Tū-te-tawhā Whare-oneone

Tū-te-tawhā Whare-oneone was a 17th-century Māori rangatira (chieftain) of Ngāti Tūwharetoa from the region around Lake Taupō, New Zealand.

He was a brave warrior, but also excessively proud and died when he led an ambitious but ill-conceived raid up the Waikato River to Cambridge.

[13] When Tū-te-tawhā's eldest brother, Tama-mutu, was born, Te Ata-inutai travelled to Marae-kōwhai in order to perform the tohi baptismal ritual, but he was murdered by a group of Tūwharetoa led by Kewha on his journey home, as vengeance for his killing of the Tūwharetoa ariki Waikari during the attack that had led to the marriage of Te Rangi-ita and Waitapu.

[15][16][14] Therefore, when he was an adult, Tū-te-tawhā travelled to his maternal grandfather's old home, Whare-puhunga, in the Waikato region, where he convinced the Ngāti Raukawa to gather a war party in order to avenge the death.

Te Rangi-ita learnt that the war party was coming form Tū-te-tawhā and called on Whiti-patatō to lead his force to Marae-kōwhai quickly, but he stopped in the area of Kaingaroa, saying "Not yet!

[18][17][19] Eventually, however, Whiti-patatō reached the settlement of Tuhinga-mata / Pōnui located near Rangatira Point at the northeastern end of Lake Taupō.

Whiti-patatō went searching for Tūwharetoa a Turiroa, found him in the cave, and killed him, thus avenging Te Ata-inutai's death.

"[25] Tū-te-tawhā's eldest sister, Pare-kāwa, decided to honour him for having avenged the murder of Te Ata-inutai by presenting him with a giant pātua (package of preserved bird meat), which was called Waiariki.

[30][31] Receiving this gift made Tū-te-tawhā "vain and boastful" and he decided to undertake military expeditions, convincing his brothers Manunui and Meremere to accompany him on raids down the Waikato River.

[32][33] The expedition was joined by forces from Ngāti Raukawa,[35] and travelled downstream capturing villages, until they reached a place called Wai-tōtara or Pae-tōtara (near modern Cambridge).

[36] The other chiefs encouraged Tū-te-tawhā to fight the individual contingents of this force before they had time to gather together (“strike while the tide of Waikato is still low”), but he replied that "before the sun sets over Makaho, they shall be killed in their hundreds and thousands!

"[32][33] Makaho is a place on Lake Taupō, where īnanga were very common and one only needed to cast the net once in order to get a large haul, so Tū-te-tawhā's statement meant that he preferred to let the enemy forces gather so that they could all be defeated in one go.

He was killed, but by covering himself in the blood of their own chief, Te Putu, he had made himself tapu, so Ngāti Mahuta did not eat him.

[37][40] According to a Tainui tradition, recounted by Wahanui in 1890, Nga Tokowaru had snapped off the whalebone spike of his spear and hidden it under his cloak when he was captured.

[41] According to the Tainui tradition recounted by Pei Te Hurinui Jones, the remainder of the Ngāti Tūwharetoa expedition were allowed to return home with Tū-te-tawhā's head and his taiaha.

[37] Tū-te-tawhā married Nga-waero, who was captured during Tama-mutu's expedition to Lake Rotorua to attack Te Roro-o-te-rangi.

[44] The earliest published account of Tū-te-tawhā's life occurs in a 1904 article by Walter Edward Gudgeon, with no indication of the sources on which it is based.