HISTORIC INCIDENTS.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12790, 15 June 1912, Page 7

HISTORIC INCIDENTS.

(To tha Editor ot the Herald. J Sir, — I was much interested m your leader of a few days ago on the subject 'of ancient and, local Maori history and also m the other letters on the subject. I have often thought that it is a pity, that more information has not been gathered and recorded by able men on the past m the- days when Panapa Waihopi was a boy. Even now much of interest might be obtained from the few old men still among us. Most of your readers know the little settlement of Parihimanihi, at the mouth of the Quarry Gorge, and have noticed to the left, the now grass-clad and much-terraced heights of Maungapuremu, on the Seaforth estate. This pa, named Te Ruapotikitahi, was a very strong and populous one m those days of tits taiaha, patuparaoa^ and the mere, and of hancUto-hand fighting. It was also the rival of that other pa (Pukepoto) across the Waipaoa river on Mr John . Murphy's Rjapongliere property, and. long and bitter were the feuds between them. Crossing tho Repongaere ford one day with Takei, I remarked on a large, open-mouthed and deep hole, grassed to the bottom m the field on the left-hand side of the road and asked my companion the- meaning of it. He told me that it marked the spot where the two boys, sons of the chief of Te Ruapotikitahi had been captured, while spinning tops, bj T the chief of Pukepofo and done to death, and perhaps eaten. '•'lt was an. awful tragedy," remarked, Takei as we passed on, as though the very thought of it shocked him. He did not explain how these boys came to be across 'the river so far from home and playing within sight of the enemy's pa. Many years ago I was sitting with the late Topira Korelie outside his house at Parihimanihi, and m the course of conversation asked him how lie, a,Ngati-poi-ou, came to be living there. He said that it was through an, ancestor of his •that he owned a share 'in 'the Parihimanihi block and therefore he had left Waiapu to live among her people. Proceeding, he said, "She lived m a small pa on the top of that low fern if idge (indicating the place, which was well m sight).- One day a war party was seen approaching away to the south-east on the slopes of Waiohika — a moving mass of black heads; There was one long shrill cry, and all was intense excitement. — (The Maori proverb says "He karanka kai, he karanga taua" : there needs only one cry when a war party appears and so there should be only one when dinner is announced.) — -When the war party reached the foot of the hill below, they called to them to pass on and attack Maungapuremu as an object more worthy of their, prowess. This, however, they did not do, but swarmed up the hill,-' took the little pa and slaughtered the occupants. My ancestor escaped, and running down the hill, hid among the ground Iriekie m the Kahikatea bush. The war party had passed on- their left. when approaching. Some, offline party pursued arid captured her and i then they passed on to Maungapuremu. which they also assaulted and took. My ancestor was carried away to Waiapu, where she married a N^atiporou, and from these two I am descended." I inspected the bush and found that there were still remains of the rough tangle, of supplejack and ground kiekie that formed a hiding place for that ancient Maori maiden. I also climbed tWe lower range and found among the fern at the highest point the earthworks of a , very small pa. Waiapu raids on the Aitanga-a-Mahaki of these flats were not always as successful as this one. The line of an old song I heard once quoted by a Maori orator runs thus: "Mangahanerie, i mate ai a Te Aowera" —i.e., Mangahanerie, where the Aowera were defeated — used as a taunt against T*e Aowera, a subsection of the Ngatiporou tribe, by To Aitanga a Mahaki. Mangahanerie creek crosses the Ormond road jiear Mi* R. Miller's residence, be : yond the Waer^enga-a-hika College. Te RuapotitaTii, was an important hill pa, yet I was surprised at the comparatively small space occupied by the pa itself. This was explained by my friend "In those days," he said, "people' had to pack closely, much as herrings do m a sardine, tin. A large space means a large area to defend, and so the smaller tho better." - Few men know more about the his:tory of those two rival hill pa's, and especially . that of . Pukepoto, than M r W. K. Chambers^, the late owner of the Repongaere property.— l am, etc., EDWARD JENNINGS. Mangahanerie.