The Tomahawk

For hundreds of years after a brutal massacre, the South Taranaki pa of Turuturu-Mokai lay abandoned and shunned in horror under a powerful blood tapu. "Spoils to the Victor" Louis John Steele 1908 CONTENTS: History - the attack on Turuturu Mokai resulting in the blood tapu The lifting of the tapu Photographs of my visit to the site in November 2018 Access to & location of Turuturu Mokai + Google maps HISTORY: Like many sites in New Zealand, this pa (near Hawera) has a chilling pre-European history. Historian John Huston tells the tale: Many a pa of the old pre-European days was practically impregnable when attacked by a war party using native weapons. For this reason, more forts of the days before white man came were captured by stratagem, surprise or starvation than by actual assault - and a most ingenious stratagem caused the downfall of this ancient pa. Although the tribes of Taranaki do not appear to have carried war into the territorie...

In December 2017 I trekked over farmland in Southern Taranaki to the mouth of the Kapuni Stream - the site of the twin pa of Orangi-Tuapeka and Ngateko (collectively Waimate) and of one of the most infamous incidents in early New Zealand history: the rescue of Elizabeth Guard and her children after the wreck of the barque “Harriet” in 1834. Background: Before the Treaty was signed in 1840 a considerable number of ships were wrecked on New Zealand coasts. In many cases the wrecks were pillaged by Maori and sometimes the crew were murdered and eaten. As a result of these incidents New Zealand became known as “the cannibal coast” - a reputation fuelled most spectacularly in 1809 by the burning of the “Boyd”, the massacre of those aboard and the large cannibal feast which followed. In other instances surviving crew members and other whites were captured and ransomed - a barrel of gunpowder often the price of their freedom: muskets were a desireable commodity. The Story: In his boo...