W. T. L. Travers.— The Life and Times of Te Rauparaha. 49 
taua, and discovered the Ngatikahungunu, in great force, at a pa called 
Tawhare Nikau. Undaunted, however, by the strength of the fortress, they 
attacked and carried it with great slaughter. Large numbers of the unfor- 
tunate inhabitants escaped to the hills, where they suffered greatly, whilst the 
invaders, after following the fugitives as far as Kawakawa and Porangahau, 
killing many, fell back upon Tawhare Nikau, in order to gorge themselves 
upon the bodies of the slain. The party then returned to Wellington and 
proceeded to Omere, where they saw an European vessel lying off Raukawa, 
in Cook Strait. Tamati Waka Nene, immediately on perceiving the ship, 
shouted out to Te Rauparaha, “Oh, Raha, do you see that people sailing on 
the sea? They are a very good people, and if you conquer this land and hold 
intercourse with them you will obtain guns and powder, and become very 
great.” Te Rauparaha apparently wanted but this extra incentive to induce 
him to take permanent possession of the country between Wellington and 
Patea, and at once determined to remove thither with his tribe, as soon as he 
could make such arrangements as would secure him in the possession of his 
intended conquest. The tava returned along the coast line as they had first 
come, killing or making prisoners of such of the inhabitants as they could 
find as far as Patea. It was during the return of this war party that 
Rangihaieta took prisoner a woman named Pikinga, the sister of Arapata 
Hiria, a Ngatiapa chief of high rank, and whom he afterwards made his slave 
wife, a circumstance much and absurdly insisted upon in favour of the 
Ngatiapa title during the investigations of the Native Lands Court into the 
Manawatu case. Laden with spoil, and accompanied by numerous slaves, the 
successful warriors reached Kawhia, where Tamati Waka Nene and Patuone, 
with their party, left Te Rauparaha in order to return to their own country 
at Hokianga. 
As I have before mentioned, Te Rauparaha had, during the progress of this 
raid upon the South, conceived the idea of leaving the ancient possessions of 
his tribe at Kawhia for the purpose of settling at Kapiti and upon the 
country on the main land in its vicinity ; and accordingly, after the period of | 
festivity and rest usually indulged in by a returned ¢awa, he began to take the 
necessary steps, not only to induce his own people to accept his resolution, 
but to enlist the sympathies and assistance of his relatives at Maungatautari 
and elsewhere. During a visit which he paid for this purpose to the 
Ngatiraukawa, he found their great chief Hape Tuarangi in a dying state, 
and the circumstances which then occurred contributed greatly to the ultimate 
success of his designs. It appears that, notwithstanding the respect in which 
the offspring of the Maori aristocracy are usually held by their own people, 
and the influence they generally exercise in matters affecting the tribe, it is 
not unusual for the natural ariki of a tribe, or chief of a hapu, to be, in some 
