TE HAPUKU (Te Ika Nui o te Moana) (1808-78), a chief of Ngati-Kahungunu, Ahuriri, was born about 1808. He married a daughter of Kaimokopuna, a Rangitane chief, who was captured at Te Putu.

In the twenties and thirties he had many exciting experiences during raids of northern tribes on Hawkes Bay, especially at the siege of Te Pakake pa, on the sand spit at Napier, by Taupo, Waikato and Bay of Plenty tribes (1825). Some of the raiders on raupo rafts reached the channel side of the fort and the place was taken. Te Hapuku was amongst the prisoners, but he escaped and sought refuge at Mahia, where the Ngapuhi chief, Te Wera, offered protection to the tribes from the plains. There the Hawkes Bay tribes were again attacked (in 1828) for the last time. After repelling this invasion they were able to find their way back to their homes, the last to do so sailing from Mahia in 1837 in a fleet of 69 canoes. After desultory fighting with the natives in the Hutt Valley Hapuku in Sep 1840 made peace and visited Port Nicholson in a trading schooner.

Hapuku made much trouble by selling land to Europeans and many were killed in the fighting which took place between two sections of Ngati-Kahungunu. He and his people were driven away from the Heretaunga district to the north (about 1853) by Karaitiana, Tareha and Renata Kawepo, who later besieged him in his palisaded pa. Sir Donald McLean intervened to bring about a settlement. In 1858, being taunted with having sold the ancestral forests of Ngati-Kahungunu, Te Hapuku built a pa and for several months defied his chief rival, Te Moananui. Te Moananui defeated him at Pakiaka, and when it was obvious there would be a massacre the Governor ordered a force of the 65th Regiment to Napier. An armistice was arranged and Hapuku marched out with honours and moved off to his lands at Poukawa (Feb 1858).

Te Hapuku, who was a magistrate as early as 1853, was in Waikato in the critical days of 1863 and strongly urged the pakeha not to fire first for fear of a general war. His own loyalty was strained by the government refusing to support him against Te Moananui. In Feb 1865 the emissaries of Pai Marire from Taranaki gathered at his place and he was believed to have encouraged them and to have made promises of help to Te Waru (q.v.). The determined hostility of the other Hawkes Bay chiefs prevented him from joining the Hauhau. In 1867 he opposed the disposal of confiscated lands in Hawkes Bay. In Dec 1868 he led a contingent of his own people against Te Kooti. Te Hapuku was a thickset savage of medium height, elaborately tattooed. He was a good specimen of the old order of Maori chief, and a firm believer in the dignity of labour, in which he co-operated with his people at seasonable tasks. He was generous, but punctilious about his dignity, and quick to resent a slight. Toiroa, a tohunga of considerable mana, once commanded the building of a house in the following words: "Build my house at Te Hauke. The name for it is the name of a hill in Heretaunga. When a mist settles on the top of this hill, it is a sign to the people that a storm is about to break. Those at sea and going to sea, let them beware!" In 1876 Te Hapuku built the house in response to the command of the prophet, and called it "Kahuranaki," the name of a hill on the sea side of the river Tukituki. Sir George Grey reconciled Te Hapuku and Karaitiana a few weeks before Te Hapuku's death, which took place on 23 May 1878, at Te Hauke.

Cowan, Sketches (p); do. Wars; Polyn. Journ., vol 38, p 171; Lambert; Cox; J.H. Grace (information); appreciation in Te Wananga, 1878.

Reference: Volume 1, page 194

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