In the June 1906 issue of Journal of the Polynesian Society, S. Percy Smith wrote an account of a visit he and Major H. P. Tu-nui-a-rangi made to Te Takapau, south of Napier, where they met Tanguru a kaumatua of the local tribe. In his account, Smith writes: “we induced Tanguru... to write the history of the occupation of Horehore pa, which had been connected with his tribe - the Ngai-Tahu - and had been their headquarters for a great many generations, indeed, until the Pax Britannica spread peace over the land, when the pa was finally abandoned, and the land sold to the Government.... Tanguru informed us that his people claim to belong to the Ngai-Tahu people of the Middle Island - in fact their hapu name is identical. He is an old man of about 70-75 years of age, and the writing of this history must have been a laborious undertaking for one unaccustomed to the use of the pen. It is lucky our visit to the old man took place when it did, for it has been the means of preserving a sketch - a rough one certainly - of the history of the Seventy-Mile Bush and the struggles of the East Coast invaders with the original Rangi-tane inhabitants, which would otherwise have been lost, for Tanguru is the last of the old men of those parts who could recite it correctly.”
Biographical sources
- Tuhua, Tanguru. "He Kōrero Tatai Mo Horehore Pa, I Te Takapau/Incidents in the History of Horehore Pa, Te Takapau, Hawkes Bay District." Trans. S. Percy Smith. Journal of the Polynesian Society 15.58 (1906): 61-93.
Non-fiction
- "He Kōrero Tatai Mo Horehore Pa, I Te Takapau/Incidents in the History of Horehore Pa, Te Takapau, Hawkes Bay District." English trans. S. Percy Smith. Journal of the Polynesian Society 15.58 (June 1906): 61-93.
- Tuhua writes that this text is ‘an explanation of some old history which [his] father, Tuhua, told to [him] in 1865.’ The text includes the genealogical background and history of Whata, a descendant of Pou-heni who was Paikea’s son, describes Whata’s quarrel with Tongo-whiti, and discusses the relationship between the Rangitane and Te Aitanga-a-Whata peoples. Tuhua writes of the two unsuccessful attacks on the Horehore pa in 1820 with the Amio-whenua expedition from the northern coast and a war-party of Tangi-te-ruru. S. Percy Smith precedes Tuhua’s account with a "Sketch of the History of the First Occupation of Southern Hawkes Bay and Wairarapa" in which he discusses the Rangitane, Ngai-Tara, Ngāti-Ira and the migrations of Whata, Taraia, Ngarengare, Mahanga and Ngāti-Ira, drawing upon the two MS volumes of notes compiled by Hori Ropiha of Waipawa in the Hawkes Bay in the 1890s.