RUTHLESS BUT KIND

Te Ao Hou, December 1961, Page 11

RUTHLESS BUT KIND It is in this campaign that the amazing reverse facet of Rapata Wahawaha's character emerges. This grim, ruthless, taciturn man, who could and did shoot even his own followers for disobedience; this relentless leader who shot recalcitrant rebels out of hand on more than one occasion, who is conceded by more than one historian to have shot at Ngatapa prisoners, standing them on the brink of the high cliff so that they might fall into the ravine below; this amazing man throughout the Urewera campaign fought for, as well as against, the Urewera tribes. He kept a running correspondence with McLean and other Government leaders, imploring, nay, demanding generous treatment for the defeated Tuhoe. He sent literally hundreds of them back to his own East Coast, giving them land and furnishing them with food, and with the implements and the seeds to grow more food, under no other conditions than that they lay down their arms. He threw all the weight of his prestige, his influence and his argument into what was sometimes a bitter fight with officialdom in order to soften the harshness meted out to defeated rebels. On occasion he went so far as to make that leniency the price of his continued support in the field. Other Maori contingents in the field claimed head-money, the reward paid by the Government for the heads of rebel Maoris. Rapata's Ngati Porou were forbidden by him to take the heads, much less claim the reward. Reading the detailed history of those bitter and arduous campaigns it becomes obvious that Rapata Wahawaha, even in the very pursuit of the enemy, already was planning for the unifying of those warring tribes, once peace had been achieved. So it was that among the hordes who marched under the flag at Mataahu, a great proportion were former enemies. Once they had taken the oath of loyalty they were allowed to go back to their home. ‘Allowed’ is not, perhaps the word for they were assisted back and afforded some measure of rehabilitation by their former enemy.