80 Transactions. 



the widow of the late chief Haupapa, who had been killed at Maketu, 

 standing naked and armed with a tomahawk, whilst another woman, also nude, 

 and Pango were dragging a woman taken prisoner at Te Tumu, that she might 

 be killed by Mrs. Haupapa, in the open space between the men and the 

 women. Mr. Knight immediately sprang forward, and entreated them not 

 to hurt the woman, but Mrs. Haupapa, paying no attention, raised her 

 hatchet ; on this, Knight caught the weapon and pulled it out of her hand, 

 whereupon the other woman angrily wrenched it from his grasp, and would 

 have killed him had not Pango interposed by running at him and giving him 

 a, blow and thrust that nearly sent him into the lake. He was, however, 

 about to return when the natives seized him and held him back. Just then, 

 the poor woman slipping out of the garments she was held by, rushed to 

 Knight, and falling down, clasped his knees convulsively, in an agony of 

 terror. Her murderers came, and abusing the pakeha the while for pokanoa- 

 ing (interfering or meddling), with difficulty dragged her from her hold. The 

 helpless pakeha says, ' It would have melted the heart of a stone ' to hear her 

 calling each relative by name, beseeching them to save her, for though a 

 Tauranga woman, she was connected with Rotorua, and to see her last 

 despairing, supplicating look, as she was taken a few yards off and killed by 

 that virago Mrs. Haupapa. Now this scene occurred simply because Hau- 

 papa's widow longed to assuage the sorrow of her bereaved heart, by des- 

 patching, with her own hand, some prisoner of rank as utu for her lord. The 

 tribe respected her desire ; they assembled to witness the spectacle, and 

 furnished a victim by handing over a chief's widow to her will." 



It may, as I have before observed, seem strange that Rauparaha did not 

 at once take the bolder and more manly course of attacking the Ngaitahu at 

 Kaiapoi, in the ordinary way of warfare, for the purpose of avenging the 

 murder of Te Pehi and his brother chiefs, but I am informed by his son that 

 the course he adopted was strictly tika, or, in other words, in accordance with 

 Maori etiquette in such matters, and that, indeed, any other line of action 

 would not properly have met the exigencies of the case. That Hauparaha was 

 not limited to the adoption of what we should consider the treacherous plan 

 of revenge above related is clear from the events which I am about to refer to, 

 for in about a year after the capture of Tamaiharanui our chief determined, in 

 furtherance of his original design, to attack the great pa at Kaiapoi. For 

 this purpose he assembled a large force, comprising Ngatitoa, Ngatiawa, and 

 Ngatiraukawa, part of whom made their way through the Wairau Gorge and 

 the Hanmer Plains to the Waipara River, which flows into the sea near the 

 north head of Pegasus Bay ; whilst he, with the main body of his forces, 

 passed over to the East Coast, through the country now occupied by Messrs. 

 Clifford and Weld, and from thence down that coast to the mouth of the 



