How Te Rauparaha got his Name
The old-time Maori used rauparaha leaves and roots to flavour meats - including human flesh.
The rangatira (chief)Te Rauparaha is believed to have been born in the same year as the last great traditional Maori battle - Hingakaka, near Te Awamutu, 1790 (?)
In a skirmish preceding the epic rout Te Rauparaha’s uncle Tiekete was killed and afterwards roasted in an oven lined with rauparaha leaves. At the feast the Waikato victors ate the flesh with pounded rauparaha roots and boasted that they would deal with his newly born nephew in the same manner after the main battle when they caught him.
This was an insult of the highest order demanding utu (revenge) - a bloody revenge which need not be commensurate with the scale of the insult.
Fortunately, for him, the baby Te Rauparaha escaped the massacre, and was afterwards given his name to commemorate the dreadful event and to instill throughout his entire being the need for him to exact utu from Waikato at some future date.
‘Hingakaka’ = several meanings, perhaps the most likely (‘The Fall of the Bright-plumaged Parrots), stems from the fact that many chiefs were killed and their scattered bodies lay under their sacred and valuable parrot-feathered cloaks resembling a large field of dead kaka (a native parrot).
Te Awamutu = the end of the (navigable) river
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| Calystegia soldanella/Rauparaha/pohue/bindweed |
In a skirmish preceding the epic rout Te Rauparaha’s uncle Tiekete was killed and afterwards roasted in an oven lined with rauparaha leaves. At the feast the Waikato victors ate the flesh with pounded rauparaha roots and boasted that they would deal with his newly born nephew in the same manner after the main battle when they caught him.
This was an insult of the highest order demanding utu (revenge) - a bloody revenge which need not be commensurate with the scale of the insult.
Fortunately, for him, the baby Te Rauparaha escaped the massacre, and was afterwards given his name to commemorate the dreadful event and to instill throughout his entire being the need for him to exact utu from Waikato at some future date.
‘Hingakaka’ = several meanings, perhaps the most likely (‘The Fall of the Bright-plumaged Parrots), stems from the fact that many chiefs were killed and their scattered bodies lay under their sacred and valuable parrot-feathered cloaks resembling a large field of dead kaka (a native parrot).
Te Awamutu = the end of the (navigable) river
 |
| Kaka-feather cloak |
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| Johannes Gerardus Keulemans, Banded Kaka and Variety, watercolor, 1904. |
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