PATARA RAUKATAURI, or NGONGE, was an arch priest of the Hauhau sect. He was a Taranaki chief from Oakura, and was said to have lived with his mother's people in Port Nicholson, where he was employed in the store of his brother-in-law (Ashdown). Peculation of money, followed by horse thefts, caused him to leave Wellington, and marked his progress to Taranaki and Auckland, where he married a woman on promising her brothers some valuable meres. He was a relative of Matutaera, and was accused of forging letters from Rewi to the discontented natives in Taranaki. He commanded his Taranaki tribesmen against the troops at Kaitake (1863), and was said to have arranged the ambush at Tataraimaka. As one of the apostles sent by Te Ua to spread the Hauhau doctrine, he carried the head of Captain Lloyd to the tribes between Gisborne and East Cape. At Tauranga he demanded the surrender of the Rev Carl Volkner, who had endeavoured to restrain the Whakatohea from joining the Hauhau and was regarded as a spy. After the murder of Volkner Patara tried to exchange the Rev T. S. Grace for Hori Tupaea. A tall powerful man, with many of the characteristics of the revolutionary, Patara was the only one of Te Ua's emissaries who did not meet a violent death.

App. H.R., 1863 E2, 9; Cowan; Wellington Independent, 13 May 1865; Southern Cross, 6 Jul 1865.

Reference: Volume 2, page 78

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