WHERE MAORIS FOUGHT.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3382, 11 July 1927, Page 2

WHERE MAORIS FOUGHT.

A spot rich in Maori tradition is to be found on the property of Mr P. Dolbel, at Otatara, Hawke’s Bay (states the Taranaki “Daily News”). A party of Napier residents recently visited the place, where the time was spent in delving into the little-known history of the locality, which was the scene of one of the greatest battles in native historv.

Some 350 years ago there was situated at Otatara a pa about eighty to 100 acres in extent, one of the largest lighting pas in New Zealand. This was a double fighting pa, very strongly fortified, and which required a large number of men to defend-it against an attacking force. The higher one of the two divisions was called Tikurangi, and the lower one Otatara, the builders being the Ngatiawa and Eangitane tribes. The former came from Ilawaiki about the year 1270 in the Matatua canoe, and landed in the Bay of Islands, where they occupied the banks of the Yvaitangi and Kerikeri Rivers. They gradually went over the range into Hokianga, where they built large and extensive earth fortifications.

Seven generations later —a generation is reckoned as being a period of twentyfive years —these natives were expelled by the Ngapuhi tribe, one small party from them going to Taranaki and a largo one to Tauranga, where they occupied the banks of the To Awa 0 Tc Atua. The Ngatiawa were known as a restless tribe, and some later made their way to Hawke’s Bay, then occupied by the Eangitanui. Some fourteen generations ago there was a general scattering of the tribes at Gisborne on the death of a leading chief called Tupurupuru, two large parties leaving and joining together at Wairoa A select fighting party from these, led by Taraia, a man of wonderful bravery and strategy, came down to this district, on the journey defeating tribes at Arapawanui. At Petanc the people from the ileipi pa were enticed out by strategy, but an amicable settlement resulted.

Taraia then went to the Otatara. pa, to which he laid siege. The pa, which was defended by a chief named Phi Tara Boa, resisted all efforts to capture it, but at hast it was noticed that when the lower par attacked, the people from the upper pa came down to lend asistanee, thus leaving the upper one defenceless. The next night Taraia picked out a select band of his followers, and directed his main army to make a frontal attack, and while the total inhabitants of the pa were trying to repel them ho himself went round to the pa, where an easy entry was made, and the pa fell into his ha nds.

Having accounted for the enemy left in the pa, Taraia marched down the hill and set; upon the others from the rear, with the result that, caught between two lines of assailants, the home Natives wore annihilated. All except a few, the story goes, ■who made off in the confusion, ran so hard that they did not stop until they reached Tara-

naki. The remains of the ancient forts are still apparent on the hillside, where the old trenches exist to this day.