CORRESPONDENCE

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 9950, 10 March 1894, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE

« fWe are not responsible for the opinions expressec by eurrespondenta The writer's rnme, ns a guarantee of good faith, must bo enclosed in thi letter,! MAORI HISTORY. TO THE EDI f OR. Si k, — In yqur interesting leader of last evening, on Rewi Maniapoto, there is one statement I should like to correct before it passes away maybe intp history. That portion of the leader to which I refer reads: "In 1832 the Ngatimaniapotos invaded Taranaki, and Rewi accompanied the war party. The Taranaki natives had killed some of the Ngatiawa ; and the father of Wi Taka (Wi Tako, I presume, is meant) went to Rawhai, and obtained assistance from the Ngatiruaniapoto." To give my reasons for doubting the correctness of the above passage, it will be necessary to go back some few years prior to 1832. About the j'ear 1819, Tukorehu, the great Ngatimaniapoto chief, with a tana of 140 men, left Mangatoatoa, on the Waipa, and crossed over the island to the East Coast. After defeating the Ngatiraukawa under Tupaotu, he came up this coast on his homeward march, and reached Ngapuketurua (Mahoetahi) ; here he was surrounded by a great host of the Puketapu, Ngatirahiri, and other hapus of the Atiawa tribe, who were led by a chief of the Ngatiniutunga called Rangiwahia. For some reason not yet clear to me, Tukorehu had been taken under the protection of Manutoeroa, Ariki of Atiawa, and chief of the great Puketapu pa (on the sea coast at Bell Block), Tautara and Rauakitua of the Rowarewa pa (mouth o£ "NVaiwakaiho). Thcte chiefs succeeded in getting the Ngatimaniapotos away to Pukerangiora, the fighting pa of the Atiawa on the Waitara River, and whilst here Rangiwahia made use of a most disgusting threat as to Tukorehu heads, the most sacred part of a Maori's person ; and it was to take utu for this sacrilegious threat that the great invasion ot the Ngatimaniapoto and Waikato was made into this district in November, 1831, and not for the purpose of assisting tho Atiawa in a raid against the Taranaki tribe to the south. At the capture of Pukerangiora a dreadful revenge was taken, but the man who had brought all this trouble on the tribe — Rangiwahia — escaped, consequently the utu was not complete in Tukorehu's eyes, and it was decided, after great opposition, to go forward aud attack Otaka (Moturoa). After an unsuccessful seige of three weeks tho invaders were driven uff by Wi Tako and others of the Atiawa, assisted by ton or twelve Europeans under Barrett. Rewi was quite a young man at the time, and, as you say, took no prominent part in these affairs. The above is necessarily a very condensed account ; space will not permit of full details of this sanguinary inroad of the northern tribes ; later on we may return to it. — I am, &c, W. H. Skixxkr. South Road, March 9th, 1894.