Hongi Outsmarted

Te Ao Hou, December 1956, Page 20

Hongi Outsmarted She pressed Hongi, through her husband, to spare her NgatiRangiwewehi relatives, and Hongi rather grudgingly conceded that those who could pass between her thighs should be spared. Nobody now will ever know whether her ruse was her own idea, or whether, as a northerner by marriage she had heard the story of Te Hana who mounted the ridgepole of Tutangi Mamae to save her tribe. Whichever way it was, she out-smarted Hongi. In the confusion when that helmeted warrior was struck on his iron covered head by a ball from the only musket on Mokoia, Te Ao dashed ashore, stood astride the door-post of the meeting house, and frantically ushered her people to safety inside until the house would hold no more. In a later raid Te Wera captured the Ngati-Kahaungunu chief Wareumu, and it was partly due to the close friendship which grew between captor and captive that Te Wera's fame and exploits came to be discussed, remembered and acted upon before Judge Prichard in the Maori Land Court only a few years ago. After the Mokoia battle Te Wera and Pomare captured the Ngati-Awapa, Puketapu, at Whakatane, after which the taua broke up to scour the countryside. In an independent foray against Te Whanau-a-Apanui Te Wera's nephew Marino was killed at Te Kahu—a deadly victory, as it turned out, for those people. Leaving Pomare at Waiapu, Te Wera returned Whareumu to his people at Mahia, and yielding to their persuasion, remained with them as a “stout fence against winds from all quarters”. Under this leadership, Ngati Kahungunu beat off the Ngati Raukawa and the Ngati Tuwharetoa who had driven the Kahungunu people from the plains of Hawkes Bay. Here at Mahia and on the Here-taunga plains Te Wera and his Ngapuhi lived with their friends and allies for many years. In 1836 Te Wera set out to avenge the death of his nephew Marino 13 years before. He defeated the Bay of Plenty people at Toka-a-kuku, and surprised his followers by forbidding the ceremonial eating of the dead. Many years after Te Wera's death about 1839, another voyage of deliverance was made in his name. A Ngati Kahungunu boy, Renata Kawepo, recaptured by Te Wera from the Ngati Raukawa Taimai. (Photo: S. Andrews.)

people of Wellington, had been taken north and brought up by Te Wera's brother. Renata had been treated in the north as a rangatira. When he was about 30 years of age his family asked Te Wera's next of kin for his return, and as a result Te Wera's nephew Wiremu Katene accompanied Renata to Omahu. When Kawepo died about 1870, Katene returned to pay his respects, and the past was recalled in all the detail of which Maori custom is capable. In recognition of Te Wera's leadership, and of the close ties between the two peoples over a long period of war and peace, Renata's people presented Te Wera's relatives with what can only be described as a huge collection of Maori treasures including tiki, earrings and a very large block of greenstone. On his return, Wiremu Katene divided the gifts up amongst Te Wera's relatives, retaining himself the large block of greenstone, from which two mere were cut and shaped. (It is worth nothing that when it was desired only a few years ago to cut a piece from the remaining slab, nobody could be found in the country who could even cut the stone, let alone shape it into a mere.) As a result of much consultation and finally of a family agreement before Judge Prichard in the Court at Kaikohe, the Te Wera mere and two pieces of greenstone were presented by family representatives Hone Haimona, Kerei Mihaka and Hare Ngawati to Lord Freyberg at Waitangi on February 6, 1952. In this way Te Wera's activities and personality have reached directly across more than a century of time to the present day. The relics at Waitangi are not rediscovered forgotten heirlooms, but tangible reminders of a remarkable character whose influence has lived on more than a hundred years after his bones were laid to rest on Te Ahuahu, in full sight of Taiamai. Even today Te Wera is spoken of with pride by the elders of his family. But his grave on Te Ahuahu is neglected, marked only by a rough stack of lava rock, across which the grazing cattle wander. Te Ahuahu cone is too steep for the old people, and Te Wera too completely forgotten by the young. The tomb is like and unlike R. L. Stevenson's on Vaea in Samoa. Like because it rests on a steep hill and looks out across a magnificent view; unlike it because there is nobody to make it a place of pilgrimage like Vaea. Te Wera's tomb stands neglected like te tino o Taiamai, an object of occasional curiosity and a reproach to all of us too busy about our daily affairs to spare a salute to the stirring past.