Other formats

    TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 8, Issue 4 (August 1, 1933)

The Warrior Chief

The Warrior Chief.

Rewi Maniapoto, as I remember him, was a man of rather small, compact build, quick-moving, keen-eyed, an active man even in his old age, a complete contrast to his fellow-chieftain, the great orator Wahanui—the Maori Demosthenes as someone once called him—who weighed 24 stone and could never find a pair of trousers big enough for him in the country stores. Rewi was a warrior born. He marched on his first fighting expedition when he was not yet fourteen years old—the Maori boy was often initiated into the arts of war when he was about twelve. This first war-path of his, with an army of his people, was an attack on Pukerangiora, the great stronghold of the Taranaki tribes. That was in the era of cannibal warfare in 1832. Twenty-eight years later, he was the most determined of the chiefs who led the attack on No. 3 Redoubt, in the Waitara campaign. Fifty of his comrades fell in that desperately brave attempt to carry a British earthwork with the tomahawk. He fought on many fields in North Taranaki; then in 1863 he turned his attention northward.