A Plot to Assassinate Te Rauparaha

A Plot to Assassinate Te Rauparaha – Te Wi, 1822

In the spring of 1822 Horowhenua was the scene of an assassination attempt on the life of the great Ngati Toa fighting chief Te Rauparaha. The plot was hatched at a meeting of the tribal leaders of the western North Island at a meeting on Kapiti Island and the attempt was carried out at Te Wi, a tiny village near Ohau which has long since disappeared from the map.

The Ngati Toa tribe led by their great chief Te Rauparaha arrived in the Horowhenua from the Kawhia district in Te Heke Mai-i-raro (the migration from the north) in 1821-22. Te Rauparaha had previously visited the area with a large northern war party in 1819 – 20 and was attracted by the possibilities the area offered for obtaining weapons from European ships visiting Cook Strait. He was excited by the promise of Kapiti Island as a possible defensive stronghold, from which he could dominate the southern North Island and perhaps extend his influence to the relatively empty South Island, with its large resources of pounamu (greenstone) for making tools and weapons.

By the time he arrived in the Horowhenua early in 1822 Te Rauparaha had already forged some links with the south western coast of the North Island. His warrior nephew Te Rangihaeata had taken a wife Te Pikinga from the Ngati Apa tribe of the Rangitikei district, and he had clearly demonstrated his people’s fighting strength during brushes with Ngati Apa and their allied tribes Rangitane of the Manawatu, and Muaupoko from the Horowhenua. Muaupoko, in particular, had experienced the results of standing up to the Ngati Toa chief in skirmishes at Papaitonga and Lake Horowhenua in 1820.

Now the small, poorly armed tribes of the western coastlands faced the prospect of over 2,000 new arrivals in their territories because Te Rauparaha’s heke had swelled as it came south, gathering many of the Ngati Tama, Te Ati Awa, Ngati Mutunga and Ngati Rahiri tribes of Taranaki to the migrant party. All of these groups were retreating from the powerful Waikato and Ngati Maniopoto tribes who were well armed with muskets obtained from the European traders in the north.

While Te Rauparaha and his Ngati Toa tribe were traveling down the west coast from Taranaki the progress of the large heke did not go unnoticed by the people of the Horowhenua and their allies to the north. Muaupoko, Rangitane, Ngati Apa and the Whanganui tribes were all being kept informed and taking stock of their positions. Whilst Te Rauparaha had made it clear to Te Pikinga’s Ngati Apa relatives two years before that if he came south again it would be in peace, there were those who doubted the word of the northerner. After all, the great Ngati Toa leader had acquired a fearsome reputation, and it is likely that the stories of his actions reaching the west coast were considerably embellished in the retelling. Patricia Burns¹ believes that the coastal tribes should have realised that the huge group of migrants was vulnerable and could only have come in peace - they needed the goodwill of the local people to obtain the food supplies necessary to sustain the group until they were settled into a new location.

At Waitotara in Taranaki while the heke were resting a group of Ngati Apa relatives of Te Pikinga, including the chiefs Mokomoko te Rangitikei, Tokorou and others, arrived to meet and escort the migrants as far south as the Manawatu River. It is difficult to say exactly what motivated the Ngati Apa to make this gesture so long after the event. Writers such as S.Percy Smith 2 felt that the Ngati Apa had acted to prevent losses among their peoples as the heke travelled through their lands. Patricia Burns, on the other hand, saw the mission as an act of diplomacy which must have pleased Te Rauparaha to know that his promise of returning in peace had been remembered.

During the time that the Ngati Apa were escorting the heke down the coast another Ngati Apa chief was sowing the seeds of distrust among the Whanganui tribes. Te Rangihauku had gone to warn the river tribes of the probability that the Ngati Toa were not coming in peace. He did not believe that the pact with Ngati Toa would hold. At the hearings of the Maori Land Court half a century later the Muaupoko spokesmen, like Kawana Hunia, stated that they believed that the Ngati Toa would kill the local people. Te Rangihauku went on to propose a meeting on Kapiti Island of all the chiefs of the west coast tribes.

