page 62

Chapter XIII.
The Adventures of Maki.

The Destruction of the Mounuhia Tribe.

THIS is the tradition of the travels and warrior exploits of the chief Maki, who was a friend and ally of Toa-Rangatira. He travelled from Taranaki to Kawhia, and on the way he reached Nukuhakari, where the tribe Mounuhia were living. Now Maki became very hungry and he saw a karaka tree with ripe berries; so he climbed up the tree, and began to eat the pulp of the ripe berries. When the people of the pa beheld him eating up there in that tree, they uttered a curse and said :

“Who’s that yonder, eating karaka berries like a bird? Leave those berries; they are the nits of your head.”

When Maki heard this, he climbed down and went on to Marokopa, to Toa-Rangatira, and told that chief of it.

“When I came to Nukuhakari I felt hungry,” he said, “so, seeing some karaka berries, I ate them; and I heard the words of a man, ‘who is that eating karaka berries like a bird? Leave those karaka; they are the nits of your head.’ “When Toa-Rangatira heard this he said :

“Those people are continually wishful to kill and eat us. Very well, let us give them all the trouble they desire.”

So Toa-Rangatira and his warriors, and Maki, once more marched forth upon the trail of battle. They went to Nukuhakari, and they appeared before the fortified village of the Mounuhia tribe. When these people beheld his war-party, they rushed out of their stockade, and charged upon their foes. But Toa and his men fell upon the Mounuhia with such desperate vigour that they defeated them utterly. Not only did they defeat them merely; they slaughtered the whole of them. So the Mounuhia were exterminated and their name was henceforth but a memory.

Toa-Rangatira and his followers took possession of their land at Nukuhakari.

Maki now determined to pay his sister Kaka a visit. She was married to a chief of the Ngati-Tahinga tribe, who lived at Karahea, at the mouth of the Waikato River. He stayed at that place a while, then he went on to the Manukau. He had a war-party with him, and he killed Whauwhau there and his people. This battlefield was on the plain near the Manukau, page 63 and that is why that place is called Tamaki to-day. He went to the Waitemata, and conquered the people on the shore of that harbour. There is a proverb, “Te ipu kura a Maki” (the red bowl of Maki) which commemorates that conquest. Maki next went to Kaipara, and overcame some of the tribes living there. This is why one of the tribes in that district has been called “Te Kawerau a Maki.”

After these valiant doings the warrior and his band returned to Kawhia. When he reached the pa where lived the remnants of the defeated Ngati-Tuirirangi, they invited him to stay with them a while. They pretended to be friendly, and they took him unawares, and murdered him and some of his men. And that was the end of the great warrior Maki.