126 Transactions. 



in history it is interesting to be able to give his portrait. Ac- 

 cording to Rev. R. Taylor at page 558 of " Te Ika a Maui," 

 who calls him a great chief, Maketu was shot by a random bullet 

 while engaged plundering during the early war, about May, 1847 ; 

 but this account of his death may be somewhat incorrect, for it 

 is now known by a few that he met his death from the bullet 

 of an early settler, who, seeing him rocking himself in a chair 

 in Churton's house, deliberately shot him from Churton's Creek. 

 This information was probably suppressed before for various 

 and obvious reasons. Maketu's fishing or village fa, Mawhai, 

 which, according to Mr. Fred Parkes (a pioneer of the early 

 days) was fortified, stood on the flat overlooking the site of 

 the present residence of Mr. A. D. Willis, M.H.R., about a mile 

 above the Wanganui town bridge. As before stated, Maketu 

 stood out for a time against the sale of Wanganui to the 

 New Zealand Land Company, when E. J. Wakefield was 

 arranging for the purchase ; and at the conference of chiefs 

 at Purua Creek (now known as Durie Creek), where the sale 

 eventually took place, he took a prominent part (Wakefield's 

 " Adventures in New Zealand," vol. i, p. 286). Wakefield is 

 very careful to impress upon his readers that Maketu was 

 not a principal chief ; and his reason is very obvious, for it 

 was only natural that he should try and belittle any opposition 

 that he experienced. Wakefield also had a good deal to say 

 about Turoa. whom he cites as being a chief of very great 

 importance ; and it is interesting to know that Wakefield's 

 friend Pehi Turoa and Maketu were brothers, or, as some 

 of the Natives tell me, cousins. On looking at a copy of the 

 Treaty of Waitangi I see that Turoa signed his name, and the 

 marks by Williams signify that he was a chief of great import- 

 ance. I do not find Maketu's name ; but. as Wakefield remarks, 

 very few of the Wanganui chiefs did sign, and naturally those 

 who were averse to British rule — as was Maketu — did not. The 

 absence of Maketu's name from the signatures of the treaty is 

 quite understandable. His chief pa and land were evidently 

 at Waipakura, some distance up the Wanganui River, from which 

 place he fired at the Putiki canoes bearing the captured prisoners 

 — the authors of the Gilfillan outrage. Strange that Maketu 

 should have his likeness perpetuated by the very man, the out- 

 rage on whose family he evidently sympathized with, even if he 

 was not one of the instigators. 



Since the above was written, an interesting piece of con- 

 firmatory information has come into my possession. I have 

 in the foregoing referred to the evident care with which Gilfillan 

 has depicted the tattooing, and I am now told by Mr. Allison 

 that his aunt, one of the daughters of Gilfillan who escaped 



