, where the corn was higher than a man's head, and forced the Hauhaus back to the western end of the clearing. Here, at their third position, Te Umu-o-Korongaehe, on the edge of the bush, the enemy made a further stand.

One of the Arawa, a man named Kitua, was severely wounded by a curious projectile, a large nail, which lacerated his leg badly; there were several slighter casualties. Gilbert Mair was joined here by several of the volunteer engineers, including Privates Eric Goldsmith, A. Crapp (afterwards Captain Crapp), and Tom Jordan. Lieutenant Horne, of the 1st Waikato Regiment, and others also came up. On ascending a low ridge a number of the Hauhaus were seen behind a large tawa tree which was lying across the track. These men fired at about 25 yards, mortally wounding young Tom Jordan in the abdomen. At the same moment Lieutenant Horne, who had taken cover behind a big rimu tree, killed the foremost assailant, a stalwart young fellow named Raumati, with a bullet through the eye. His fall so discouraged his companions that the small force were enabled to retire with Jordan's body and rejoin the main division. Raumati was a chief of the Piri-Rakau. He had fought in the Waikato War, receiving a wound at Otau, Wairoa South, in 1863, and he was one of the men who defended the Koheriki trenches, the left wing of the Gate Pa, in the battle of 1864.

IN MARCH OF 1867 a formidable attempt to invade Rotorua was made by a body of Waikato, Ngati-Raukawa, and Ngati-Haua men, acting at the instigation—or, at any rate, with the approval of King Tawhaio. The object was to exact retribution for the action of the Arawa tribes in barring the way to the East Coast army of reinforcements for Waikato in 1864. The invaders reached the western shore of Rotorua Lake, but did not succeed in their essay to attack Ohinemutu itself.

The first alarm of the Kingite-Hauhau incursion was communicated to the Civil Commissioner at Tauranga by Dr. Nesbitt, the Government agent and medical officer at Rotorua. He reported in March that a force of Waikato Hauhaus, numbering from three hundred to five hundred fighting-men, had appeared on the edge of the Mamaku Forest and had encamped at Puraku, near Tarukenga, sending parties out to Waiteti and to Parawai, near Puhirua, close to the lake. Those at Parawai were said to be under the command of Hakaraia, the Hauhau prophet from Te Puke. It was ascertained later that Kihitu was the principal leader of the Waikato and their allies.

The first to engage these raiders was Ensign Gilbert Mair, with a small body of Arawa, in a skirmish on Sunday, the 17th March, three days before the main body of Militia and Arawa reached Rotorua from Tauranga. Most of the Arawa had been in the Tauranga district fighting the Piri-Rakau and other Hauhau tribes, and there were only a few with Mr. Mair, who had just made a hazardous scouting expedition, alone, into Poripori, discovering there that the Hauhaus were making for Rotorua. As he came along the lake-shore from the Kaituna side he saw in the distance a line of blazing villages on the crest of land south of Rotorua—Paparata, Te Whetengu, and other places along the Tihi-o-Tonga, from the slopes of Ngongotaha Mountain stretching east to the Karaka Hill above the Hemo Gorge. The enemy had come down over the Hautere plateau and were making for Ohinemutu, hoping to capture the chief home of the Arawa during the absence of the fighting-men. Mair hurried on at the double, taking with him the best of his men—and there were very few who were able to keep up with this active and tireless young officer on the war-path. He reached Pukeroa pa ahead of all his men, and found only a few able-bodied warriors there; most of the garrison were old men and women and children.

The Maharo Redoubt, on the summit of Pukeroa Hill, had been built under Mair's direction before he left for Tauranga with the main body, and had been placed under the charge of Henare te Pukuatua with twenty-five men. From the western slope of the hill, at Paepae-mohoao, he could now see a long line of men, single file, advancing rapidly over a low ridge which trended across the old battlefield of Mataipuku, of cannibal fame, to the abandoned earthworks of Te Koutu pa, the terminal of the ridge, overlooking a small kainga of Ngati-Whakaue on the sandy shore of the lake. As was discovered afterwards, this war-party numbered seventy. The invading taua was headed by a woman, a circumstance reminiscent of the warlike customs in Samoa, where a high-born taupo woman usually led the march into battle. This woman of Waikato was Pare Turanga, a high prophetess and a sorceress or seer of visions (matakite).

There was not an instant to lose, for it was clearly necessary to seize and hold the pa at Te Koutu before the enemy reached it. Accordingly Mr. Mair, having called on the most active of the men in Pukeroa to join him, rushed off to forestall the invaders. He had now thirty-nine men, a small body to join issue with the strong and evidently well-equipped invading force, who looked a splendid body of warriors as they came marching at a steady walk over the plain, stripped to the waist and armed with guns and tomahawks with numerous cartoucheboxes strapped around them. Mair's men had not a rifle among them. His own weapon was a double-barrel gun; his Arawas were armed with similar pieces and with single-barrel guns and old-fashioned Tower flint-lock muskets.

