Page 20 - Puhipi

Pa near Te Awamutu in which 300 Maori including some women and children were

entrenched.

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So on the 31 March 1864 the battle commenced and it continued on the 1 , 2 of
April by which time the outnumbered garrision was out of water and was firing from
their muzzle loaders peach stones and sections of sawn up branches, this in reply to the
fire of hundreds of rifles, light artillery and grenades. Dead and wounded lay in every
trench when General Cameron impressed by Maori courage sent interpreters to invite
surrender. As long as Aotearoa lives as a nation it will remember the reply “We will

fight on forever and ever and ever”.

William Mair who carried out the parley implored the Maori to allow the women and
children to leave, but the reply was that they would fight and die with the men. In the
afternoon of that third day Rewi Maniapoto and the warriors of Orakau rose out of

their trenches, passed through their shattered palisade and massed in a compact body
round the women and children. They moved silently, purposefully and with complete
discipline towards a cordon of 40 regiment at the rear of the Pa, crashed through the

thin line but were relentlessly pursued and many were killed and wounded. The British
casualties were 17 killed and 52 wounded, but the Maori lost about 160 killed and at
least half the survivors were wounded. Warrior ancestors may have set the example,
warrior descendants may have equalled it, but the courage of the defenders of Orakau
has never been surpassed.

The resistance in the Waikato was largely broken, and the British forces turned to the
Bay of Plenty to be badly beaten at Gate Pa, but to be successful in the end after

substantial assistance from the Arawa tribe.

That left Taranaki, here a new religion called Pai Marire or HauHau had arisen,
founded by a prophet called Te Ua. It promised that faith aided by the cry “Pai marire
hau,hau,hau” and an upraised hand would ward off bullets. They didn’t, but it brought

a new savagery to the fighting which was to continue in Taranaki and then on the east
coast until 1872. The Taranaki war now brought the chief Titokowaru to command.
He was the most skilful leader the west coast produced, hard, grim and a believer in the
rites of paganism, which included cannibalism. It was in an attack on his forest fortress

at Te-Ngutu-ote-manu that the colourful Major Von Tempsky was killed. But the most
talented of all the war leaders was Te Kooti a man who escaped from prison in the
Chathams in 1868 and who lead a band variously described as desperados or patriots
for 4 years on a trail of raids and massacre from Hawkes Bay to Rotorua until he

withdrew defeated to the isolation of the King Country.

In 1864 a policy of colonial self reliance had been adopted and as part of it the British
troops left Aotearoa, the war being carried on with increasing bitterness by the colonial

forces and their Maori allies. It seemed a better arrangement to the colonists who were