The Tomahawk

 Carved figures commemorate Te Kooti's pardon.       In 1883 Ngati Pukeko of the Eastern Bay of Plenty, constructed a meeting house (Awanuiarangi) which they presented to Te Kooti to commemorate his pardon by the government. These carved figures are from that meeting house - today they can be seen in the foyer of the Whakatane library.

Innocents slaughtered as Te Kooti raids Whakatane  district for supplies and weaponry.       In “Frontier” Gavin Maxwell says that in March 1869, two months after his disaster at Ngatapa, Te Kooti “sought to reinforce and re-arm his followers...to swell their ranks with recruits from the Tuhoe” of the Whakatane area. p.262 Judith Binney’s view is:” “Success would breed success...and those who wavered out of fear would be driven to join him.” p.156 "Redemption Songs"       And so the Ringatu descended from their mountain fastness of the Urewera and cruelly smote the peaceful settlements on the plain. The ensuing slaughter of Maori innocents “reinforced the bitter resentment of him among Maori, and ensured that their pursuit of him would be relentless. One of the principal reasons behind Te Kooti’s fall was that he would not, or could not, call a halt to the slaughter of his own people.” Maxwell p.262    ...

Captain Traver’s impaled skull was identified by his gold teeth.       The Tuhoe tribes were a fierce warlike people whose proud boast “'Tuhoe moumou taonga, moumou tangata ki te Po” (“Tuhoe, the destroyer of earth’s treasures and the master of mankind unto death”) resulted in the bones of their warriors finding a resting place on many battlefields, while their heavily forested and rugged mountainous fastness in the Urewera saved them from them from disastrous invasion for centuries.       However, after they sheltered Te Kooti and his Ringatu followers, the Tuhoe experienced the full vengance of the Crown in 1869 - their crops were burnt, their stock killed and their villages destroyed. Even worse, much of their land was later confiscated.       As part of this scorched earth policy government troops attacked the strongly fortified pa of Tatahoata, at Ruatahua, May 1869. During the engagement, Capt...

Body repeatedly exhumed so Maori could examine his colourful Marquesian-style tattooing.         After his murderous attacks on Gisborne, Whakatane and Mohaka Te Kooti was very much a wanted man - by now he had a price of a thousand pounds on his head. After his disasterous defeat at Ngatapa at the end of 1868 Te Kooti had retreated into the wilderness of the Urewera to be sheltered and supported by Tuhoe.         From mid-April 1869 the Government launched a three-pronged search-and-destroy mission into Tuhoe territory: with the aim of searching for Te Kooti, while relentlessly destroying Tuhoe crops, stock and villages in order to turn them against the Ringatu leader.        On 8 May the force, under Colonel Whitmore, attacked the strongly fortified pa of Tatahoata at Ruatahuna in the heart of the Urewera. While the firing raged, Captain Travers strode up and down directing ...

On 6 June 1869 some of Te Kooti’s mounted guerilla forces completely surprised a group of local cavalry encamped at Opepe (on what is today the Napier-Taupo Road) - in the one-sided shootout nine troopers were killed, five managed to escape. Those killed are buried near where they fell in a small graveyard a few minutes walk through beautiful bush from the main road, in a DoC reserve. Other graves here are from the later Armed Constabulary position across the road. Belich describes the incident succinctly: “Te Kooti’s vanguard on the march from the Urewera [towards Taupo]....received information that a small party of colonist cavalry was camped at Opepe [an old Maori village], expecting to be joined by some kupapa [Queenite Maori]. Posing as the kupapa, some of ...[the] men entered the camp peacefully. The colonists were volunteers, not constabulary, and they incautiously accepted the visitors at face value. The Ringatu warriors killed nine without loss to themselves - th...

Te Porere: “The Pocket”? On a hot summer’s day in 2016 I spent several hours at the site of Te Porere - the fighting pa built by Te Kooti in 1869, and the site of what has become known as “Te Kooti’s Last Stand”. Here the Ringatu prophet and his followers were defeated by a combined force of Colonial and Crown-friendly Maori attackers on October 4, 1869.  Historians relate that, after Te Porere, Te Kooti was never able to mount any serious resistance - having lost the hope of any support from the King Movement or other significant allies.    The two earthworks at Te Porere are located just off State Highway 47, approx halfway between National Park and Turangi. From the carpark, walk across a small bridge over the headwaters of the Whanganui River to the lower redoubt, where a sign-board provides information: Then continue up the hill to the main redoubt, where there is a wooden look-out over the site (40 metere wide), with the volcanoes of the central massif ...