Te Rautakitahi o Tuhoe ki Orakau

Book excerpt: Te Rautakitahi o Tuhoe ki Orakau is an account of Tuhoe involvement in the battle of Orakau in the New Zealand wars by Sir William Te Rangiua &‘ Pou' Temara. Written in te reo Maori and based on oral sources, Ta Pou asks the big questions about the Tuhoe men and women who went to fight with Ngati Maniapoto at Orakau. Who were they? Why did they go and what did they do there? What was the nature of their alliance with Ngati Maniapoto?Ta Pou gives this account as a man from Ruatahuna, where most of the Tuhoe who went to Orakau came from, through the stories told to him by his grandfather, great-grandmother and other kuia and koroua when he was young. He tells the story of Rewi Maniapoto visiting Tuhoe at Ruatahuna in 1862 and 1864 to ask if Tuhoe would become involved in the war to help Ngati Maniapoto and the King movement. He recounts the warriors, women and children who went, and then tells what happened to their authority and reputation in Tuhoe after the party returned, defeated, from Orakau. The book includes significant Tuhoe whakapapa for those who went to Orakau. Ta Pou compares his account of events to those of Pakeha writers like Elsdon Best, Judith Binney and Vincent O' Malley.This is a major new account of a key episode in the New Zealand wars written by one of our leading Maori thinkers and writers.