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Updated: June 15, 2025
Some thousands of acres between the Pahi and the Wairau had once grown their taro and kumera and hue, together with potatoes and other things introduced by Captain Cook. Marahemo Pa was the capital of the district. Its position, occupying the crest of a sugar-loaf hill, defended by earthworks and stockades, must have made it seem impregnable to people unacquainted with artillery.
But, beside their bodies, many a Ngapuhi corpse showed that the vanquished had died as warriors should. "The Ngapuhi who had slain Tuwhare, cut off the dead chiefs head, and placing it in the nearest tree, rushed back towards Marahemo to summon Hongi.
In his youth Tama was a warrior, having taken part in the battle which ended with the affair at Marahemo, as described in the previous chapter. A fugitive from his own district, his hopes of one day becoming a lordly ruler over some large kainga of his own being shattered by defeat, he fell in with Samuel Marsden, and by that Apostle of New Zealand was converted to Christianity.
Marahemo, I may mention, is a hill about three miles back from the river. It is about one thousand feet high, I suppose, and lies behind our land. "Did ye ivver hear the loike av that, now?" roared O'Gaygun, boisterously. "Here's the bhoy for ye!
So the thing was settled, and we went to work on Marahemo as lime-burners. One day when we were "nooning," Old Colonial and I chanced to be together on the top of Marahemo. We were looking at the splendid prospect, glorious under the mid-day sun. All around us was bush a dense jungle of shrubs and trees.
That's rather misleading, though, for it was never a wahi tapu, or native cemetery. This bay was evidently the landing-place or port for Marahemo, and the subordinate kaingas on the ranges yonder. You can see it was naturally that. As such there would be constant traffic through it, even if there were no wharès in the place itself.
Right from the old pa on the top of Marahemo down to the very foot, there's the Maori middens: a regular reef of nothing but shell, oysters and pipi and scollops and all the rest. There must be hundreds and hundreds of tons of pure shell. All we've got to do is to make a kiln near the bottom and shovel the shell into it; and there's any amount of firewood, dead stuff, round about."
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