An Old New Zealander; or, Te Rauparaha, the Napoleon of the South.. T. Lindsay Buick
to be a happy one, and Marore25, a girl of tender grace, made him an admirable wife. Of her he became extremely fond, and out of this affection arose the first military enterprise which gave him fame and reputation as a leader of men.
As not infrequently happened in Maori life, his own people had prepared a great feast for some visiting tribesmen; but when the food which had been collected for their entertainment was distributed to the various families, Te Rauparaha observed with considerable displeasure that the portion given to Marore was of the very plainest, and contained no dainty morsel which she was likely to enjoy. The want of consideration thus shown towards his child-wife preyed upon the young chief's mind, and he speedily determined that, come what might, he would find with his own hand the relish which his friends had failed to provide. Accordingly he petitioned those in authority at Kawhia to permit him to organise a war party for the purpose of invading the Waikato country, where he hoped to take captive in battle some warrior who would make a banquet for his bride. At first his proposals were received with opposition, for the reason that he was himself at this time in delicate health, and it was deemed prudent that he should await recovery before embarking upon so desperate a venture. Moreover, the tribe being then at peace with Waikato, the chiefs were naturally reluctant to sanction any act which would inevitably embroil them in a quarrel with their neighbours. But the fiery enthusiasm which Te Rauparaha displayed for his own scheme, and the persistency with which he urged its claims, overcame the resistance of the tribal fathers, who thus acknowledged, for the first time, the strength of the personality with whom they had to deal.
Armed with this authority, he at once set about marshalling his forces, and his call to arms was eagerly responded to by a band of young bloods equally keen for adventure with himself. The taua26 made its way safely to the nearest Waikato pa, where the profound peace prevailing at the time had thrown the defenders off their guard. In the belief that the visitors were on a friendly journey, they invited their advance guard within the walls of the village. Soon, however, the error was discovered; and the inhabitants, realising the position, flew to arms with an alacrity which sent the invaders flying through the gate of the pa. The impetuous energy of the Waikatos, led by Te Haunga, induced them to push the pursuit a considerable distance beyond the walls of their stronghold; and it was the strategic use which Te Rauparaha made of this fact that gave him the victory and established his claim to leadership in future wars. Owing to the difficulty which he experienced in walking, he had not been able to march with the leaders, but was following with a second division of his men, when he saw, to his dismay, his warriors being chased out of the pa. His own force was as yet concealed behind an intervening hill, and, quickly taking in the situation, he ordered his men to lie down amongst the manuka scrub, which grew to the height of several feet beside the narrow track which they had been traversing. He saw that the fugitives would follow this line, in order to rejoin him as speedily as possible, and in this anticipation his judgment proved correct. At full run they swept past, closely followed by the angry Waikatos, who, having escaped from one trap, little dreamed how simply they were falling into another. Close in his concealment, Te Rauparaha lay until the last of the pursuing body had rushed by; then, bursting from his hiding-place, he attacked them in flank and rear with such vehemence that they were at once thrown into disorder. The tumult of his assault checked the flight of the Ngati-Toas, and the Waikatos, now wedged in between two superior forces, sustained heavy losses. Te Rauparaha is credited with having slain four of his opponents with his own hand, and the total killed is said to have numbered one hundred and forty. Amongst these was Te Haunga, the principal chief of the pa, who formed a specially valuable trophy in view of the purpose for which the raid had been organised. His body was carried home to Kawhia to provide the relish which Te Rauparaha so much desired for Marore.
