This true story of heroism is based on the account given in Percy S. Smith's ‘Maori Wars of the Nineteenth Century’, 1910. Te Aokapurangi and her husband Te Wera later went to live at Mahia, and it was there that she eventually died.

How Aokapurangi Saved Her People This story concerns a woman of high rank, Aokapurangi, who belonged to an Arawa sub-tribe which lived on Mokoia Island in the middle of Lake Rotorua. Around about 1818, when she was a girl, Aokapurangi was on a visit to Maketu when she was taken prisoner by Te Wera, an important chief of Nga Puhi. Te Wera took her north to his home at the Bay of Islands, and made her his wife. He treated her kindly, and as the wife of such an important man, and a woman of great strength of character, she came to have considerable presting among her husband's people, living there happily for several years. Then, in 1822, trouble arose. Nga Puhi, who had been able to acquire a great many muskets from early settlers in the north, and from their leader Hongi Hika's visit to England, had for some years been sending down war parties which slaughtered great numbers of people in the southern tribes; for very few of these other tribes possessed muskets. On one of these expeditions a party of Nga Puhi were treacherously killed by the Tuhourangi, a branch of the Arawa people who had been urged to do this by Te Rauparaha. However a few survivors escaped, and returned to the Bay of Islands to tell of this disaster. When Nga Puhi and their leader Hongi heard the news, they immediately determined upon revenge; they also decided that this would be a useful opportunity to attack the entire Arawa Tribe, who at this time were very numerous, but who possessed almost no muskets. Accordingly a great expedition was planned, and people gathered at the Bay of Islands for this purpose from far and near. When Aokapurangi heard that her own people on Mokoia Island were to be among those slain, she pleaded with her husband Te Wera to ask Hongi to spare them. Te Wera was very reluctant to do this, but she wept so loudly and urged him so strongly that in the end he conveyed her request to Hongi. Hongi, also, had no wish to allow her people to live, but finally he said grudgingly that he would permit her to save the lives of any of her people who passed between her legs. (This was an ancient ceremony which gave new life to the person concerned—for example, it was sometimes part of the ritual by which a tohunga cleansed someone who had broken the laws of tapu.) So Hongi and his great fleet of canoes sailed from the Bay of Islands down to Tauranga, and then on to Waihi, the shallow harbour just to the east of Maketu. Here they entered the Pongakawa stream. This stream flows from Lake Rotorua in the Rotorua district, but for some miles of its course it is subterranean, and for much of the distance its valley is very narrow and rugged. In spite of the very difficult nature of the country, Nga Puhi dragged their canoes right up this valley to the place where the stream emerges from its underground course. Here they cut a track through the dense bush, and with great labour dragged their canoes overland along this route. (This is why the road just south of Lake Rotorua is still known as Hongi's Track). The Arawa people knew of the approach of the Nga Puhi expedition, but it did not occur to them that Hongi could possibly bring his war canoes with him. They therefore thought that the best thing to do would be to gather on Mokoia Island, taking all their canoes with them and laying in great quantities of food and water, so that they would be able to withstand a siege. So all the time that Hongi and his men were dragging their canoes overland, the Arawa were gathering provisions and making more weapons—spears, taiaha, and other rakau Maori. Shortly before Nga Puhi arrived, some of Te Arawa wanted to abandon Mokoia, for they had only one musket between them in the whole tribe, and they greatly feared the Nga Puhi guns. Also,