A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 20002, 9 August 1930, Page 5

A HUNDRED YEARS AGO.

LAST AND LONGEST RAID. TUTURAU AND PEACE. (specially ■WRITTEN fob the pbess.) [By W. F. Alexander and H. I>Skinxkb.] (All Rights Reserved.) It is probable that Te Puoho hoped to recruit his force from fellow-tribes-men who in 1828 had conquered the scattered Kai Tahu Hapus in Westland, for Smith records him as leaving Golden Bay with, one hundred fighting men, too small a number to hope for success against Ruapuke unless luck remained his faithful ally throughout. But the hope of reinforcement was shattered by the action of Niho, the Ngati Tama conqueror of Westland, who not only refused to co-operate but was definitely hostile, quartering his two hundred fighting men in two pas and forbidding Te Puoho's men to enter them. Undaunted, Te Puoho pushed on, having secured no more recruits than would make good the inevitable casualties of travel in such mountainous country as lay ahead. As the party began their southward march from the Grey river ho must have realised that now the odds were heavily against him. His few recruits would be members of Ngati Tama and Ngati Mutunga, rash youngsters, who gloried in a desperate enterprise, or else men who found life in their own communities uncongenial and were prepared to tako any chance that offered of getting away. Niho had refused him permission to press Kai Tahu guides to lead the party over the Haast Pass, and it was therefore essential to surprise the Kai Tahu community at Awarua, more than twi hundred miles away, in South Westland, and to secure guides there. As he marched southward in or about December, 1836, the scene would remind him, in somo points of bis own homeland far away in the north, with its clear sunshine alternating with downpours of warm rain. On his right stretched the Tasman Sea, while close at hand on his left rose the forested foothills of the Southern Alps. Beyond -them was a feature such as he had never seen before—a wall of snow-clad peaks from the central mass of which glaciers pressed down into the forests close to the line of march. We have no record of the happenings at Awarua, but we may guess that the food supplies, if any, found there were taken, and the able-bodied men were pressed as porters and guides. From Awarua the party returned to the Haast river, up which they went, and over the Haast pass. Following down the Makarora they reached Lake Wanaka, along the east side of which they went to the neck, where Lake Hawea is only two miles distant. Here they came in contact with the first of the East Coast Kai Tahu, a few families of whom were living permanently at the lakes. After skirmishing and a little bloodshed most of these were secured to act as porters and guides for the hardest part of the journey, which still lay before thorn. Ono family escaped, as Shortland has recorded, but seems to have stayed in tho lake district, for they did not give tho alarm to the coastal settlements. kThere could have been littlG food stored at this season of the year at Wanaka. The winter stores would be exhausted, and the laying up of stores for the winter of 1837 would not yet have begun. So the long line of hungry warriors and hungrier porters left Wanaka, going up the Cardrona and round by the head of- the Shotover, and following, the Kirtle Burn down to the Kawaru The.v followed the Nevis, and then crossed the mountains to the site of Kingston, after which came far eas'er travelling down the valley of the Mataura. At last the geographical difficulties were behind them.

Hunger and Toll. Thus far Te Puoho had suffered only cno reverse--his failure to secure recruits from Niho's force. But the whole partv was suffering from hunger and from the tremendous toil imposed bv their road. Fortune smiled on them once more, however, for when thev reached Whakaea (wrongly spelt on "the maps WaikaiaJ, just where the stream joins the Mataura, they stirprised an eeling party of Kai Tahu, twelve in number. They had accumulated an immense number of dried eels, which now provisioned the whole party. None of the eelers was killed; all were enrolled as porters. Heartened bv this success, the party advanced on the hamlet of Tuturau, at Mataura Falls, near the present site of Gore, a settlement of a few whares protected by a light palisade. The place was rushed, and the few peoole within were made prisoner or killed and eaten. Some < of the war par*v had died of privation on the marcn Others oould onlv stagger along. Te Puoho knew that his case was desperate, and he strengthened the palisades round Tuturau so that his uiea might rest and recuperate with srftne appearance of security. Success or disaster hung on his ability to make his attack on Ruapuke a complete surprise. If he could take the island_ while inosi of the men were away sealing or bay whaling or mutt-on-birding, he might then be able to deal with the scattered parties in turn. He did not know that when Tuturau was rushed a man of Kai Tahu was eeling in a hollow of ; the river bank, and had escaped. This man must have 6f>en the numbers and the state of Te Puoho's party. • As fast as his legs could carry him . he traversed the Mataura Vallev to Toetoe's Bay, summoned a boat from Ruapuke by smoke signal, and in a trice Kai Tahu had all available men, some seventy-five in number, mobilised and on the warpath. . , , , • A number of versions of the closing scene are in existence, differing a good deal in detail, due chiefly to the personal jealousy of the different narrators, each of whom seems to have suppressed" the name and deeds of his most, prominent comrades. Tuhawaiki was. present, and in command, but interest centres in the deeds of two of his subordinates, Taiaroa and Topi Patuki. Haereroa was present also, but Karetai was still at Otago, oblivious of what was happening in the south. The party crossed the strait in whaleboats, • and were joined at Toitois by a smaller band, bringing the tota! up to 100, 1 all fresh and armed with muskets. Three, nights after Puoho had taken the village Tuturau was again surrounded. At dawn a man was seen coming out of the pa and running straight at the reserves commanded by Taiaroa. In contravention of orders a volley greeted him, and he fell. Taiaroa and his men rushed forward into the gateway. Te Puoho had been sleeping in the wide porch of the principal whare, facing the gate. Wakened by the volley he sprang- up, taiaha in hand, shouting to Ngati Tama and Ngati Mutu nga , to rally. A shot from Topi's musket struck him. killing him instantly Wakened by the sudden firing, his men stumbled' from the whares and ran up to the gateway. The main body, of ,Kai Tahu, led by Tuhawaiki, rushed the palisades from the rear and