The little Arawa force forded the Utuhina Stream 200 yards or 300 yards from its point of discharge into the lake. The water came up above the men's waists, and they had their guns and ammunition-boxes over their heads to keep them dry. They could hear the wild music of the Hauhaus' Pai-marire chant, a fanatic chorus, rolling up from the warriors as they marched into battle. Once across the little river the Arawa made direct for Te Koutu through the manuka scrub, here pitted with boiling springs and bubbling mud-holes, a nest of perils for an enemy unacquainted with the ground. Racing for the old hill pa, they clambered into its ditches on the south and east sides just as the enemy charged and occupied the other two sides. The pa was roughly square in shape, about 45 yards in length and the same in width; its outline can plainly be traced to-day, although the olden parepare or parapets, trench, and traverses have suffered from the hand of time and the feet of grazing stock. [Later, in the “seventies,” Captain Mair, then resident at Te Koutu as Government officer, planted rows of Pinus insignis round the ramparts, and the stumps of these trees—which, when 100 feet high and 4 feet through the butt, were felled for timber and rafted round to the Ngongotaha sawmill—remain to-day to mark the limits of the ancient fortification.]

The enemy were led on by Pare Turanga, the chieftainess already mentioned, a handsome young woman, tattooed on chin and lips, attired in beautiful native garments of finely dressed flax—a huaki with its double flounce of taniko pattern about the shoulders, leaving the right arm bare, and a korowai of white flax with dangling black dyed thrums around the waist. Huia-feather's adorned her luxuriant black hair. She wielded a long spear-headed taiaha, and this she handled in true warrior fashion as she came running on at the head of her warriors, perfectly indifferent to danger. Yelling their Pai-marire battle-cries, the Waikato Hauhaus made desperate endeavours to wrest the opposite trenches of the pa from the Arawa. They attempted to outflank the Lakes men, but this was frustrated by Mair and his comrades, a few of whom dashed up to the south-west corner of the redoubt and enfiladed the enemy holding a portion of the westernmost trench. Meanwhile a number of Arawa, led by Henare Pukuatua and a big black-bearded young warrior chief of the Ngati-Raukawa and Ngati-Whakaue named Arekatera Rongowhitiao, worked round the north-eastern corner and began to outflank the Hauhaus in that direction, the side facing Kawaha. Some of the enemy had crept into the pa and occupied some ruas, or old food-pits, and other depressions there, and from this cover they kept up a constant and heavy but not very well directed fire upon the Arawa, very few of whom were hit. All that could be seen of most of the enemy were the black shaggy heads popping up here and there across the 20 yards of clear ground in the interior of the pa, and a gun hastily raised and discharged.

The sharpest fighting occurred at the south-east angle of the pa. Mr. Mair and a man of Ohinemutu named Te Honiana, dashing up the hill, secured cover behind a small but thick patch of manuka a few yards from the angle, and from here kept up a steady fire. Some of the enemy had taken cover behind the traverses of the old trench, which were still in usable order Meanwhile a fine young warrior of the Arawa, a man named Werimana, of the high-born Amohau family, the favourite young chief of the Ngati-Tunohopo clan, boldly stood forth near the parapet, and singling out a foeman across the intervening few yards, shot him. Clubbing his gun he dashed forward “over the top” to despatch his foe, crying as he did so “Ki au te mata-ika” (“Mine is the first fish!”—i.e., the first antagonist slain), when he himself was shot through the lungs by Hone, of Ngati-Ahuru, and fell mortally wounded. His fall was quickly avenged by Whiripo, of the Ngati-Tuara hapu; he shot and severely wounded Hone, who, after the fight was despatched by a bullet from Rameka's gun as utu for Werimana's fatal wound.

Almost simultaneously Mair and Honiana secured a good view of a daring slim lad, conspicuous for his head of yellow-red hair, the ruddy tinge called by the Maoris urukehu. Their bullets both struck him, and he fell dead. It is believed he was Netana, of the Ngati-Haua Tribe.

Now the Arawa on the other side of the pa succeeded in outflanking the enemy holding the northern face, and these at last broke and fled with the survivors of those who had faced the fire and Mair and his immediate followers. The whole war-party of Waikato turned and made for the cover of the thick manuka, fighting as they retired. The last to leave the battlefield—as she had been the first to enter it—was the fearless chieftainess, brandishing her red feather-decked taiaha, and rolling her eyes in the warrior grimace of the pukana until the shelter of the thickets was reached.

Seven Waikato warriors were killed in and around this pa of Te Koutu; their bodies were interred in an ancient wahi-tapu, or burying-ground, which is marked to-day by an old willow-tree in the highest part of the redoubt. The Arawa, following up the retreating enemy, killed two more in a clump of kahikatea timber called Te Pa-nui-o-marama, on the flat in the direction of Ngongotaha. The pursuit ended at Te Puna-a-Tuhoe (now called the Fairy Spring), close to the base of Ngongotaha Mountain, and here two more were shot, making eleven in all; but the bodies were carried off by the retreating Waikato, who made off round the base of the Kauae spur and fell back on Tarukenga.

