LAST SURVIVOR.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 83, 8 April 1933, Page 6

LAST SURVIVOR.

RANGIRIRI SIEGE.

AGED MAORI WOMAN.

STORY OF ESCAPE FEOM PA.

Pare te Putu, who lives at Opuatia, in the Eaglan district, and is in her 86th year, is believed to be the only survivor of the siege of the Kangiriri Pa, which took place at the commencement of the Waikato wars.

Pare, daughter of the chieftainess Titoko, was born in Freeman's Bay, then known as Te To, in 1848 or 1849. When the Waikato War was imminent, most of the natives left Auckland, fearing reprisals from the Europeans. One night the chieftainess Titoko left her home and trudged, with her two children, her daughter Pare and a son, across the shores of the Manukau to Waikowhai. On arrival there she found the village abandoned. She took a canoe and crossed the harbour to Mangere, arriving at dawn. Settlers were then plundering the native cultivations and their houses and taking their booty away in cart loads. She passed on to Pukaki, where she found the natives preparing to trek to the Waikato, as European troops were expected to arrive at any moment. The chief, Tokanini, had already been captured and held in captivity on an island called Hurakia, off Motutapu, where he was detained and where he died.

The Pa Falls. The Pukaki natives went by canoe to Waiuku, and then on to the Waikato. Pare, at this time about 15 years of age, was sent with a number of other young women to assist the natives who were preparing the defences at Rangiriri Pa, the chief Whitiora being the Maori military engineer. After a week or more had been busily spent in this labour, the defences of the pa were still incomplete, but troops then arrived and laid siege to it. Just prior to that there had been a conference of chiefs, who had decided that King Tawhiao should be sent away from the pa in case the pa should be captured. Pare te Putu still remembers clearly the farewell to the old chief. After several days of siege, during which there were several ineffectual onslaughts made on the redoubt, the pa wae ultimately taken; but many of the defenders got away via the swamp in the vicinity, crossing Lake Waikare in canoes. One of those canoe loads of Maoris came to grief. A bullet struck the stem and the canoe, being made of kahikatea, split apart almost the whole length. The occupants, of which there were many, were thrown into the water, and some were shot in attempting to swim ashore.

As for Pare, she and some othcre managed to get away from the pa and fell in with the war party of Waikatos, under Tamehana Turapipi, who were coming to relieve the pa, but who, on discovering that it had fallen to the besiegers, fell back into the interior. After this Pare and many of her people went to live at Port Waikato and other more secluded areas, until the war was over. Later Pare married the chief Te Katipa, of the Ngati Mahuta tribe, her mother's people, and had numerous children.

J Despite her age, Pare still takes an j active interest in the life of her community. When the whitebait season is in, she will be seen wading breast-deep into the Opuatia Stream, a tributary of the Whangamarino River, with the young and middle-aged of her family eager for the whitebait catch. She does not seem to mind the cold water, or, it she does feel it ehe does not complain. It may be that, having acquired a wellloved habit, she will not give in to the advancing years. Suffice it to say that she enjoyed her whitebait fishing this season.