Wahawaha Rapata Ngati Porou 1820 1865

edmondsallan - Hello - I thought while we were talking about the East Coast, Gisborne , we should touch on a sample of ancestry I have on file of Ngati Porou leader, soldier, farmer, politician, assessor.
Rapata Wahawaha, of Te Aowera hapu of Ngati Porou, was born at either Te Puia or Akuaku, in the Waiapu district. His father was Hipora Koroua and his mother Te Hapamana Te Whao. His most distinguished ancestor was Pakira, a prominent warrior in the wars that led to the emergence of Ngati Porou. By his own account Wahawaha was a child when Christianity was introduced; if this refers to the East Coast district, it suggests he was born about 1820. The second Nga Puhi invasion is also associated with his birth; this too suggests that his birth took place about 1820. He is known to have been a child when he was captured in 1828 in a land dispute between Ngati Porou and Rongowhakaata. Wahawaha became the slave of Rapata Whakapuhia, from whom his first name derives. Later the name was sometimes pronounced Ropata, because that is how it sounded when spoken by the Scots Donald McLean. Rapata was pleased with the new pronunciation, as it did not recall his childhood slavery. His release from captivity was secured by Tama-i-whakanehua-i-te-rangi, and by 1839, when he married, Rapata was back in Ngati Porou territory. In later life he took revenge on Rongowhakaata.
Rapata married Harata Te Ihi at Turanga (Gisborne) in 1849. Little else is recorded of the life of Rapata until the wars of the 1860s, when Ngati Porou were divided by mounting tensions. Delegates from the East Coast attended a meeting at Pawhakairo in Hawke's Bay with Tamihana Te Rauparaha to discuss the movement for a Maori king; and in 1862 the flags of the King movement were raised at Waiomatatini by Tamatatai, a Waiapu man who had been to Waikato. In reply, Mokena Kohere raised the Queen's flag at Rangitukia. With the onset of war in 1863 some Ngati Porou joined the King's forces. In March 1864 a large Ngati Porou war party was prevented from entering Waikato by Te Arawa, but some East Coast warriors succeeded in reaching Waikato through Tauranga. Warfare came to the East Coast with the arrival in 1865 of the Pai Marire emissaries Kereopa Te Rau and Patara Raukatauri. They made many converts among Rongowhakaata and Te Aitanga-a-Mahaki, and virtually took over Poverty Bay. Meanwhile, further north, fighting broke out within Ngati Porou. Some hapu sympathised with Pai Marire, some were divided, and others opposed the new religion. Each faction concentrated its forces in opposing pa, many of them newly built. Their certainly is a lot going on with this Great " NGATI POROU " Leader . Till we meet again -Regards -edmondsallan