The Politician.

He developed powers of leadership; his powerful intellect, his mingled shrewdness and firmness in counsel, his desperate hatred of the pakeha Government which confiscated the best part of the Waikato, all went to give him an increasingly important voice in the runanga or council of the Kingite party. The expatriated Waikato tribes made their new home in Wahanui's territory; King Tawhiao and all his chiefs lived south of the Puniu River that before the war was their southern boundary. page 18 Wahanui became one of Tawhiao's counsellors, and in time he was regarded by those pakehas who were acquainted with the progress of Kingite affairs as “the power behind the throne.”