The Maori murderer Winiata, captured at Otorohanga by Robert Barlow, was brought into Kihikihi early on the morning of Tuesday, 27th June, 1882. At about three o’clock that morning Constable Finnerty, of the Armed Constabulary, found Barlow and Winiata struggling violently outside the Alpha Hotel. Winiata, who was in a naked condition, had recovered from the effects of the grog, and was making a desperate effort to escape. He was overpowered and taken to the Constabulary barracks in the redoubt, and chained to a bedstead. Major Minnett, who was in command of the Armed Constabulary Force at Kihikihi, sent him to Te Awamutu with Barlow in the Government waggon under an armed guard, and Constable Gillies then took the prisoner in charge and delivered him to Sergeant McGovern at Hamilton the same day.
There were two other Maoris in the whare at Otorohanga, and both of these were made helplessly drunk or drugged by Barlow. [[102]]
MR HURSTHOUSE’S ADVENTURE IN THE KING COUNTRY.
The capture of Mr Charles Wilson Hursthouse and Mr William Newsham, Government surveyors, by a band of King Country fanatics under the prophet Te Mahuki occurred at Te Uira, near Te Kuiti, on 20th March, 1883. Mr Hursthouse was on his way from Alexandra to explore the country from the Waikato frontier to the Mokau, and he and his assistant surveyor were accompanied by the Mokau friendly chiefs Te Rangituataka and Hone Wetere te Rerenga and twenty-five other Mokau men. At Te Uira, sixteen miles beyond Otorohanga, on the afternoon of the 20th, as they rode up they saw a large body of Maoris mustering excitedly. These were natives under the leadership of the fanatic Te Mahuki, or Manukura, a Ngati-Maniapoto man who had been a follower of Te Whiti at Parihaka, and who had returned to the Rohepotae to found a sect of his own. He called his followers the “Tekau-ma-rua,” or “The Twelve”—although they numbered many more—after the Twelve Apostles. This was a revival of a term of the Hauhau war days. The selected war-parties of the Taranaki fighting chief Titokowaru were called the “Tekau-ma-rua.” These men attacked Hursthouse’s party, and a lively fight followed, although no deadly weapons were used. The Tekau-ma-rua pulled the surveyors and the Mokau men off their horses, Rangituataka’s followers fighting desperately with stirrup-irons and leathers. The prisoners were marched to the village at Te Uira, in the midst of the terribly-excited Tekau-ma-rua, who were dancing and yelling and chanting ngeri or war-songs. Te Rangituataka and Wetere and their men were not ill-used—there were too many of them; moreover the leaders were high chiefs of the tribe—but the surveyors and a native named Te Haere were thrust into a cookhouse and imprisoned there. Hursthouse and Newsham had been stripped of their coats, waistcoats, and boots. Their hands were tied behind their backs and their feet were fastened together with bullock-chains. In this condition, suffering great pain from the tightness of their bonds, tortured by mosquitoes which they could only brush off by rubbing their faces on the ground, and without drink or food except dirty water and some pig’s potatoes thrown in on the floor, they remained there two nights and a day, listening to the yells and threats of the natives outside, and expecting to be killed. Early on the morning of 22nd March there was a new commotion outside, and Hursthouse heard Te Kooti’s voice. In a few moments the door of the cookhouse was burst open and the prisoners were released by Te Kooti—who had just been promised an amnesty by Mr Bryce, Native Minister—and a large party of natives, including Wahanui’s people; Wahanui himself arrived a little later. Hursthouse and Newsham had already worked their hands free, and the former had picked up a piece of iron chain as a weapon in case he was attacked. The extreme tension and anxiety of the thirty-six hours’ painful confinement and the want of food had affected even the indomitable Hursthouse, old campaigner though he was, and, as he related afterwards, when he was released he fairly broke down and wept. The surveyors were escorted to Alexandra by a large body of Wahanui’s people, and presently resumed their exploring expedition, after their late captor in his turn had been locked up.
MAHUKI’S RAID ON ALEXANDRA, AND HIS CAPTURE.
On Sunday, 25th March, 1883, three days after the release of Hursthouse and Newsham, Mahuki and twenty-six followers invaded the township of Alexandra (now Pirongia), in pursuance of the leader’s announced intention to loot the place. Mahuki had prophesied many extraordinary things, and his followers had implicit belief in his supernatural powers. He had even sent word of his intended visit, so Alexandra was prepared. A force of Armed Constabulary under Captain (afterwards Major) Gascoyne, who was in command of the Alexandra Redoubt, and the Te Awamutu Cavalry troop were on hand, and so disposed in detachments out of sight as to surprise and surround the invaders. Mahuki’s men, fortunately for themselves, were not armed. Two Europeans who had ridden out to reconnoitre the road to the Waipa bridge had to make a speedy retreat when the Tekau-ma-rua came in sight. One of them—Mr Alfred H. Benge, the schoolmaster at Te Awamutu[[103]]—returned safely with the loss of only his hat; the other, a well-known Alexandra resident, parted company with his horse in the race, and was caught, tied up, and deposited by the roadside to reflect on the position at leisure, while the Hauhau troop galloped on into Alexandra. Their surprise was complete. Armed Constabulary and Cavalry troopers rushed out and surrounded them, pulled them off their horses, and tied them up. Twenty-three were captured in this way, including the much-astonished prophet himself, and four more were arrested at the bridge. Only one man got clear away to carry the news of the prophet’s capture to the kainga at Te Kumi. Four of the twenty-seven, being young boys, were released; the rest were marched, handcuffed in couples, to Te Awamutu, where they were entrained for Auckland. Mahuki and his principal followers were tried at the Supreme Court for the assault on Hursthouse and Newsham, and received terms of imprisonment.
Some years later Mahuki ran amok again, this time at Te Kuiti, and was once more imprisoned, and he died while serving his sentence. He was the last of the troublesome religious fanatics of the Rohepotae.