74 Transactions. 
arrived before daylight they anchored a short distance from the shore, in order 
that they might be enabled at dawn to reconnoitre the position of the enemy 
before landing. It would appear that the Ngaitahus at that time expected a 
visit from a southern chief of their own tribe, with a considerable following, 
and that on the morning in question, seeing the canoes of Rauparaha’s party 
at anchor, and not having noticed the direction from which they had come, 
they mistook them for those of their friends, and large numbers of the people 
of the pa ran down to the shore, shouting the cry of welcome to the supposed 
visitors, who, at once seeing the advantage which the mistake would afford 
them in their intended attack, made for the shore with all possible speed, and 
having reached it jumped out of the canoes and immediately commenced the 
attack. The unfortunate people, being quite unarmed, and taken by surprise, 
endeavoured to escape by retreating towards the pa, which, in the general 
confusion, was taken without difficulty, some 1,400 of the people, including 
women and children, being killed or taken prisoners, amongst the latter of 
whom was the chief Rerewhaka, whose threat Rauparaha was then avenging. 
After remaining for some time to feast upon the bodies of the slain, and to 
plunder the pa of its treasures, the victorious Ngatitoa returned with their 
prisoners to Kapiti, where the greater number of the latter, including 
Rerewhaka himself, were put to death and eaten, the chief having been 
sacrificed with great cruelty on account of the threat which had been the 
prime cause of the attack. In consequence of this circumstance Rauparaha 
named the battle the “niho manga, or battle of the shark’s tooth.” At the 
time of this event another section of the Ngaitahu tribe occupied an extensive 
pa called Kaiapoi, about fourteen miles north of Christchurch, with the 
inhabitants of which Rauparaha made up his mind to pick a quarrel at the 
first convenient opportunity, but he felt that the force he had under his 
command at Kaikoura was too small for the purpose of any attack upon it, 
particularly after the enemy had received notice of the fall of the latter place, 
and had had time to make preparations for defence. In the following year, 
before he had had an opportunity of devising any particular scheme for 
the purpose of bringing about a quarrel between himself and the Kaiapoi 
people, he was induced again to attack the remnant of the Ngaitahu at 
Kaikoura, in consequence of an insult put upon Rangihaeata by a Ngatika- 
hungunu chief named Kekerengu, who, dreading the consequences, had fled 
across the strait and taken refuge with them. Rauparaha collected a 
considerable force of Ngatitoa and their allies, under his own leadership, with 
Te Pehi, Pohaitara, Rangihaeata, and other principal chiefs under him, and 
started for the Wairau, from whence he made his way along the coast to 
Kaikoura. On his arrival there he found that the pa had been evacuated on 
their approach, the inhabitants flying down the Amuri. They were overtaken 
