BROTHER KILLS SISTER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 79, 25 October 1939, Page 2

BROTHER KILLS SISTER

A STORY OF THE WAR-PATH WHEN TE KOGTX STRUCK Seven miles from Whakntane. on the main road to Taneatua. t lie re is a low round mound that v.*as once an islet in a now drained swamp on the left-hand side of the road as one travels south. This ikdo grassy island, scarcely to he distinguished IVoin the r:n ro iimi"»!' ground, is said to he c,! ar'.iiiciul origin; it was built up. as a refuge place in ancient times, v.ith sol! laboriously carried in baskets from the side of the fortified hill, Te Pa~ a-te-Kapu, closely overlooking the

road on the west

The swamp islet is called Hurepo. ft is a sacred spot, an unmarked shrine of tragic history, for here was done to death in the Hauhau war days the young chieftainess Ripeka Kaho. She fell by the hand of her brother Tupara, but strange as it might seem to a pakeha hearing the tale casually, sympathy with her slayer is blended with the sorrow for Ripaka. "For how could he help it?" says the Maori.

Te Tupara Described

Te Tupara and his sister Ripeka were the children of Te Kalio, a chief and toluinga of the Tuhoe of Ruatoki. James Cowan says that Tupara when he knew him in his oJd age, was still an erect soldierlike figure, a tall man of strong frame and a pleasant kindly man with the courteous manners of the rangatira. Tn his war-path days he must have been a satisfying picture,

a stalwart mountaineer, as active as any Highland clansman, and costumed somewhat like one, expert in the handling of Maori weapons of wood and stone and in the use of rifle and shot gun-

Ripeka is described as a handsome young woman, almost as tall as her warrior brother. At the time of this story she had lately been married to a man of the NgatiPukeko tribe, neighbours but onetime enemies of the Urewera, whose lands, of course, lie on the lower part of the Whakatane River. Ngati Pukeko were :> rich tribe for those days of the sixties; they grew wheat aild ground it in their own flournull driven by waterpower; and they grazed cattle and owned many horses. In the Haubau dissensions they adhered to the Government side: very few of them would have anything to do with Te Kooti or Kereopa. So Ripeka was what the Maoris call a "taha-rua" one who belongs to two sides, a position which in intertribal history sometimes proved convenient and sometimes disastrous

Te Kooti's Raid

The wealth of the peaceful lowlanders excited the envy of the mountain men, and from every kainga in the Urewera country came recruits for Te Ivooti when, in the early part of 1869, the rebel chicf descended to the plains and prepared to raid the territory of Ngati-Pukeko and the PakehaMaori settlement of Whakatane. He was determined to avenge his recent defeat at Ngatapa in Poverty Bay, and the all but defenceless Whakatane was a tempting objective for loot and slaughter.

Young Tupara, eager for the adventure of battle and the prospects of plunder, was one of the Ruatoki men who joined Te Kooti's raiders., a body of about 300 well-armed warriors. It was at Ruatoki that most of the Urewera first came under the magic-like mana of the Hauhau leader, and Tupara, like all his comrades, was perfectly fascinated by Te Kooti's magnetic power and his fervent religious exhortations. When the word was given to march on the Ngati-Pukeko Pa at Rauporoa and the redoubt-defended flourmill close by, Tupara, was one of the advance guard, led by Te Kooti's desperado second-in-com-mand Eru Peka te Makarini, a start lingly fair half-caste (whom Captain G- Mail- shot near Rotorua the following year). Another of the party was Makarini te Warn, a

stout, reddish-haired, ugly-featured Urewera man, whose wife was Ri-

Dcka's .sister Rora

Ripeka Caught

Marehing in single file down the W hakatane \ alley, the advance guard suddenly discovered a woman close to the track. It'/was Ripeka who feeding with boiled potatoes some young pet pigs she kepi on this islet of Hurepo. It was ill-* fortune for poor Ripeka for more reasons than one. In the first place

