Māori warfare was traditionally conducted by hand-to-hand close encounters with patu (club) or taiaha, a close-quarters wooden or sometimes whale bone staff about 1.5m long).
This nature of Māori warfare would change with the introduction of a new weapon, a European one.
Flax and timber merchants based in Sydney began trading in the early 1800s with Māori in the Bay of Islands, with the exchange of goods being the European musket.
The musket, a long-barrelled muzzle-loaded gun, would have devastating effects during intertribal Māori warfare as Ngāti Kahungunu of Te Matau ā Māui (Hawke’s Bay) would find out. They had little, if any, muskets to defend themselves with in Ahuriri/Heretaunga.
Armed with 414 muskets, with the aim of utu, some 1000 men in 1824 from the Waikato and Hauraki tribes, together with some from Ngapuhi, Ngāti Maniapoto, and Ngāti Raukawa, assembled in Taupō and made their way to Te Whanganui-a-Orotu (Ahuriri lagoon) in Te Matau ā Māui.
They were coming to avenge the death of Tukorehu’s son, Te Arawai, who was killed at a battle at Roto A Tara (near Te Aute).
A tohunga (priest) of Chief Te Pereihe, who was visiting Heretaunga from Nukutaurua, had a vision that the northern tribes were coming down to exact revenge, and warned him of this. And a greenstone adze, named Te Rama-apakura, which was in the possession of Chief Te Hauwaho, a principal chief of Ahuriri, should be taken by Te Pereihe as he would perish in the battle.
Te Pereihe went to Ngāti Kahungunu chiefs who were at Te Pakeke Pā, and said they should evacuate to Nukutaurua (Mahia Peninsula) where they could stay for protection, and where Te Wera Hauraki of Ngāpuhi had 50 muskets.
Te Pakeke Pā was on an island of the same name that was in Te Whanganui-a-Orotu (Ahuriri lagoon) and near the entrance to the lagoon, and now forms part of West Quay.
A war council hui at Te Pakeke Pā was held and half the Ngāti Kahungunu people decided to leave for Nukutaurua and the others stayed behind.
Te Pereihe wanted to take the greenstone adze from Chief Te Hauwaho before he left for Nukutaurua, but he refused, saying, “If I give you my toki (adze) where is one for me?”
Losing patience with the old chief Te Hauwaho, Te Pereihe said to him, “Very well then! Remain here and be fuel for the fires that I have set alight at Te Whiti o Tu!”
Te Hauwaho replied, “If I am to die, it will be on my own soil.”
Te Pereihe, together with his followers, then departed back to Nukutaurua.
Ngāti Kahungunu chiefs Te Hapuku, Te Moananui, Te Karawa, Tiakitai and Te Hauwaho stayed on Te Pakeke, choosing to fight, and strengthened the pā. This pā, however, could be accessed at low tide.
The attack, which took place in 1824, 200 years ago, devastated those on Te Pakeke at the pā.
Faced with muskets, Ngāti Kahungunu had only taiaha ― it was no contest when the northern tribes advanced at daybreak on Te Pakeke Pā.
Hundreds were killed, women and children slaughtered or thrown into the sea.
Chief Te Hauwaho was killed and his prized greenstone adze was taken and brought to Waikato. When the greenstone adze was there, a Ngāti Kahungunu prisoner captured in 1821, upon seeing it, wept, because he knew a great loss of his people must have taken place.
Many were taken prisoner and marched to Waikato.
Those taken prisoner were Karawa, Tiakitai, Te Hapuku, Te Moananui — all then young chiefs.
Tiakitai and Te Karawa (the brother of Te Moananui) were left behind to bury the dead and to stay with the wounded who could not walk. The northern tribes invited these men to come to Waikato later.
Before they were taken north, some prisoners, including Chieftainess Winipere Te Rotohenga, requested they be taken to the top of Te Matā to say a po atarau — a song of farewell.
Winipere, as she sang her waiata high on Te Matā, lamented and mourned over Heretaunga, looking over the plains, towards the cape and towards Waimārama — every part of Te Matau-a-Māui. After they said their farewells, many for the last time — either later being killed or passing away — they made their way with their captors to Waikato. There is a waiata to this day sung at Waimārama that speaks of “before dying I will climb the maunga Te Matā that I might see Heretaunga once more”.
Winipere would escape from Maungatautari, Waikato, with Hira Te Ota who was the father of Henare Tomoana. Te Hapuku would also escape.
Many other prisoners returned to Ahuriri and Heretaunga — a young boy, Paora Kaiwhata, estimated he was away 18 months with his father, but many were detained longer.
Ngāti Kahungunu would return to Te Matau ā Māui and build new pā, and by the time of the signing in 1840 of Te Tiriti the Treaty of Waitangi, whalers and other European settlers had arrived.
While they no longer feared the musket, Ngāti Kahungunu would be faced with the Crown aggressively wanting to open their land for European settlement.
Te Pakeke, the scene of the devastation of the Ngāti Kahungunu people, was part of a gradual reclamation of land in Ahuriri, until it was unrecognisable as the island it once was. Alfred Domett, sent to lay out the town of Napier, had renamed it Gough Island in 1854.
Ngāti Kahungunu today is geographically the second-largest tribal rohe in New Zealand, extending from the Wharerata ranges in Wairoa to the Remutaka range in Wairarapa. It has about 10% of the Māori population in Aotearoa New Zealand.
The chairman of the Ngāti Kahungunu Iwi Incorporated Board, headquartered in Heretaunga, Hastings, is Bayden Barber.
Michael Fowler’s Stories of Historic Hawke’s Bay is available from Wardini books, Havelock and Napier.
