[85] Canon Stack would seem to imply that Kaikoura and Omihi were one and the same place; but from a petition presented to the House of Representatives in 1869 by the Ngai-Tahu tribe, it seems clear that they were separate places, and that their destruction took place at different times. Omihi is about 15 miles south of Kaikoura, near the Conway River, but the battle took place on the hills near the valley which leads down to the Waipara.
[86] Some accounts make it appear that Kekerengu was killed by a wandering band of Ngai-Tahu after he landed on the Middle Island, and that, although he had greatly offended Te Rangihaeata by his impropriety, it was really to avenge his death and not to punish him that this raid was made upon Kaikoura and Omihi. But these are variations in tradition that we can scarcely hope to reconcile at this date.
[87] Kaiapoi is a popular abbreviation of the old name—Kaiapohia, which signifies "food gathered up in handfuls" or "a food depôt," but Kaiapohia was seldom used except in formal speeches or in poetical compositions. The name originated in the incident related in the text, and the place became in reality a food depôt, because, owing to its peculiar situation, large quantities of food, particularly kumaras, were raised every year, not only for local consumption, but for the purposes of exchange with other branches of the tribe which possessed abundance of particular kinds of provisions which could not be procured at Kaiapoi.
[88] Tamihana te Rauparaha would lead us to suppose that his father was averse to this course, and was again overpersuaded by Te Pehi's impetuosity. He makes him say to Te Pehi, "Be cautious in going into the pa, lest you be killed. I have had an evil omen: mine was an evil dream last night," But what, says Tamihana, was the good of such advice to a man whose spirit had gone to death?
[89] At first only the heads of chiefs were sold, as they were the most perfectly tattooed, but when chiefs' heads became scarce, the native mind conceived the idea of tattooing the heads of the slaves and selling them—the slave being killed as soon as his head was ready for the market. Sometimes the slave was audacious enough to run away just as he was attaining a commercial value, and the indignation of one merchant who had just sustained such a loss is humorously described in Manning's Old New Zealand.
[90] In an account of this incident given by a Captain Briggs to the newspaper Tasmanian, in 1831, he states that a European named Smith, who had been left at Kaiapoi by a Captain Wiseman, for the purpose of trade, attempted to save Te Pehi's life, and was himself killed for his interference. If this was so, the Ngai-Tahu accounts are discreetly silent on the point; but Briggs infers that Te Rauparaha and Te Hiko made it one of the arguments by which they sought to convince him that he ought to assist them to capture Tamaiharanui, and so revenge the death of his countryman.
[91] The names of the chiefs who were killed on this fatal day were Te Pehi, Te Pokaitara, Te Rangikatuta, Te Ruatahi, Te Hua-piko, Te Kohi, Te Aratangata, and Te Rohua. Tamihana te Rauparaha states that in all some twenty of his father's people were killed, but that a number were successful in escaping by clambering over the palisades.
[92] The Rev. Canon Stack considers that this event occurred either late in 1828 or early in 1829.
[93] It is doubtful whether Tamaiharanui took any part in the killing of Te Pehi and his comrades, but that would not relieve him of his liability to be killed in return, as the whole tribe was responsible for the acts of every member of it.
[94] There was little in Tamaiharanui's personal appearance to mark his aristocratic lineage. His figure was short and thick-set, his complexion dark, and his features rather forbidding. Unlike most Maori chiefs of exalted rank, he was cowardly, cruel, and capricious—an object of dread to friends and foes alike, and however much his people may have mourned the manner of his death, they could not fail to experience a sense of relief when he was gone (Stack).