it was an ancient custom, that when

a war parly was on the march any person encountered in its path, wne ther hostile or n«t,.was at once killed. Neglect of this practice entailed Lhe worst <#f,bad luck for the warriors; such was the belief. Tupara and Makarini, of course, made known to Em Peka, the leader, the young woman's identity, but now some of the other Tuhoe in the party declared that she was a laha-rua, and as such was suspected of disloyalty to her tribe in giving information to the Ngati-I'u-keko of the impending attack. "Let Te Kooti decide her fate," said Peka, and he bade the party halt while he returned to the main body. Sentence of Death. j Te Kooti was a bold bandit-like figure, with two revolvers bolstered at his belt and a high-pointed sift black hat on his head. He smoothed his short beard as he deliberated on his reply. It was terse and epigrammatic in the time-honour-ed formula for such occasions: "The Mying-fish is cut off by the bows of the canoe" he said. It was the ancicnt Polynesian expression likening to the little maroro of the tropic

sens, caught bj r torchlight in tiic fishing canoes, a hapless person mot oil the march of a war party. Then he added calmly: "Let her he slain by her relatives Te Tupara and Makarini te "YVaru "

Cruelly elated, Peka hurried back to his command. If the brother or brother-in-law hesitated to kill the girl he would tomahawk her himself and then "execute" the two men for disobedience of the leader's instructions. With brutal joy he gave the order and added "and feed her

to her own pigs." Ripeka was seated among her guards on the fenced islet in the raupo swamp. Her bowed head was covered by her shawl; before a w'ord wa.s spoken she knew her fate. She was ordered to stand up and Tupara ami Makarini stepped towards her. The Last Farewell. Now pity Tupara even more than his sister. He loved her dearJv, he would have fought for her to the death if that would have availed her at all. Tears flowed down his cheek as he took her hand and pressed his nose to hers in the last farewell. The weeping gir3 threw her arms about his ne6k and sobbed:

"If I must die., Oh my brother,' let it be by your hand. not let any other touch me/' ' " , The brother was quiclt to grasp the reason for "this last' request. She knew that dettth at his own hand would be quick and merciful. She realised that refusal to obey the stern decree of Te Kooti would not save her and would only send her In-other with hereto the spirit world. "Be swift, my brother,''^wJjttSf>ere(l.. the girl. "Close your eyes RipekV said Tupara. -He drew from his flax belt ®Vj his patu, a smooth polished edged club of. hard black stone, the okewa. He felJt its edge, swung the club and smote his sister a quick sharp blow on the side of the head- All his force arid all his love were in the death stroke. Mercifully swift it was. Ripeka fell without a cry. Tupara would have stayed to see to his sister's body, but this was wartime "March forward" ordered Eru Peka, and the advance guard quickly in motion, and was laying siege to the Ngati-Pu-keko pa and the mill redoubt.

The Honour of the Family. It is proof of Te Ivooti's amazing hold on the people that such ruthless executions as this only strengthened his influence. The dramatic horror of it perhaps appealed to the primitive savage in Maoridom. Tupara was no savage., but after the Wluikatane raid he followed the war chief on his great march through the Urewera country, and down to Mohaka, in Hawke's Bay, and shared in the fighting and loot- , ing. He told Cowan of his experiences there and in the later skirmishing in the Urewera country. But the tragedy of Hurepo shadowed all his life. Very seldom could he be drawn to speak of it. Yet there was a certain satisfaction, of consolation, in the thought that it was by his hand and not any stranger's that Ripeka died. Better' Thus. "Was it not better" he earnestly asked a friend in after years he was the wise old leader of tribe "that my hand should deal the blow than that someone else should perhaps slay her less swiftly and give her needless pain and mangle her Avith the tomahawk? My patu was quick and sure. And it was right, if she was to die, that one of her own family should kill her rath, er than that someone outside—per-— haps that murderer Eru Peka should be able to boast of having slain a chieftainess of Tuhoe."