TUKUKINO’S TEWHATEWHA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19731, 28 December 1926, Page 8

TUKUKINO’S TEWHATEWHA

AN HISTORIC WEAPON. OLD-TIME BAID RECALLED. “ Herein ai, Pomare! I hear thou art skilled in the use of the long-handled tomahawk. I fight with the ancestral weapon, the tewhatewha. Come ashore and battle with me that you and 1 may decide the issue, and thereby save the lives of many people! ” One summer’s day this challenge to single combat was hurled from a pa on the Waikato River, somewhere about where the freezing works now stand at Horotiu, just south of Ngaruawahia. Pomare, was the leader of a party of Ngapuhi natives who had been raiding in the Waikato and were then going down the river on their return to their northern homes. As they passed the pa at Horotiu they rested on their paddles, and a valiant chief named Tukukino shouted this defiant cry’ across the water.

This - raid, which was one of the last that the dreaded Ngapuhi made into the Waikato, happened in the year 1827. When the invaders reached the Waikato they found the people sitting secure in their pas, wisely declining to place themselves at a disadvantage by fighting in the open against the guns which tho raiders had obtained from the whalers and traders. At Horotiu the garrison of the pa was mainly composed of Ngatitamatera, Hauraki people who came from Paeroa way, and one of the leading chiefs was this Tukukino. In his challenge to Pomare there was one of those “nasty knocks” the old-time Maori knew’ so well how to administer. The out-and-out rangatira who fought according to the rules of Maori chivalry, prided himself on still sticking to the ancestral weapons tliat had been used from time immemorial. It was considered very bad form for a fighter to use anything in the nature of iron; to die from a wound inflicted by iron was derogatory. The use of iron weapons was looked upon by the old school much as we of the present age looked upon the first use of gas by the Germans during the Great War. It was not playing the game. Pomare was too cunning to accept Tukukino’s challenge and the party paddled on downstream. Misfortune, Imwever. overtook the raiders near the mouth of the Waikato at a place called Awaroa, near the spot where it is proposed to put through a canal to connect with the Manukau. This used to be the old portage over which the Maoris carried their canoes to relaunch them in the Manukau. At Awaroa, the Ngapuhis were ’defeated and the redoubtable Pomare lost his life.

Hongi, that other great leader of the raiding Ngapuhi. when he heard of the disaster, said, “Huh!' I told you so!” And thereby hangs a tale. Hongi was keen enough on raiding himself, but there was a reason why Pomarc’s excursion was not “tika” or correct. Some years before, there bad been a sort of general pacification among the Ngapuhi, Waikato, Kaipara ami | Hauraki peoples, brought about, or rather ratified, by the marriage of Matere Toha, niece of Hongi, and Ixati. a cousin of To Wherowhcro, the first Maori king. This high-born couple lived first at Pukapuka (now called Lucerne (Remuera) and afterwards at

Mangere, where in the little cemetery alongside the Maori church their graves can be seen to-day. When Pomare preached, his crusade, Hongi said, “Rei member Matere Toha.” but. Pomare was pig-h< v adcd.

! The tewhatewha, or Maori battle-axe, is in shape somewhat like the EuroIpeau battle-axe. It so happens that the • favourite weapon of Tukukino is now in Auckland, and Mr George Graham, who told a “Star” reporter the story connected with it, is conducting negotiations with a view to getting it added to the fine collection in the Auckland Museum. Made of whalebone. it is curved in the handle, evidently to suit the shape of tho rib from which it was carved, and it is quite a good bit of work, apart from the fact that it also has an interesting history. Tukukino’s portrait will be found in tho Partridge collection of Lindauer paintings in the Old Colonists’ Museum. He was an intensely obstinate old chap where the interests of his people were concerned. When the pakehas were trying to got the Ohinemuri opened up for gold mining, Tukukino was one of the strongest leaders of the opposition, and it was not until 1875 that he gave way.