Ngāti Raukawa–Ngāti Kahu-pungapunga War

A detailed account of the war was published by Walter Edward Gudgeon in the 1893 issue of the Journal of the Polynesian Society, with no indication of the sources on which it is based.[2] It is also recorded by Pei Te Hurinui Jones, based on oral testimony given at the Māori Land Court at Cambridge in a dispute over ownership of Waotū.[3] A similar account was given by Hōri Wirihana of Ngāti Kauwhata in evidence to the Māori Land Court at Ōtorohanga on 17 August 1886.[4] Some events are mentioned in F. L. Phillips' Nga Tohu a Tainui / Landmarks of Tainui (1989), drawing on various oral traditions.

The Tainui confederation originally settled on the western coast of the Waikato region at Kāwhia, around 1300. From that point onwards, they slowly expanded inland, with the Ngāti Raukawa iwi of Tainui establishing itself around the Waipā River. By the mid-seventeenth century, Ngāti Kahu-pungapunga were the only non-Tainui people remaining in the Waikato region. According to Jones, they were a tribe of Tangata whenua ('people of the land'), who had been presented in Waikato before the arrival of the Tainui.[5] According to the 1886 testimony of Hōri Wirihana, they were part of the Te Arawa confederacy.[6]

At this time, they inhabited the upper banks of the Waikato River, from Putāruru to Ātiamuri. This was fairly marginal land, but it included two maunga manu ('bird mountains'), Whakamaru and Tū-aropaki (now site of Mokai Power Station), which the people of Tainui desired.[5]

The rangatira (chieftain), Parahore or Purahore of Ngāti Kahu-pungapunga married Korokore (called Koroukore or Korokoro in some sources), the sister of Whāita, a prominent rangatira of the southern Tainui, who was based at Wharepuhunga, a hill not far from the west bank of the Waikato. However, a group of Ngāti Kahu-pungapunga led by Te Maru-huoko murdered her at Te Aharoa in Waotū because they knew that Tainui wanted their lands and they were angry that they were required to hand many of the birds that they caught over to her.[5][2]

Gudgeon also reports an alternative version, in which Whāita had eloped with Waiarohi, wife of Te Ruamano, a rangatira of Ngāti Waihakari and left her with the Ngāti Kahu-pungapunga for safekeeping only for them to murder her for some reason.[2]

News of the murder was brought to Tama-te-hura, a cousin of Korokore. He passed the news on to Whāita at Wharepuhunga, who gathered a war party. He was joined by Tama-te-hura's brothers Upoko-iti and Pipito, as well as Wairangi, who may have been a brother of Tama-te-hura or Whāita.[7][8]

The Tainui war-party marched past Maungatautari and attacked the local forts of Ngāti Kahu-pungapunga on the west side of the Waikato River. According to Jones, the first place to fall was Te Pōhue, and the Ngāti Kahu-pungapunga then fled to Te Ana-kai-tangata ('Cannibal Cave') and Te Ana-kōpua ('Deep Pool Cave'). Defeated there, too, the Ngāti Kahu-pungapunga fled to another refuge, Takahanga-ahiahi.[9]

Gudgeon says that the first conquest was Te Horanga, south of Kihikihi on the Puniu River, which was defended by Korokore's murderer, Te Maru-huoko, and that this was followed, on the same day, by the fall of the village of Te Aro-whenua, and two other places: Pōhue, and Taka-ahiahi.[10] Bruce Biggs says the Te Horanga was the base of Parahore.[11] Wirihana, on the other hand, says that Te Horanga was already in Tainui hands before the war, being the base of Tama-te-hura, and that the first battle of the war was Te Ana-kai-tangata.[12]

Te Arawa intervention

View of Lake Rotorua from the west.

The Te Arawa tribal confederation of the Bay of Plenty now intervened. Jones suggests that they were worried about Whāita continuing into their lands or that they had marriage ties with the Ngāti Kahu-pungapunga. Whāita defeated the Te Arawa forces that had entered Ngāti Kahu-pungapunga lands and pursued them into Te Arawa land, where however, his forces were routed and forced to flee for the Waikato River, with Te Arawa in pursuit. At Te Whana-a-Whāita ('The springing back of Whāita'), Whāita rallied the troops and defeated Te Arawa. This place remained the boundary between Tainui and Te Arawa thereafter.[14]

According to Gudgeon, Whāita's illness had prevented him from joining the expedition against Te Arawa, which he says was led by Tama-te-hura and reached Waikuta on the shores of Lake Rotorua before Te Arawa turned the force back, took Tama-te-hura prisoner, and killed Pipito. He says that the leader of the Arawan forces was Ariari-te-rangi, son of Hinemoa and Tūtānekai. In this account the Te Arawa pursued the Tainui forces all the way back to Te Whana-a-Whāita, where Whāita rallied them, as in Jones' version.[10]

While this was happening, Wairangi's force passed Te Wawa, killed the rangatira Whakahi at Te Pae-o-Turawau, and killed Korouamaku at Te Ngautuku, near Ātiamuri.[10]

Siege of Pōhatu-roa

Pōhatu-roa, as photographed by Albert Percy Godber in February 1923.

The last of the Ngāti Kahu-pungapunga made their stand at Pōhatu-roa, a hill just west of Ātiamuri, which was the base of their allies, the Ngāti Hotu.[15] Whāita and Wairangi's war-parties reunited and surrounded the hill. The two forces clashed repeatedly, but eventually hunger sapped the defenders' strength and they were unable to deflect a Tainui assault, which captured the chieftain Hikaraupi and the mountain.[14][15] According to Wirihana, at the end of the campaign there was a disagreement about what to do with the captured Ngāti Kahu-pungapunga – Tame-te-hura wanted to keep them as slaves, but Whāita insisted that they must all be killed, so that they would not return with Arawa support to reclaim the land.[6] Jones agrees that all the Ngāti Kahu-pungapunga died, while Gudgeon speculates that they may have fled to join Te Arawa.[14][16] Local tradition identifies a number of large stones as the location where the Ngāti Hotu and Ngāti Kahu-pungapunga prisoners were cooked and eaten.[15]

The war marked the final stage in the expansion of Tainui to encompass the whole of the Waikato region. The territory of Ngāti Kahu-pungapunga passed to the Ngāti Raukawa iwi of Tainui.[17] The portion south of Whakamaru was settled by Wairangi and his descendants, the Ngāti Wairangi section of Ngāti Raukawa,[18] who now share Mōkai marae with a number of other hapu.[19] Whāita took the section furthest up the river, around Pōhatu-roa and his descendants, the Ngāti Whāita, have their marae at Ōngāroto, on the north bank of the Waikato River, a little west of Ātiamuri.[20][15] The war also established the border between Tainui and Te Arawa at Te Whana-a-Whāita.[14]

• Gudgeon, W. E. (1893). "The Tangata Whenua; Or, Aboriginal People of The Central Districts of the North Island of New Zealand". Journal of the Polynesian Society. 2 (4): 203–210.
• Jones, Pei Te Hurinui; Biggs, Bruce (2004). Ngā iwi o Tainui : nga koorero tuku iho a nga tuupuna = The traditional history of the Tainui people. Auckland [N.Z.]: Auckland University Press. ISBN 1869403312.