These Things We Must Not Forget by Ernest E. Bush On an abandoned pa they buried their dead, those early missionaries who came to Tauranga in the early years of last century. And when bloody war came into their midst, it was in this burial ground they interred the casualties of battle. But thirty years of Christian teaching had had an effect on the Maori, who was now the enemy. The battle that was fought on Tauranga's soil has become an epic in the history of our land. Whenever men speak of the Battle of Gate Pa, they speak of the chivalry displayed by the Maori foemen, and they tell the tale of a gallant act of Christian courtesy that became enshrined in sculpture. To commemorate the chivalry of the Maori as an enemy, and to commemorate also fifty years of lasting peace, the European community marked the jubilee of the Battle of Gate Pa. First, they had exhumed the body of Puhirake, leader of the Maoris, from his grave in the trench where he died fighting, and they re-interred his bones in the Mission Cemetery, where now they lie with the remains of the leaders of the British Army and Navy who died in the conflict. Over this grave, they now erected an obelisk, and inscribed on it are the reasons why both Europeans and Maoris wished to raise this monument. “… to commemorate his chivalrous and humane orders … and for the respectful treatment of … the slain … The seeds of better feeling between the two races thus sown on the battlefield have since borne ample fruit …” On one face of the obelisk is a pictorial representation of that act of bravery that has characterised the chivalry of the Maori as a fighting warrior, and epitomised that chivalry and Christian action in an incident after the Gate Pa battle fought between Maori warriors entrenched in their fairly rapidly constructed fortification, and the British under General Duncan Cameron, who attacked the pa. It was called ‘Gate Pa’ because it was erected across the pathway out of Tauranga. The site of the construction was Pukehinahina, a hill near the western end of the peninsula; Pukehinahina was the western boundary of the land ceded to the Church Missionary Society. To mark the boundary, a ditch crossed the peninsula, and where the path crossed the boundary there was a gate. So the pa constructed at this gateway became known thereafter as Gate Pa. Because the fortification was placed across the road that was the highway to the west and south, Cameron saw it as a threat to communication. Only when this pa was built did he move against the Maori. Up till this time, the forces that had occupied Tauranga since January were there for the purpose of preventing Ngatiporou from reaching the Waikato to assist the Kingite movement, and at the same time ravaging the land in their passage to the Waikato. On 28 April, Cameron moved his forces out from The Camp, in the vicinity of the Mission buildings; the army personnel were joined by sailors and marines from the ships lying in the Estuary. Eight abreast they marched along the road that had been laid down, Navy and Army moving equally. They took up position on a hill about a mile from the pa, and waited the day of battle. About dusk, Col. Greer led his regiment around the flank of the pa, to take up a position in the rear. From this position he was able to penetrate the fortification, and