The meeting on Kapiti was attended by over 100 chiefs of Ngati Apa (who were at time in possession of the island), Rangitane, Whanganui and Muaupoko. All of the tribes needed to be represented as their tribal lands adjoined and there were close kinship ties between all of these tribes. Te Rangihauku specifically believed that Te Rauparaha wanted the strategically-positioned Kapiti Island and would be prepared to kill the local people to achieve this goal. Travers 3 wrote that the plot to kill Te Rauparaha was the work of two Whanganui chiefs, Te Paetahi and Turoa, and the leading Muaupoko chiefs. At a later Maori Land Court hearing the conclusion of the Kapiti meeting was described by Metekingi te Rangipaetahi: “Te Ranghiwinui of Muaupoko proposed to kill Te Rauparaha if he came.' Te Paetahi (of Whanganui) said: ‘That is my word which I came here to speak that Rauparaha should be killed lest our island Kapiti be taken by him. If he,Te Rauparaha lives, our land will go.’ Te Paetahi thrust his huata into the ground as a sign of his wish to kill Rauparaha: - proposed to the three tribes and all consented.” 4

On his return to Whanganui from Kapiti the plotter Te Paetahi was very annoyed to find that the Ngati Toa had not only arrived at the river pa, but were being welcomed by his own people. When asked to join in the welcome Te Paetahi apparently left the scene rather than take part. 5

Leaving Whanganui the heke and their escorts continued south to the Rangitikei. Some of the Ngati Toa camped for several months in the Oroua area as the guests of Tokorou who provided some land for summer cultivation. It is suggested by Smith 6 that many of the Ngati Apa retreated to the forests as they had done when the northern taua had entered their lands in previous years. This seems unlikely. However, before they continued southward W.C.Carkeek 7 states that the Ngati Toa were specifically warned by the Ngati Apa chiefs not to molest the Rangitane and Muaupoko.

By the time they reached the Manawatu River, the Ngati Toa food supplies were running very short. For such a large group feeding the people was a constant problem. A party led by Te Rauparaha’s half-brother Nohorua went upstream by canoe. In the words of Matene Te Whiwhi, son of Waitohi, Te Rauparaha’s much respected sister: “We went up the Manawatu to get karakas. We left the canoes and went into the bush and while there Nohorua’s canoes were stolen by the Rangitane.” 8 A three day search failed to locate the canoes. The annoyed party reacted in one village by killing a high-ranking Rangitane-Muaupoko woman named Waimai, and cutting up and eating part of her body.

While Nohorua’s party were still in this village two envoys from Muaupoko, Wharaki and Paiwhana, arrived bringing messages of peace.9 It has been written that one of these men found a partly eaten female arm in the camp and realised that it must have belonged to the woman Waimai, who had been reported missing in the area. 10 This incident was duly reported back to the Muaupoko. An excuse for killing Te Rauparaha was now at hand. Despite the agreement to live in peace, the people of the coast had discovered that the word of the Ngati Toa should not be trusted. If the killing of Waimai was simply an error of judgement by the impulsive Nohorua, frustrated at losing his mode of river transport, then the ultimate price that both sides were to pay was very high. Some have claimed that the killing of Waimai was the event that led to the decision to assassinate Te Rauparaha. While the loss of Waimai may have hardened their resolve, there seems little doubt from the evidence of the Maori Land Court hearings 11 that the plot had been well and truly formulated before this event, and that it was not solely a Muaupoko plot.

Shortly after the two envoys returned the Muaupoko people gathered at Lake Horowhenua to consider their position. One particular piece of intelligence proved to be very useful in working out the details of the assassination attempt. A visiting Whanganui chief pointed out that canoes could be Te Rauparaha’s ‘Achilles heel.’ The only canoes that Ngati Toa had were those taken from Taranaki tribes and used to transport women and children down the coast. To make it possible for Te Rauparaha to achieve his goals in the Cook Strait area, and to extend his influence to the South Island, canoes would be vital. To make good canoes from the totaras of the lowland forest was a tedious and time-consuming process.Te Rauparaha had much more immediate needs, and canoes used as the bait for a trap offered every chance of success.