The Arawa lost only one man—the brave Werimana, who was carried to Ohinemutu, where he died that night. Five men were wounded. Captain Mair gives the following list of the thirty-nine men who followed him to Te Koutu: Henare te Pukuatua, Te Raika, Manahi Poihipi, Taekata, Te Warihi, Te Werimana (died from wound), Te Tupara Tokoaitua, Whiripo te Puni, Hamuera Pango, Pango Kaingamata te Ore, Ngamahirau, Reupena, Perepe Tapihana, Ieni Tapihana, Arekatera Rongowhitiao, Poniwahio Pango, Ngakuku, Hona te Ngatete, Matenga Rangi-whakairi-ao, Paora te Amohau, Te Pimara, Pirika Poihipi, Te Wheuhi Wharekiekie Ngamako, Himaera, Te Rangikaheke (severely wounded), Wehipeihana, Henare Mokoia, Te Hauiti, Te Kowhai, Te Kipihana te Keho, Te Katene Motunau, Whakatau Ngakuku, Whitiana Pako, Te Taotahi, Te Araki te Pohu, Raniera, Hema te Tua, Hori Keretumu, and Manahi te Puango.

Some of these men, such as the Ngati-Tu chief of Te Araki te Pohu—a splendidly tattooed patriarch who died some years ago nearly a hundred years of age—were elderly men, and so could not keep up with the younger warriors in the race to forestall the Hauhaus, but all arrived in time for the fight.

IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE Arawa repulse of the Waikato Hauhaus at Te Koutu (17th March, 1867) news reached Rotorua that the main war-party under Kihitu had occupied and was fortifying a position at Puraku, a short distance from Tarukenga, on the edge of the wooded ranges west of Rotorua Lake. This place was close to Parahaki, the scene in 1835 of the murder of Hunga by Haerehuka, a tragedy which led to the invasion of the Lakes country by the great warrior Te Waharoa and his Ngati-Haua. Now history was repeating itself in this attack by the Waikato tribes after a lapse of thirty years, but in this later instance the assailants were destined never to set foot on the shores of the famous lake or to reach the palisades or their hereditary foemen's fort. The Kingites established themselves comfortably in their eyrie at Puraku (called also Ahiria, or “Assyria”), whence they could overlook the whole basin of Rotorua, posted as they were on its lofty rim. They hoisted their curiously designed war-flags on a niu pole within the walls, and day and night the camp resounded with the solemn music of their Pai-marire chants.

This fortification at Puraku was first built by the local disaffected tribes, the Ngati-Tura and others, and a small section of Ngati-Rangiwewehi. Ensign Gilbert Mair, who was at the time stationed at Rotorua, repeatedly scouted out alone to the lofty north-west spur of Ngongotaha Mountain—the wooded height called Te Tuahu-a-te-Atua (“The Altar of the God”), famous in Arawa fairy folk-lore—and from that post watched the Hauhaus hard at work digging their trenches and erecting their stockade. Then, after the fighting in rear of Tauranga, when the Waikato, Ngati-Raukawa, and other rebel tribes came out of the Piri-Rakau bush country and concentrated for an attack on Rotorua, they took up their quarters with Ngati-Tura and occupied and strengthened the pa. Mair's daring scouting exploit, when he went into the forest from Tauranga and found the large rebel force had moved out from Poripori southward, had the result of arousing the authorities to a sense of Rotorua's imminent danger, and a Government column was hurried off to the Lakes via Maketu. On the 20th March Major (afterwards Lieut.-Colonel) T. McDonnell and Major St. John arrived with the 1st Waikato Regiment of Militia. The loyal Arawa co-operated with the troops in the skirmishing which followed.

The principal operation was the attack and capture of Puraku. There was a preliminary reconnaissance in force when the pa was temporarily abandoned; it was partly destroyed by the force. Then, at the end of March, the full strength of the European and Maori force marched up the valley of Waiteti Stream, working past the northern spur of Ngongotaha Mountain to the ferncovered terraces and the bush ranges above. Gilbert Mair was detailed to take a hundred men of the Ngati-Pikiao and Ngati-Manawa Tribes and make a long detour to the right in order to work round into the forest in rear of the pa, which was a few hundred yards from the bush. The scheme was to surround the pa on the forest side, the main body meanwhile keeping the enemy busy on the front facing the lake, then to attack and drive the garrison into the cordon in rear.

Mair, realizing the broken and difficult nature of the country, asked his superior to allow four hours in which to complete the task allotted him. However, he was only given two hours. Mair moved off quickly with his hundred Ngati-Pikiao, accompanied by Ensign Dean Pitt and Sergeant-Major David White (who was killed in 1869 at Te Paripari, on the Whakatane River). As he had anticipated, he had not gone very far before he was confronted by a series of precipitous defiles, the deep gorges T