Ngāti Tūwharetoa invasion of Taupō
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Ngāti Tūwharetoa victory
- Ngāti Tūwharetoa gain the east coast of Lake Taupō
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The Ngāti Tūwharetoa invasion of Taupō was a conflict which took place in the sixteenth century on the east coast of Lake Taupō in the central North Island of New Zealand. The conflict marks the beginning of Ngāti Tūwharetoa's expansion into the Taupō region. In response to an insult, Ngāti Tūwharetoa attacked Ngāti Kurapoto, based on the northeastern coast of Taupō. In the course of the conflict, Ngāti Tūwharetoa also attacked Ngāti Hotu at the south end of Lake Taupō. Different sources give diverging accounts on some details, but agree that the war ended with Ngāti Tūwharetoa in control of the whole eastern shore of Taupō. Ngāti Kurapoto was subsumed into Tūwharetoa, while Ngāti Hotu was wiped out, either in the course of the conflict or in a subsequent conflict. Tūwharetoa control of the west coast of the lake was established in the subsequent Ngāti Tama–Ngāti Tūwharetoa War.
Battles of Kaka-tarae
The first people to settle around Lake Taupō were Ngāti Hotu. Under the leadership of Kawhea, Hei-marama, and Rongomai-tuteaka, Ngāti Kurapoto, part of the Arawa tribal confederacy, invaded and seized the northern and eastern shores of the lake from Tupuae-haruru Bay (site of modern Taupō township) to Tauranga Taupō, leaving Ngāti Hotu with only the southern coast of the lake.[1][2]
Ngāti Tūwharetoa, also part of the Arawa confederacy, and descendants of Ngātoro-i-rangi, one of the first two Māori to visit the Taupō region, were settled at this time in the Bay of Plenty region. After years of conflict Tūwharetoa and his ally Tūtewero son of Maruka had established control of a region encompassing Ōtamarākau, the Awa-o-te-atua (Tarawera River), and Kawerau. Tūwharetoa was by this point an elderly man, with many children and grandchildren.[3]
Hatupere, leader of the Marangaranga or Maruiwi people, decided to attack Tūtewero, but was handily defeated by him and fled to Te Whaiti and the Kaweka Range. Ngāti Tūwharetoa were ashamed that this conflict had taken place without them, so Tūwharetoa's sons Rakahopukia, Rākei-poho, Rākei-makaha, Taniwha-paretuiri, and Rongomai-te-ngangana formed a war party of 240 men and attacked the Marangaranga / Maruiwi at Kaka-tarae near Runanga Lake.[4] They suffered a terrible defeat. Only 140 men of Ngāti Tūwharetoa survived. Of the leaders, Rongomai-te-ngangana, and Rākei-poho or Matangi-kai-awha were killed. Moreover, there had been many women in the party, who were taken prisoner, notably Taniwha-pare-tuiri.[4][5] Maruiwi and Pa-kaumoana took the dead to Purotu on the Mohaka River, where they were piled up in an oven and cooked, leading to the place names Whā-tihi ('pile up') and Umu-ariki ('oven of chieftains').[5]
Locke reports that the tohunga, Takatore, performed a special ritual at Ahi-o-ngatāne, in which he killed a kiwi and offered half to the atua and half to Papatūānuku, the Tūwharetoa were able to avenge their defeat by a surprise attack on the Marangaranga at Rarauhi-papa, in which they captured the women back and killed around two hundred enemy men.[4] Te Hata reports that the defeat at Kaka-tarae was avenged as a result of the makutu or whakanania ritual, in which an enemy warrior was captured, his heart was offered to the atua, and then the tohunga sang a karakia into a hole in the ground while naked. This ritual placed a curse on Maruwai, which caused them to drown in a river.[6]
Curse of Hinekahoroa
According to Locke, as the Tūwharetoa were returning from this expedition, they travelled to Hinemaiaia on the coast of Lake Taupō, where they deposited their dead. Then they travelled north along the coast, past Maniaheke and Kowhaiataku to Lake Rotongaio, where they sounded their pū kaea trumpet to announce their presence to the Ngāti Kurapoto.[4] This sound enraged the priestess Hine-kaho-roa shouted out the Pokokohua-ma (mummified heads curse), but the Tūwharetoa continued to blow the trumpet and shouted out, "Your brains, your brains!" (turning the curse back on her), and then she said, "I will make the bones of your ancestors Rangitu and Tangaroa like my fernroot" (i.e. treating them both as food).[4]
According to Te Hata, the Tūwharetoa forces fleeing their defeat at Kakatare, came to Waiaruhe, a spring of the Wai-tahanui stream, east of Taupō. Finding fernroot there, they ate it all, not realising that it belonged to the priestess Hine-kaharoa. When she found out she angrily said "Leave the fernroot, the bones of Rangitu and Tangaroa."[5]
Either way, the Tūwharetoa departed and reported what had happened to the old chief Tūwharetoa at Kawerau.[4][5] A special sacred force was summoned to Kawerau by Tūwharetoa, who neutralised the curse by sacrificing a lizard, but now Tūwharetoa felt compelled to send an expedition against Ngāti Kurapoto to avenge the insult represented by the curse.[7]