Although this attack upon Waikato was only one of the many sporadic raids so common amongst the Maori tribes, and could not be regarded as a military movement of national importance, Te Rauparaha had conducted it with so much skill and enterprise that his achievement became the chief topic of discussion throughout the neighbouring pas, and, in the words of an old narrator, "he was heard of as a warrior by all the tribes." The fame which he had thus suddenly achieved, and the desire to live up to his reputation, inspired him with a new sense of responsibility, and he became a keen student of all that pertained to the art of war as practised in his day. He was shrewd enough to see the advantages attending military skill amongst a people with whom might was right, and, even at that age, he was ambitious enough to dream dreams which power alone would enable him to realise. He aimed at making the acquaintance of all the great chiefs of the surrounding tribes; and, when it was safe to visit them, he travelled long distances to sit at the feet of these old Maori warriors, and learn from them the subtle methods by which fields were won. These journeys gave him a familiarity with the country and the people which was very useful in the disturbed and precarious relations between Ngati-Toa and the neighbouring tribes. In these warlike excursions, which were as often of an aggressive as of a defensive nature, Ngati-Toa was not invariably successful. But, even in their defeats, the reputation of Rauparaha increased with his years, for he was ever turning to account some new device of tactics or giving some fresh proof of his personal courage.
Nor did he neglect to cultivate the good opinion of his tribe by generosity in the discharge of his social duties. His bounty was never closed against the stranger; and when he invited his friends to a feast, his entertainment was always of the most lavish kind. Even to his workmen he was strikingly considerate. He abolished the practice indulged in by the field labourers of giving a portion of the food provided for them to strangers who happened to arrive at the settlement, by insisting that the kumara-planters should retain their full ration and the strangers be fed with food specially prepared for them. This unconventional liberality speedily created the desired impression,27 and became the subject of general remark amongst those who were on visiting terms with the Kawhia chief. It even became proverbial, for it was sometimes said of a benevolent Maori, "You are like Te Rauparaha, who first feeds his workmen and then provides for his visitors."
Reference has already been made to the fact that Te Rauparaha had been in the habit of making frequent visits to parts of the country distant from Kawhia, for the dual purpose of completing his education in the art of warfare and of strengthening his personal relations with influential chiefs, who might be useful to him in future diplomacy. During one of these excursions he had proceeded as far as what is now known as the Valley of the Thames, in the Hauraki Gulf, to pay his respects to the chiefs of the Ngati-Maru28 tribe, who were then both numerous and influential in that part of the island. How much he was esteemed by the leaders of this people may be judged by the fact that, when he was about to return, they, amongst other gifts, presented him with a firearm and a few cartridges, his first acquisition of the kind. To us the gift of an old flintlock might seem a trivial circumstance; but to a Maori, who was lingering on the fringe of the Stone Age, such a weapon was a priceless treasure. So dearly were they prized by the natives at this time that only the consideration of warmest friendship could have induced the Ngati-Maru to part with even one. There was in these rusty and erratic "fire-spears" that which would before long revolutionise the whole system of native warfare; and the shrewdest of the natives saw that the tribe which acquired the largest number of guns in the least time would have an enormous advantage in the field of battle.
For some years a few vagrant and adventurous voyagers, together with the more honest whalers, had been making the Bay of Islands one of their principal rendezvous; and in the desultory trade which had been carried on between the crews and the natives, guns had first fallen into the possession of the Nga-Puhi tribe. The deadly use which these warriors had made of this new instrument of destruction, in their skirmishes with their neighbours, had so impressed the native mind that forces hitherto well-disciplined were seized with panic when marched against guns, until it was felt by the inland tribes that such weapons were absolutely indispensable to safety or victory.29 Many of the natives, whose curiosity had been aroused by the novel sights which they had seen on the visiting whalers, had shipped as seamen before the mast in the hope of seeing more of the great world from which the pakeha came. In this way they had been carried to Port Jackson, where they had witnessed
Marore was killed by a member of the Waikato tribe – it is said, at the instigation of Te Wherowhero – while she was attending a
War party.
The traditional accounts of the Maoris have it that at this period Te Rauparaha was "famous in matters relative to warfare, cultivating generosity, welcoming of strangers and war parties."
This tribe was afterwards partially exterminated during the raids of Hongi and Te Waharoa.
"When Paora, a northern chief, invaded the district of Whanga-roa, in 1819, the terrified people described him as having twelve muskets, while the name of Te Korokoro, then a great chief of the Bay of Islands, who was known to possess fifty stand of arms, was heard with terror for upwards of two hundred miles beyond his own district" (