A Hard-headed Ancestor.

Mention of the Arawa reminds me that a grievous insult to the tribe and its fighting fame was inflicted recently by some pakeha vandals who smashed up the bold warrior figure on the Arawa Soldiers’ Memorial in the Rotorua gardens. This piece of sculpture, the fighting man with uplifted taiaha, represented according to the Maori designers, the chief Rangitihi, a famous forefather, and a marvellous warrior. His name is a synonym for endurance and valour. Rangitihi of old, in a battle, had his skull cleft open; his wife bound it up with a strong bush-vine, and with this vine tied tightly about his head the champion once more charged into the fray and led his men to victory. “Rangitihi upoko takaia ki te akatea” (“Rangitihi whose head was bound with forest vine”) is a popular local allusion to-day. And there the heroic figure was poised, with his upoko takaia carved “lively as the deed was done.”

The warrior whose name has passed into a fine proverbial saying had a hill fort near the north-eastern shore of Rotorua Lake, a level-topped height of which a near view is obtained from the main road to the Ohau and the Kaituna outlet of Rotoiti. The pa was named Rangi-whakakapua; it was terraced, trenched and palisaded. Rangitihi, who lived three hundred years ago, had eight children, and these are represented on the war memorial by supporting figures. The “Hokowhitu a Tu-matauenga” (the War-god's Band) who fought so well at Gallipoli and in France included many descendants of Rangitihi.

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