Enemies Put Him Away.

It was false or flimsy charges against Te Kooti by his enemies at Poverty Bay that resulted in his transportation to Chatham Island. I have heard several versions of that episode from both Maoris and pakehas. The story which seems least coloured by either European bias or by tribal patriotic feeling is a narrative given to me in 1905 by the late Tuta Nihoniho, a veteran fighting chief of the Ngati-Porou tribe, of the country between Tolaga Bay and the East Cape. He could not be accused of unduly favouring Te Kooti, for he fought for six years against the Hauhaus, and often against Te Kooti himself, and he was captain of the Ngati-Porou Rifle Volunteers after the war.

Te Kooti, said Tuta, was not a rebel originally. The Government made him hostile because its agents listened to his enemies and took no notice of his protests. He was fighting on the Government side with his tribe in 1865 at the siege of Waerenga-a-Hika (“Hika's Clearing”), close to the English mission station at Poverty Bay. Tuta and he were serving on the same side. A minor chief who had a grudge against Te Kooti accused him of supplying percussion caps to the Hauhaus in the pa for their guns; also it was said that he fired only powder, having removed the bullets from his cartridges. These accusations were not sustained, and he was released. But his enemies were persistent. There was Read the storekeeper's enmity, and there were personal jealousies about women. Several chiefs of the Rongo-whakaata tribe urged the Government officers to imprison him because he was a spy for the Hauhaus.