passed them unopposed, hemming Te Puoho's men in by the gate through which Taiaroa had already entered. He had rushed forward and thrown his mat on the roof of the principal whare thus rendering it tapu to himself ana so protecting all who were within. By this action Taiaroa showed his gratitude for generosity shown to him by Ngati Mutunga at the siege of Kaiapoi five years before. The rest, halfstarved and now leaderless, surrendered a t Mice, and so the influence of Tuhawaiki, being against further bloodshed, the action ended with only two casualties. The man first shot was found to fio one of the Kai Tahu prisoners, who apparently had made his escape at an inauspicious moment. McNab dates this final disaster to Te Rauparaha's forces as January, 1837 Smith records that a solitary member of Te Puoho's force escaped from Tuturau. This man was Nga Whakawa, of the Mua-upoko tribe, brother-in-law of Puoho, whose life had been spared at the Ohariu massacre. He is stated to have performed the almost incredible feat of traversing 500 miles of mountain country in Otago, Canterbury, and Nelson, finally reaching hi.3 homo at Parapara, Golden Bay. Vae Victis. Te Puoho's head was cut off and roughly preserved, and the party set out for Ruapuke with a long train of prisoners. On the way two men, who are stated to have attempted escape, were killed and eaten. On arrival the prisoners were shared out among the conquerors, and there were so many that the whito residents also received their share. James Wybrow states that his father was at Ruapuke and was allotted a servant. Some time later relatives of the captives commissioned a trader named Macdonald to go to Ruapuke and to rescue the prisoners. Ono night most of them were smuggled aboard. "The vessel," says James Wybrow, '' got under way before daylight, and when dawn «came sh was just in sight ' and no more. The prisoners were soon missed, and the enraged Southerners guessed at once that the vessel had taken them away. The few prisoners left were butchered with tomahawks. My father was standing by when his servant was killed before his eyes, and he dared not say a word, or the Natives would have gone for him, too. The moment the poor fellow was knocked down he was cut in pieces, one going away with a leg, one with an arm, and ono with the head, and so on. My father said he would not have cared so much only he had bought his slave a new Sair of moleskins and a blue shirt a ay or two before. "This was the last of the invaders except for a strange thing that happened afterwards. Some of the slaves were beheaded, and the bodies were buried at one part of the island—at old Ruapuke, I think—while the heads were buried at another. The latter part was above high-water mark. A great storm came on, and the sea washed the heads out of tho sand and carried them along the coast. When the storm went down the heads were found on the beach right abreast of where the bodies were buried, and from that day up to the present the Natives of Ruapuke have never killed another man.'' So closes the last incident in the last of Te Rauparaha's wars. In 1837 Te Rauparaha, facing a breach with his old allies, Ati Awa, thought it wise to make peace with Kai Tahu. The chief captives he had taken were restored to them, and a few years later, when Ngati Toa were converted to Christianity, the "mere uncounted folk" among their prisoners were allowed also to return home. [ln constructing this account of Te Puoho's raid ■ many sources have been referred to, and use has been made of the following' authorities:—Percy Smith, Herries Beattie, Sir Frederick Chapman, and R. Carriclt. Among tho points which remain doubtful are the following:—(1) The number of Te Puoho's fighting men. Two of the best authorities, Shortland and Wybrow, place it at forty. But there are a number of considerations which make Percy Smith's figure, 100, the more probable. (2) The route followed by the raiders between Wanaka and Waikaia. (3) Whether To Puoho found Tuturau empty or whether there was bloodshed when he occupied it.] [Concluded.]