84 Transactions. 
CHAPTER VII. 
RAUPARAHA having thus completed his design of conquering the Middle 
Island, next turned his attention, at the earnest request of the Ngatiraukawa, 
to avenging a defeat which the latter had sustained some time previously at 
the hands of the tribes occupying the line of the Wanganui River. In 
this defeat only a few of the chiefs had escaped the general slaughter, amongst 
whom were Te Puke and his younger brother Te Ao, both of whom 
succeeded in making their way to Kapiti. In consequence of this resolution, 
a war party numbering nearly a thousand fighting men, under the most 
distinguished chiefs of the three tribes then united under the general leader- 
ship of Rauparaha, was despatched to lay siege to Putikiwaranui, a great 
pa of the Wanganuis, which was occupied and defended by nearly double the 
number of the attacking force. The siege lasted upwards of two months, 
during which many sorties were made, but the besiegers maintained their 
ground, and ultimately carried the enemy’s works by assault, slaughtering an 
immense number of them. Turoa and Hori Te Anaua (lately known as Hori 
Kingi) the head chiefs, however, escaped, but the fact that no attempt was 
even made to avenge this serious disaster, is of itself the strongest evidence 
of the power of Te Rauparaha and his allies, and of the absurdity of supposing 
that his occupation of the country he had conquered could for a moment have 
been disturbed by the remnant of the Ngatiapa, Rangitane, and Muaupoko 
tribes which had still escaped the general destruction of their people. Soon 
after the year 1835, the great body of the Ngatiawa, under the chiefs E Puni, 
' Warepouri, Wi Tako, and others, and accompanied by numbers of the | 
Taranaki and Ngatiruanui tribes, came down the coast, many of them settling 
around and to the southward of Waikanae, whilst others took possession of 
Port Nicholson and the Hutt country, from which they drove the section of 
the Ngatikahungunu, which up to this time had occupied those districts. 
This migration took place after the destruction of the great Ngatiawa pa of 
Pukerangiora, inland of the Waitara. 
It appears that many years before this event the Waikato tribes, under 
Te Wherowhero and Taiporutu (father of Waharoa and grandfather of William 
Thompson Tarapipi, so celebrated in connection with our own Waikato wars) 
had suffered severely at the hands of the Ngatitama under the leadership of 
Kaeaea, by whom Taiporutu was crucified in the gateway of a pa defended by 
this ruthless warrior. It was indeed from this circumstance that Waharoa took 
his name, which signifies the large gateway of a pa. This defeat, as well as 
that which they had suffered at the hands of Te Rauparaha and his allies, during 
the migration of the Ngatitoa from Kawhia, naturally rankled in their minds, 
and in one of the intervals of the wars of Te Waharoa against the N gatimaru, 
he and Te Wherowhero concerted a campaign against the Ngatiawa. There is 
