E tenei pa, e tera pa!
Titiro ki nga tahanga roa
I Tunaroa!
Pewhea tena te titiaho
Kia haere ake ki te pa.
Hoi tonu, hoi tonu!
In this chant the garrisons of the pas on each hand, Puke-rimu and Whiti-te-marama, were called upon to be on the alert, and to scan the long slopes towards the place called Tunaroa where the enemy lay concealed. Yonder perhaps was the place whence the foe would advance in the morning sunshine against the pas. “Ye heeded me not—heeded me not,” the chant ended. Had any lurking enemy scout been near enough to hear the words he would take them as being addressed only to the garrisons of the hill-top fortresses, and would not suspect that it was really a warning for the ears of Harua and his small force of scouts who were liable to be cut off from the pa as soon as daylight came.
The cry of warning was heard and understood by Harua, and he and his scouts swiftly rejoined their friends on the hill-tops.
When day came and the war-party of Ngati-Maniapoto appeared, working round to the north-east side of the Tokanui chain of forts, Kiharoa the giant, stripped for battle, took up his taiaha, “The First Rays of Morning Light,” and led his warriors down to the open slopes of Whenuahou to give battle to the invaders. As he dashed down the hill he ran through a grove of karaka trees. Here there was a pool where the kernels of the karaka berries were prepared for food by being steeped in water after having been cooked; this food was termed “kopiri.” There were some dead leaves of the karaka lying on the track, and Kiharoa slipped on these leaves as he ran, and fell, and narrowly escaped breaking his taiaha in his fall. The spot is at the foot of Tokanui hill, just outside the thickets of prickly acacia which now clothe the silent old fortress with a mat of softest green. This accident was in the belief of the Maori a tohu aitua or evil omen for Kiharoa. The knowledge of this fact may have unnerved the giant, or “Rangihaeata’s” mana may have suffered by the mishap. He rushed to meet his foes, but he was outfought for all his phenomenal reach of [[99]]arm. He fell pierced with spear thrusts and battered with blows of stone clubs, and he lay dead on the battlefield of Whenuahou.
The Tokanui people were defeated; they fled in panic when their gigantic chieftain fell, and many were killed on the field. The survivors, however, held their forts successfully. Ngati-Maniapoto contented themselves with the dead, which would provide many ovens of man-meat, and most of all they rejoiced to find that they had vanquished the dreaded Kiharoa. They gathered round in amazement to measure his height and his giant limbs; and on the spot where he lay marks were cut at head and feet to indicate his length. His enormous tattooed head was cut off and preserved by being smoke-dried, and presently was carried home to Totorewa to decorate the palisade at the gateway of the fort. His body was cut up and cooked and eaten where he fell, and there the excavation remained to mark his great stature. He was two fathoms long! So says the native account. My Maori friends will not abate a single inch. This is the length of the place we used to call the “Giant’s Grave,” on the crown of the land below Puke-rimu, the eastern hill of the “Sisters.” And the battlefield was divided among the victors, and later became the home of a section of the Ngati-Matakore tribe, of whom my old warrior acquaintances Hauauru and Hopa te Rangianini were the chiefs in the days of my boyhood within sight of the terrace-carved “Three Sisters.”