Following this meeting, another envoy was dispatched from Lake Horowhenua to offer the Ngati Toa a settlement site near the mouth of the Waikawa Stream, ten kilometres south of the lake. This suggestion was welcomed by Te Rauparaha. The end of the long heke was now in sight. The months of negotiations, difficult overland travel and intermittent fighting would soon be at an end. Meanwhile it was left to Toheriri, the Muaupoko chief who lived on the island pa in Lake Papaitonga, to work out the details of the assassination plot first suggested at the Kapiti meeting. Toheriri, though not the instigator of the plot, and not renowned as a warrior chief, certainly seems to have been willing to carry out a major role.

In the spring of 1822 the Ngati Toa arrived at Waikawa and began to settle in. Te Rauparaha was impressed. The site was very favourable for his needs. It was located about one and a half kilometres in from the sea on the south bank of the Waikawa Stream.12 A new pa known as Pa Te Rauparaha was built well sheltered by the high Ohaka dune from the prevailing north-westerlies of the Horowhenua coast. The stream and a number of lagoons nearby teemed with eels, the soil was fertile and provided good growing conditions for both the kumera and the potato seeds that the tribe brought with them, and planted for the first time in the southern North Island. There were also large resources of aruhe, the edible root of the bracken fern, and there was easy access to the resources of the beach, the open sea and lowland forests.

Ngati Toa had not been at Waikawa long when a messenger, Te Wharakiki, arrived from Muaupoko with an invitation to an eel feast. There was some talk of canoes and an apparently vague suggestion that a gift of canoes might be made when Te Rauparaha attended the feast. The great chief apparently indicated that canoes would be very welcome gifts.The bait had been taken. T.Lindsay Buick 13 wrote that Te Rauparaha fell for the trap because of his ambitions to obtain canoes to conquer the tribes of the South Island, and to get his hands on Ngai Tahu greenstone.

Te Rauparaha chose a party of about twenty to go with him to the feast. This was greatly against the wishes of his nephew and chief lieutenant Te Rangihaeata who had been warned of the possibility of foul play by his Ngati Apa wife’s parents and brothers.14 Most accounts suggest that Te Rangihaeata had a premonition of danger. Tamihana Te Rauparaha later wrote that Te Rangihaeata had a presentiment of disaster, an ‘evil omen,’ a ‘jerk in his left side’ the night before the party left for the feast, and warned his uncle of the impending danger. 15

In the event Te Rauparaha apparently laughed off the possibility of a plot against him. Not only did the party head out virtually unarmed, but he also chose to take with him four of his older children. Te Uira, his oldest daughter, and her husband Te Poa; Honanga and Poaka, two other daughters; and his oldest son and carefully groomed successor Te Rangihoungariri, all went along with the party. For a reciprocal gift, some writers record, Te Rauparaha took along a large block of greenstone. Clearly, Te Rangihaeata’s warning was not to be taken seriously. In fact, it was quite common for his nephew to have such omens of disaster which rarely led to anything.

The events which followed have been described a number of times, but the various accounts differ considerably in detail and often reflect the tribal allegiance of the writers, or of the informants. The best known source is the story told by Waretini Tuainuku to Sir Walter Buller published in ‘The Story of Papaitonga.’ 16 Another important contribution, from the Ngati Toa standpoint, is that of Tamihana Te Rauparaha who makes no mention of any tribe other than Muaupoko being involved. Both these early accounts have a number of anomalies as do those of the early Pakeha writers W.T.L.Travers (1872), T.Lindsay Buick (1903) and Thomas Bevan, Snr (1907) 17 - none of whom name their Maori sources. According to Leslie Adkin (1948) 18 the most reliable account is that of S. Percy Smith, (1910) whose knowledge of the wider context of Maori tribal history of the western North Island gives his description of the events a wider perspective. The most wide-ranging modern work is that of Patricia Burns.

While the exact sequence of events and the names of those who took part in the drama are unlikely ever to be agreed upon, a common thread runs through all of the stories. Te Rauparaha’s party arrived at Waiwiri (Lake Papaitonga) and were welcomed by Toheriri, Te Rangihiwinui, Tanguru and other Muaupoko chiefs at Toheriri’s island pa Papaitonga. The eel feast and the attempted assassination took place at Te Wi kainga, three kilometres south of the lake on the north bank of the Ohau River. Waretini Tuainuku said that the eels were from Waiwiri and Lake Horowhenua.

The feasting may have lasted several days. While it was in progress word was sent back to Lake Horowhenua that all was ready and a large taua, perhaps up to 800 strong, gathered. While the size of the party looks excessive, the attacking force probably did not expect Te Rauparaha to take only a party of twenty with him. There is evidence that a number of Rangitane took part, and that some Ngati Apa and Whanganui people were present. Waretini Tuainuku said that the attackers gathered by a clump of pukatea trees alongside the present Muhunoa West Road a few hundred metres north of Te Wi. There was debate as to when to attack. Some favoured waiting until morning so that none of the Ngati Toa could escape. The remainder, perhaps led by Ngarangi, a Whanganui chief, wanted a night attack. This viewpoint prevailed and it was agreed to attack around midnight.

It had been agreed on the last night of the feast that the gift of canoes would be handed over at the lake next morning. That night Te Rauparaha had retired to Toheriri’s whare at one end of the village. The rest of the Ngati Toa party were scattered through the village. This was to cause problems for the attackers because not all of the Ngati Toa could be found in the confusion that followed.

Though they carried no firearms, the attackers outnumbered their targets perhaps 30 or 40 to one. It was difficult for a war party of that size to move with sufficient stealth or in silence. When Toheriri heard the noise of the attack beginning he hurried out of his whare, perhaps to direct the attackers to the right place. One version of the story relates that Te Rauparaha, roused, quickly summed up the situation, followed Toheriri out of the whare and slipped away in the dark. 19 Other versions suggest that warnings were shouted out, perhaps by Takare: “Oh Raha, your neck will be broken.” 20 or “Oh Raha, the war party is upon you.” Tamihana Te Rauparaha recorded that his father had been saved by a dream – he dreamed that he was being killed by Toheriri ands woke up when Toheriri left the whare to guide the war party. Tamihana noted that his father “would have had little chance to escape if the Muaupoko had been a cunning people.”

A considerable period of hand-to-hand fighting took place at the other end of the village. It is possible, as one account states, that a decision was made to set fire to the whare Te Rauparaha occupied. A number of sources state that Te Rauparaha escaped by cutting his way through the raupo rear wall of the whare and slipped away through the long grass to the nearby Ohau River. Smith wrote that when Mahuri and Te Aweawe, two Rangitane warriors who took part, got to the whare their intended victim had gone. However he escaped, Te Rauparaha apparently left the block of greenstone behind. Patricia Burns quotes evidence suggesting that this would-be gift may have been concealed by the conspirators until it resurfaced at Putiki marae in Wanganui in 1934. 21

Near the river Te Rauparaha met up with his wounded nephew Te Rakaherea (son of Te Poa) who had a spear embedded in his back. Together the two survivors made their way back through the scrub and swamplands to Waikawa. The remainder of the party were not so fortunate. The losses to the great chief’s family were particularly severe. Te Rangihoungariri had been on the verge of getting away, but hearing the cries for help from his sister Te Uira, he rushed back to her aid. With only a broken paddle for a weapon he fought and killed two of the enemy before being overwhelmed. Te Uira was soon dead, killed perhaps by Te Wharakiki. So too were her husband Te Poa 22 and her sister Poaka, and the only one of the chief’s children to survive was Hononga. She was taken prisoner, later sent to the Wairarapa as a slave, eventually to become the wife of Taika, a high ranking chief of Ngati Kahungungu.

