On the crown of the land at Whenuahou, immediately north of the Tokanui hills known to the European settlers of the old frontier as “The Three Sisters,” is an historic spot called Kiharoa, in memory of a giant warrior of long ago. It was proposed by some of the Kingite chiefs in 1864, after the British occupation of the Waipa basin, that a fort should be built here for a final stand against the Queen’s soldiers. The position commanded a wide view over the valley of the Puniu and the conquered lands north of the river, but it would have been useless without a sufficient garrison to hold also the hill-forts in rear of and above it, ancient terraced pas of the Maori. The suggestion was not favoured by Rewi and the other leaders, and the warriors re-crossed the Puniu to the north side and built the pa at Orakau. Long ago, riding along the old horse track from Kihikihi to Otorohanga past Hopa te Rangianini’s little village at Whenuahou, we used to see the Giant’s Grave, as it was called. This locally-famous landmark was a shallow excavation on a ferny mound; it was twelve or fourteen feet in length and about four feet in width, and vague traditions had grown up around it, but none of the European settlers of the frontier knew anything definite of its history. A few years ago, however, I gathered the story of this semi-mythic giant from two venerable warriors of the Ngati-Maniapoto, on the south bank of the Puniu River. There certainly seems to have been a veritable giant, a man of enormous stature and length of reach with the hand-weapons of those days, six generations ago. This Kiharoa, or “The Long Gasping Breath,” was a chief of the Ngati-Raukawa and Ngati-Whakatere tribes, who in those times owned the Tokanui hills and the surrounding fruitful slopes.
OFFICERS OF THE 40th REGIMENT (1863–4)
With the regimental mess-house in the background.
NON-COMMISSIONED OFFICERS OF THE 40th REGIMENT
[From photos lent by Colonel Ryder.]
The strong terraced and trenched pa on Tokanui, the middle conical hill of the row of three, was built by the two tribes named, [[97]]under Kiharoa, about a hundred and fifty years ago. The same people fortified and occupied the other two hills; the eastern one is Puke-rimu (“Red-Pine hill”) and the western Whiti-te-marama (“The Shining of the Moon”). There were many good fighting men among the people of these hill forts, but their tower of strength was Kiharoa, who stood hugely over his fellows; he was twice the height of an ordinary man, and he wielded a taiaha of unusual length and weight, a hardwood weapon called by the name of “Rangihaeata” (“The First Rays of Morning Light”). Many a battle he had fought successfully with this great blade-and-tongue broadsword, sweeping every opponent out of his path. Kiharoa was tattooed on body as well as face, and when he leaped into battle, whirling “Rangihaeata” from side to side in guard and feint and cut, his blue-carved skin glistening with oil and red ochre, his great glaring eyes darting flame, his moko-scrolled features distorted with fury, few there were brave enough to face him. But there came a day when Kiharoa met his better on the battlefield of Whenuahou.
The Ngati-Maniapoto tribe, whose great fortress was Totorewa, an impregnable cliff-walled pa on the Waipa River, raised a feud against the Ngati-Raukawa and Ngati-Whakatere, and a large war-party set out under the chief Wahanui, who himself was a man of great frame, though no giant like Kiharoa. The “taua” took a circuitous route, coming upon the Tokanui hills from the south via Manga-o-Rongo, and then making a detour to the east to avoid the deep morass which defended the southern side of “The Three Sisters”—the present main road from Kihikihi to Otorohanga traverses this now partly-drained swamp.
Meanwhile the garrisons in the hill forts had prepared for war, and their sentinels stood on the alert on the tihi or citadel of the terraced strongholds, keeping keen watch for the expected enemy. Harua, one of the chiefs of the forts, had descended to the plain with a small party before the approach of the foe was detected, and although the people on the hill forts called repeatedly to him warning him to return, no heed was given to the long-drawn shouts. At length a keen-eyed sentry saw the glisten of a weapon—perhaps a whalebone mere—in the westering sun; the direction was well to the east of the pa, and by that token it was plain that the enemy army was lying in ambush waiting to advance silently in the night. It was imperative that Harua and his men outside the pa should be [[98]]warned, and so in the still watches of the night a strong-lunged warrior on the battlements of Tokanui lifted up his voice in this whakaaraara-pa, or sentinel-chant: