DEATH AT 110

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22210, 10 September 1935, Page 11

DEATH AT 110

MAORI WOMAN'S LONG LIFE MEMORIES OF A CENTURY FAMOUS INTER-TRIBAL FIGHTS [I3Y TELEGRAPH —OWN" CORRESPONDENT] GISBORNE, Monday Deep interest is attached by the native people of the East Coast district to the death yesterday at the Cook Hospital of Mrs. Huriana Tupeka, whose age, computed by reference to dates of events of which she retained clear recollections, had reached 110 years. She remembered the last great tribal fight in the neighbourhood of Gisborne, this being tho Kekeparoa battle at Pnha, which took place in 1834. She was a girl at the time, and came out of the pa with her father before tho fall of tho palisades and tho destruction of tho inhabitants. Deceased was born at To Karaka and was brought up there. When about ton years of ago she shared with hor family the excitement and danger of tho last great Maori struggle in tho district, a forco of warriors having conio from the Bay of Plenty with tho object of "cleaning off" an old score against the Mnhaki tribe, of which Huriana was a member. Tho Mahakis sent out messages calling upon their friends for succour. Tho calls were answered from tho East Coast and tho Bay of Plenty. Huriana's father was a well-known fighting man of the Mahaki tribe, and when the raiders from northward, in their first assault, carried the Kekeparoa stronghold, they allowed him to leave the pa with his family. In later fighting tho raiders were driven off, and 110 further tribal expeditions troubled the district. In later years, when the whito settlement in tho Poverty Bay area was becoming a source of concern to native landowners, Huriana and her people supported the pakehas, and remained among tho loyalists throughout the 1865 trouble, which culminated in a fight at the Waerengaahika and tho destruction of the mission station there, and also through tho Te Kooti rebellion in 1868, which cost tho lives of many settlers and Maoris. Mrs. Tupeka retained very vivid recollections of the early days, and even in her last years she was able to recall details of incidents which occurred during her girlhood. She was twice married. Tho lato Mr. Pomare Horsfall, of Manutuke, was her son by her first husband. Mr. Henry Hammond, of Gisborne, is her only surviving son. She had no daughters, but she had a large family connection throughout the district.