THE "HUI-PUTEA" TREE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 16, 20 January 1931, Page 6

THE "HUI-PUTEA" TREE.

The authentic etory of that historic old tree at Otorohanga so mutilated by the genii- of the Waitomo Electric Power Board (who ehould be condemned to live in a totally treeless land for ever and ever) goes back considerably further than the 'sixties of last century, the period mentioned by the "Star's" King Country correspondent. The date of the midnight surprise at the foot of the tree—it was in a grove of kahikatea near where Ellis' sawmill etood some yeare ago —was the year 1822. It was juet after the great defeat and massacre of the Waikato tribes at Matakitaki Pa by Hongi Hika and his muaket-armed Ngapuhi army. The site of Matakitaki is near the present •township of Pirongia, on the Waipa River. The fugitives were pursued up the Waipa Valley, and a large number of the principal women of the Ngati-Mahuta tribe were captured near Otorohanga. The victore camped at this spot and were enjoying the choicest spoils of war when a party of Waikato ecouts under Te Wherowhero and Te Otapehi were informed of what had happened by a young chieftainess who had escaped. They bade her return quietly to the camp and instruct the women to use their utmost 'powers of fascination to distract their enemy captors and put them off their guard. Then, in the early dawn, the Waikato made a furious attack and killed fifty or eixty Ngapuhi, nearly the whole of that war party. Only one or two escaped. .And the Maoris to this day call the spot Tβ Hui Putea, which means all in.one basket, or in one heap, 'because when the surprise attack was made the too-amorous musketeers and the captured women were all mixed up together. The Waikato men, It ie said, had only one gun among the lot of them, but it wag tomahawk and mere for it that foggy morning on the Waipa bank at Hui Putca. And af.ter that the Ngapuhi army retiredj they in their turn had had enough of the campaign. —J.C