It is unlikely that the Muaupoko and their allies were aware of the forces they were unleashing by bungling their assassination attempt that night. If they had succeeded, the whole of the subsequent history of central New Zealand might have been very different without Te Rauparaha.Then again, Te Rangihaeata may have assumed the role vacated by Te Rauparaha with similar consequences. Percy Smith suggests that Toheriri may have had second thoughts about the wisdom of his actions, may have realised that he was but a pawn in a wider power game, and that when he left his whare that night it may have been to divert the raiders from their target. This is little to support this view. Smith said that Toheriri fled to the Wairarapa where he stayed for over two years. He did not escape Te Rauparaha’s vengeance much longer. Soon after his return he was captured, tortured, killed and eaten during the Ngati Toa raid on Papaitonga pa. 23

For Te Rauparaha revenge had to be taken. He could not allow such a blow to fall upon himself, his family and his tribe without demanding utu to the utmost. Back at Waikawa he swore to destroy Muaupoko and their Rangitane allies, “From the rising of the sun to its setting.” With Muaupoko he very nearly succeeded. A man of strong actions rather than the poetic phrase Te Rauparaha, nevertheless, lamented Te Uira in the following terms:

Takoto mai E hine ! Lie thee there, O lady !

I roto Horowhenua Within at Horowhenua

Kai kai whakawai ‘Twas through foul treachery

Te wahine kiri pango Of the black-skinned woman

Ko te manuare ano And rank foolishness

I riro I a koe That thou possessed.

Tenei ano te ruru-kai-kiore Still lives the rat-eating owl

Te kawau horoika The fish-eating cormorant

Te takapu matakana The fierce eyed gannet

Te wehi-o-te-whenua-o-I The dread of the land –

(To avenge thy loss) 24

References:

1. Patricia Burns; ‘Te Rauparaha: a new Perspective,” Reed, 1980

2. S. Percy Smith; ‘History and Traditions of the Taranaki Coast,’ Memoirs of the

Polynesian Society, No 1 , 1910 (Reprinted by Capper Press).

3. W.T.L.Travers; ‘Some Chapters in the Life and Times of Te Rauparaha; Chief of

the Ngati Toa,’ 1872 (Reprinted by Capper Press).

4. Maori Land Court hearing; Otaki, 1 April 1868; Himatangi case.

5. Te Paetahi does not seem to have been present for the attempt on Te Rauparaha’s

Life at Te Wi.

6. Smith, Page 386.

7. W.C.Carkeek; ‘The Kapiti Coast,’ Reed, 1966.

8. Maori Land Court hearing; Foxton, 23 November 1872; Kukutauaki case. Quoted by Carkeek, Page 14.

9. Some accounts state that the envoys met Te Rauparaha at Wanganui.

10. Carkeek, Page 14.

11. At the hearings of the Kukutauaki and Himatangi cases.

12. At that time the Waikawa stream and the Ohau River had a common mouth. After later changes to its

lower course, the Ohau today reaches the coast about three kilometres further north.

13. T.Lindsay Buick; ‘Old Manawatu,’ Palmerston North, 1903.

14. The Ngati Apa warning to Te Rangihaeata is quoted from Ray Grover in ‘Cork of War,’ John McIndoe, Dunedin,

1982, Page 36.

15. Te Rangihaeata’s presentiment of danger was mentioned by Matene Te Whiwhi at the Kukutauaki hearing

in 1872. It is expressed in exactly the same terms by his cousin Tamihana Te Rauparaha in ‘The Life and

Times of Te Rauparaha, by his son Tamihana Te Rauparaha,’ edited by Peter Butler; Alistair Taylor,

Martinborough, 1980, Page 25.

16. Sir Walter Buller; ‘The Story of Papaitonga,’ Transactions of the New Zealand Institute; Vol 26, 1893.

17. Thomas Bevan; ‘Reminiscences of an Old Colonist,’ Otaki, 1907.

18. G.Leslie Adkin; ’Horowhenua,’ Dept of Internal Affairs, Wellington, 1948.

19. This is the version described by Tamihana Te Rauparaha in Butler (ed.), 1980.

20. From S.Percy Smith’s account of the incident obtained from veterans present at the time.

21. Burns, Page 101.

22. To the Ngati Tukorehe hapu of Ngati Raukawa, the site Te Wi was still known as Te Poa, according to Adkin, 1948.

23. Waretini Tuainuku’s account of this raid is given in detail in Buller, 1893.

24. The terms ‘rat-eating owl’ etc, are terms the composer of the lament applied to himself to express his

determination to avenge Te Uira’s death according to S. Percy Smith, Page 389.

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