Quarrels arose with Ngati-Paoa at last as the result of a marriage of a Waikato chieftainess to Te Putu, a Ngati-Paoa chief. Land on the Tamaki River had been given to cement a tribal peace and in honour of the union. Shortly thereafter, at a fishing expedition off Mahurangi, Ngati-Paoa and Ngati-Whatua quarrelled. The former attacked the latter and killed Tara-hawaiki, son of Tuperiri. Ngati-Paoa followed this up by invading Tamaki, having in alliance with them the other Hauraki tribes. The invaders were defeated by Ngati-Whatua at Pu-ponga on the Manukau Harbour and again at Rangi-mata-rau (Point Chevalier Beach).
On a later occasion a party of Ngati-Paoa were surprised whilst shark-fishing at Kauri Point,[2] the survivors being left on the pinnacle rock (Niho-Kiore) off there to drown.
Thereafter Ngati-Whatua, now in alliance with Waikato and Manukau tribes, attacked Ngati-Paoa at Putiki (Waiheke). In a final battle at Tamaki West Heads, Ngati-Paoa were defeated, and thus was ended that warfare. This event is placed about 1793, and permanently established Ngati-Whatua’s prestige and their possession of Tamaki.
At this time, Tamaki had become a rather unsafe place of residence, and does not appear to have been extensively occupied. In fact, Mount Eden and many of the large hill forts had long been abandoned, and their elaborate defences were already in ruin and overgrown with scrub and fern.
About this period, also, came a great epidemic remembered as the “Rewharewha.” It was probably an influenza outbreak, and swept throughout the land. No doubt this visitation further reduced the Tamaki population, and therein lies the reason why many of the old-time villages were abandoned and passed out of history. The remnants of the people, though still numerous, were unable to hold the large hill fortresses against an enemy. Smaller and easier defended positions only were maintained.
Tuperiri continued, however, to live at One Tree Hill, and died there in the latter part of the eighteenth century. Ngati-Paoa still resided in various Tamaki River pas, but nothing remarkable appears to have happened in Tamaki itself. About this year (1793) there came the first of the Ngapuhi raids, the precursor of many such subsequent affairs, which ultimately involved the Ngati-Whatua of Tamaki. The cause of the first invasion by Ngapuhi of these parts is not certain. The Ngapuhi war party, after attacking the Hauraki people, appeared to have come to the Tamaki Heads, and there, at the West Head again, a battle was fought. Ngapuhi were defeated at the hands of the local people, only two canoe parties of their fleet escaping.
The event was followed up by a Hauraki invasion of the northern districts via Kaipara, in which Ngati-Whatua also took part. They returned after many successes in the north, and thus closed the Tamaki history of the Eighteenth Century.
XII
The Nineteenth Century (1800-1840)
Of this, the final epoch in the Maori history of Tamaki, I will give but a brief sketch.
Of the years from 1800 to 1810 we know little. In the latter year a second great epidemic swept over these districts. This no doubt brought about a further depopulation of the Isthmus. About 1810, Ngati-Paoa again began to reside on the Tamaki shores, and erected fortresses at Mauinaina and Mokoia (Panmure).
MARSDEN’S VISIT
In 1820, Marsden passed through the district on his way northward. Going by Ngati-Paoa canoe to Riverhead, he met the Ngati-Whatua chieftain Kawau, who escorted him safely to Kaipara. Returning to Tamaki with Kawau, he visited the Ngati-Paoa villages at Tamaki, and met their chieftain Te Hinaki, between whom and the Hauraki chiefs Marsden succeeded in arranging a meeting, the result being a tribal peace between these people.
This peacemaking occurred aboard the ship Coromandel, in the Waiheke Passage. After again visiting the Mokoia pa at Panmure, Marsden finally left for the north overland.
CRUISE’S VISIT TO TAMAKI, 1820
In the same year (1820), the Waitemata was visited by Major Cruise aboard the ship Prince Regent, ten days after Marsden’s departure. He was invited to the Tamaki settlements, and there met the chief Te Hinaki. Cruise gives much detail in his Journal of the local natives and their homes.
Now began in earnest the dreadful era of the Ngapuhi raids. Their war parties were now armed with the destructive firearms obtained by bartering with the early traders to these coasts.
TE KOPERU’S INVASION
A Ngapuhi chief had arrived at Tamaki in 1820, apparently to attack Ngati-Paoa and Hauraki generally. Ngati-Whatua came to assist Ngati-Paoa, and the Ngapuhi attack on Mauinaina was repulsed. Then Te Koperu was invited into the fortress to make peace. There he was treacherously murdered by Te Paraoa-rahi, a Ngati-Paoa chief.
This event was followed almost immediately by Te Koperu’s brother, Te Morenga, attacking the Tamaki pas, and he severely punished Ngati-Paoa, amply revenging Te Koperu’s death.
HONGI’S INVASION
The following year (1821) saw yet another attack on the people of Tamaki. Hongi Ika himself first then came on the scene. He had just returned from England, and had met Te Hinaki in Sydney, whence they both returned to New Zealand. Te Hinaki had been warned in Sydney by Hongi as to his intentions; he therefore prepared his fortifications at Mokoia and Mauinaina for the storm about to break upon his people. The Ngapuhi duly arrived and began a blockade of the Tamaki forts. After a long siege, accompanied by much skirmishing, the Mokoia fort was captured. Te Hinaki himself was slain, with a great number of his people. After the incidents usual to such affairs had been fully enacted, the Ngapuhi departed, to carry on the war in the districts of Hauraki and the south.
For some years after the Ngapuhi invasion, the Tamaki Isthmus appears to have been altogether abandoned as a permanent residential area. It was during this time a kind of “no man’s land.” Ngati-Whatua retreated to the forest wilderness of Waitakerei and Kaipara, or into the recesses of the Waikato.
D’URVILLE’S VISIT
In 1827 D’Urville visited the Waitemata. He ascended Takarunga (Mount Victoria, Devonport). Looking westward towards the Tamaki, he says there were no signs whatever of any inhabitants. Crossing the harbour, he found a deserted village (perhaps Orakei). He also attempted to ascend what was probably Mount Eden, but had to abandon the attempt. The denseness of growth of fern and scrub since the time of the Ngati-Whatua conquest of the last century had obliterated all the old native tracks. The greater area of the Isthmus had become little better than a jungle of vegetation.
D’Urville also describes his visit to the villages at Tamaki, where a namesake of the late ill-fated Hinaki was then head man.
NGAPUHI DEFEATED AT TAMAKI HEADS
In this year (1827) was fought the last tribal battle in Tamaki. The Manukau and Ngati-Whatua people in alliance came in canoes down the Tamaki River to give combat to Ngapuhi. That people, crossing from Waiheke, “captured” the apparently abandoned canoes of the local people at the West Tamaki Head. While Ngapuhi were quarrelling over the supposed “spoils of war,” the allies returned and surprised them, with such success that only one small Ngapuhi party of twenty men returned home to tell the tale.