[59] Now Wellington.
[60] This decision, it is said, was taken partly because they took umbrage at Te Rauparaha's overbearing manner, and partly because they had heard that another Waikato raid upon Taranaki was imminent. This was in the year 1823.
[61] This would be about the year 1824.
[62] This force, to the number of 120, was led by Te Ahu-karamu, a chief who afterwards became a prominent and progressive leader of the Maori people on the west coast.
[63] Called by the early European settlers "Jackeytown."
[64] Kerei te Panau was at this time a lad of about ten years of age, and probably owes the fact that he lived to be about ninety-four years of age to this flight across the river in the canoes.
[65] Atua—a god.
[66] This migration is known to the Ngati-Raukawa tribe as the Heke Whirinui, owing to the fact that the whiri, or plaited collars of their mats, were made very large for the journey.
[67] For this purpose, he and Te Heuheu returned to Taupo, some of the party passing across the Manawatu block, so as to strike the Rangitikei River inland, whilst the others travelled along the beach to the mouth of that river, intending to join the inland party some distance up. The inland party rested at Rangataua, where a female relative of Te Heuheu, famed for her extreme beauty, died of wounds inflicted upon her during the journey by a stray band of Ngati-Apa. A great tangi was held over her remains, and Te Heuheu caused her head to be preserved, he himself calcining her brains and strewing the ashes over the ground, which he declared to be for ever tapu. His people were joined by the party from the beach road at the junction of the Waituna with the Rangitikei, where the chief was presented with three Ngati-Apa prisoners. These were immediately sacrificed, and then the whole party resumed the journey to Taupo. Amongst the special events which occurred on the march was the capture of a Ngati-Apa woman and two children on the south side of the Rangitikei River. The unfortunate children were sacrificed during the performance of some solemn religious rite, and the woman, though in the first instance saved by Te Heuheu, who wished to keep her as a slave, was killed and eaten by Tangaru, one of the Ngati-Raukawa leaders. Shortly after this, Te Whiro, one of the greatest of the Ngati-Apa chiefs, with two women, were taken prisoners, and the former was put to death with great ceremony and cruelty, as utu for the loss of some of Te Heuheu's people who had been killed by Ngati-Apa long before, but the women were saved (Travers).
[68] The native trade consisted of dressed flax and various kinds of fresh provisions, including potatoes, which, prior to the advent of the Ngati-Toa tribe, had not been planted on the west coast of the North Island.