In 1830 a murderous PoS from the Taranaki region called, I believe, Te Raparaha, hopped on a visiting European ship with his cohort of co-murderers and sailed down to Canterbury.
There he and his mates proceeded to fight, murder or enslave approx nine out of every ten Ngai Tahu tribesmen he encountered.
A contemporary account mentions a number of “meat packs” being loaded aboard the ship for the return journey.
An official Ngai Tahu historian told me there were approx 350 Ngai Tahu left alive after the raid. Most of those were old people and women (usually with child) who had been hidden from the raiders.
The historian told me that this group numbered about 350 spread over the area from Akaroa and Lyttleton to Kaiapoi.
The only way Ngai Tahu in Canterbury survived was a deliberate program of breeding with visiting seamen (mainly white) off the whaling, sealing and flax-trading boats.
Hence the numbers of red-headed “maori” running around when settlers started arriving around 1850.
I mention this history because I note the current (shamefully given he’s a racist liar) Prime Minister spent Waitangi day among the descendants of this group. Basically he spent the day among sunburnt white people.
What a shame he didn’t spend maori-troublemaker day with his maori mates.
A couple of other questions arise from this historical foray:
1/ Meatpacks? Before the introduction of bovine, ovine, equine or porcine species to the region?
2/ Why, as with the Chathams murderous raid, did the Taranaki outfit need to use white-man’s ships if they were, as we are so often told, masters of the seas and oceans?
No Minister 
I had a couple more questions MTT.
I have always had Te Rauparaha as being from Waikato because at Primary School we used to recite the poem The March Of Te Rauparaha which began
Moan the waves, moan the waves as they wash Tainui
etc etc etc
So I googled him and found
I also recall (from school) him basing himself on Kapiti Island for some time. I think he made 2 or 3 raids south.
You speak of red headed Maori. Do you remember George Mahupuku the first `blood red haired’ flanker for the Maori All Blacks in the early to mid 60’s. He made the team from Wairarapa and later moved to Takapau. Never played against him but saw him play for Wairarapa v Hawkes Bay.
A bit of history…
As far as I’m aware, Te Rauparaha was from the Waikato. He became chief after the last one died, and no one else wanted the job.
He had visions of taking over other area’s but he didn’t have access to muskets. To get muskets required trading at a whaling station which were at either Whangarei or Wellington.
Whangarei was too hard to get to because the northern tribe already had muskets…
This meant going south along the west coast to Wellington.
Along the way, they invaded Taranaki and sold bits of their new land at Waitara to settlers.
Hence the reason for the land wars in Taranaki, where eventually the British just worked on keeping the Ngati Toa out of there.
Kapiti became a bit of a focal point where several displaced tribes from Taranaki ended up (Ngati Mutunga and Ngati Tama), who later “merged” with the Moriori’s in the Chatham Islands.
Meanwhile, Te Rauparaha was impressed with the British having a royal family, so decided to set one up here..
How things would be different if Te Rauparaha wasn’t made a chief and someone else had stepped forward instead.
Te Rauparaha and Ngati Toa got kicked out of the area around Kawhia Harbour by the combined hapu from the Waikato and Maniapoto Hapu/Iwi. Ngati Toa v those hapu/Iwi was a long running fued which eventual overwhelmed Ngati Toa and allies
Ngati Tama and Ngati Mutanga were allies of Ngati Toa – and were pushed out of their lands further south on the King Country Coasts down to north Taranaki in the same war ad Ngati Toa got the archer. They all took refuge with Te Atiawa in Taranaki, who were friendly and intermarried with them.
All three ended up in the Horwhenua, Coastal Manawatu and Kapiti following this… were they wrecked havoc on Rangitane and Mauapoko.
Kapiti was seized by Te Rauparaha ….
Te Rauparaha had noted the strategic position of the Island with its surround islets when on a raid South in company of Nga Puhi in the early 1800s
Rangitane, Mauapoko and allies from the top of the South Island tried to push Te Rauparaha out of Kapiti…. but failed and Ngati Toa tried very hard to wipe Rangitane and Mauapoko out in an utu driven campaign that followed….
Tama and Mutanga went into Wellington and massacred Ngati Ira, and took over there before taking off to the Chathams (fearing some type of attack from northern tribes). They sold their hold over Wellington to Te Atiawa before leaving
1820s thru 1830s where horrendous in terms of the constant warring and tit for tat massacres….. and a lot of tribes suffered very badly at the hands of the large tribes, with the early exchanges very much dominated by who got muskets in numbers first…
That suffering and carnage are a key reason why the ToW was so eagerly signed by many chiefs – they were worn out by the constant industrial killing that muskets brought – and especially teh small tribes face almost certain extermination if the wars had continued indefinitely…
Note the Kingiitanga is a creation of the Waikato and wide Tainui tribes…. the first ‘king’ was Potatau (late known as Te Whereowhero) a great warrior chief of the Ngati Mahuta hapu of Waikato, not Te Rauparaha
Oooh look Mahuta! And yes Nanaia is a relative of Potatau…. being a cousin of the current Maori ‘king’
(all the above is my recollection from reading a few books on the Musket Wars, plus a series of youtube videos in the Old Codger channel… nothing quite aligns been the sources as the influence of tribal oral history means things are ‘reported’ differently about the same events by different Hapu and iwi as you would expect….. which is a good reason to think a lot of the presentations to the Tribunal are just a tad unreliable!)
Correction: the inspiration for the Kingiitanga movement was actual a man from Ngati Huia/Ngāti Kikopiri hapu of Ngati Raukawa called te Whiwhi
Te Rauparaha had a linkage to Ngati Raukawa as his mother was from that tribe…
Very interesting Trev.
mrspdm and I have very good friends of 40/45 years standing and the husband is a first cousin of the late Maori King. Dame Te Atairangikaahu the previous Maori Queen never visited Gisborne without visiting them while we and they were living there..
Having said that they never spoke of the wider family circle on that side of the family and still don’t, although the last time we saw them was 18 months ago. I suspect they had little time for the `truck driver’ and his family.
Nanaia Mahuta is more pacific islander than Maori. Also their original surname is Hornsby. Her father had it changed by deed poll.