TAMA-I-KOWHA, ERUETI TE ARIARI, a chief of Ngai-Tama (connected also with Ngati-Awa of Whakatane), was born about 1830. He was at Te Takatakanga (1850) when Ngati-Maru came against Tuhoe, but peace was made. When the later pakeha wars commenced (1863) he was interested in the erection of a mill at Ruatoki. He was an accomplished guerilla fighter and one of the most troublesome leaders of Ngati-Tama in the forests of Urewera (1866-68). From his stronghold in the narrow valley of the Waimana he harassed the settlements near Opotiki. In 1864 he fought against the Government forces at Maketu and in the battle on the beach at Kaokaoroa. Tama-i-Kowha never joined Te Kooti. In Feb 1866 his Hauhau force had a sharp fight at Te Kopane, inland from Opotiki, against Colonel Lyon's force, in which the Patea Rangers killed some of his men. He was overtaken by Captain Newlands and his position at Kairakau was captured, with the loss of several men and plunder which had been taken from settlers at Opotiki. Tama-i-Kowha kept up his guerilla war, killing the Arawa mailman, Wi Popata, in an ambuscade at the Waiotahe river and eating portion of his heart. In May 1867 he plundered a farmhouse near the Waioeka gorge and murdered two settlers, whose hearts also he ate. At Puketi hill, near Taneatua, in 1868, he had a costly brush with a party of friendly Ngati-Pukeko. A strong punitive force under Mair and St John shrank from attacking his stronghold at Tawharemamuka. He made peace with Major Kemp's Whanganui contingent early in 1870, but shortly afterwards was tempted to resume hostilities when friendly natives raided Ohiwa and killed his father as utu for a tribal death. Towards the end of the year he took the field again with a small force of Urewera in pursuit of Te Kooti. Tama-i-Kowha was shrewd, bold and straightforward, a Maori of the old school, savage and ruthless in his methods, but the best leader in his part of New Zealand. He died early in the present century.

App. H.R., 1871 F6a; Cowan (p); Lambert.

Reference: Volume 2, page 183

🌳 Further sources