Stirring Times

Te Ao Hou, December 1956, Page 19

Stirring Times To an older generation the tomb on the hill and the stone in the paddock are tangible reminders of more stirring times, when Te Uri Taniwha, though small in numbers, were a factor to be reckoned with in the Maori diplomacy of arms. Before European times every one of the many volcanic hills was fortified to guard plantations and living quarters, but nowadays the resounding names of the fighting pas are all but forgotten. Nga Huha, Te Rua Hoanga, Kaiaia, Tapaporuruku, Tapahuarau, Nga Pukepango, are no longer the common names of populated places, but mere echoes of a past buried in manuka and gorse. Pouerua, Maungaturoto, Maungakawakawa and Te Ahuahu are big enough, or farmed enough or prominent enough in the landscape to stay in the eye and the memory. On the eastern slopes of Pouerua alone, according to Henry Williams, about 1400 people made their homes where only sheep graze now. When Marsden saw the area towards the end of the second decade of the 19th century most of the fortified hills had been abandoned, though remnants of stockades still stood here and there. But by 1827 agriculture on the rich volcanic soil had reached such a stage as to astonish the pakeha visitor. In that year Augustus Earle, artist and world traveller, walking from the Hokianga to

the Bay of Islands reported as follows: At midday we arrived at what in New Zealand is considered a town of great size and importance, called Ty-a-my. It is situated on the sides of a beautiful hill, the top surmounted by a pa, in the midst of a lonely and extensive plain covered with plantations of Indian corn, Kumara and potatoes. To view the cultivated parts of this country from an eminence a person might easily imagine himself in a civilised land. For miles around the village of Ty-a-my nothing but beautiful green Gelds present themselves to the eye. The exact rows in which they plant their Indian corn would do credit to a first rate English farmer, and the way in which they prepare the soil is admirable. Here at Te Ahuahu was the original home of Te Wera Hauraki, whose outstanding personality and extraordinary activities laid a thread of direct and continuous contact across a century and a half to the present day. If Te Wera did anything ordinary, it is not remembered. He seemed born to be a creator of legends, not by word of mouth, nothing he ever said seems to be recorded—but by his actions. Piecing together what is known of him from books and conversations, ends by giving one the impression that he was able to extend his power to associates. Te Wera was one of Hongi Hika's trusted leaders. He was visited in 1815 by Kendall, and in 1819 by Samuel Marsden, and he came to some extent under missionary influence. In 1817 he served with Titore in a taua of 500 which raided round the East Coast, heavily defeating the Ngati-Kahungunu of Mahia peninsula, who could not face the muskets of the northerners. They brought back about 40 prisoners, amongst whom was an Arawa woman of NgatiRangiwewehi, named Te Ao Kapurangi, who became Te Wera's wife. Her part in saving many of her own people when she accompanied her husband's people at the sack of Mokoia in 1823, has become a genuine piece of New Zealand folk lore.