From Tauranga City Library’s archives
Around 6.45am, Sunday the 21st June, I arrive at Joyce Road and pull into the last space available in a small carpark to my left. Rain continues to fall as I hastily exit my car and offer a quiet “mōrena” to the koro standing nearby. In a soft tone, he replies, “mōrena, dear,” as he readjusts his gumboots and shuts his boot, and together, in the darkness, we silently make our way across the road to Te Ranga Reserve. There is something in that brief exchange, simple, unassuming, that settles into me as we walk. In the hush of the early morning, with rain falling and senses heightened, I become aware of the space between us not as distance, but as connection: between generations, between memory and lived experience, between those who carry the weight of this place differently but walk it together all the same. His presence is steady, familiar with this whenua and what it holds. Mine is quieter, searching, trying to understand what it means to stand here not just as a visitor, but as uri.
For me, it is my first time attending a service like this for the battle at Te Ranga. As a direct descendant of tūpuna involved in the conflicts of Te Ranga and Pukehinahina, I feel the weight grow heavier with every step I take, not oppressive, but grounding, drawing me closer to something I am only beginning to fully comprehend. For the koro walking beside me, this is likely not his first, and most certainly will not be his last. There is a quiet knowing in the way he moves, as though each step is guided by memory, by obligation, by remembrance. As we draw closer to the southern edge of the reserve, the sound of karakia emerges in the distance. As the sky begins to lighten, I recognise my whānaunga, standing by the cairn, his voice anchoring the moment as those arriving quietly come together nearby. And as the kaumatua and I cross this tapu space to join them, I begin to understand that this place is not simply land, it is layered with story, with loss, with enduring presence.
Five kilometres south, inland from
Gate Pa lies this historical battle site.[1] The conflict, premature in
its onset, became the final stand-off between Tauranga iwi, their allies, and
the government’s military forces. For defending iwi, the landscape of Te Ranga
offered a naturally defensive position for the construction of rifle pits. A
sketch of the area in 1864 mirrored its narrow, level ground, constrained by
ravines to the west and east.[2] (see Figure 1). The
north-facing rifle pits stretched across the narrow isthmus, making an approach
from the rear near impossible without deadly consequence. In retrospect, I find
myself wondering, had Māori been better positioned in their preparations, might
tactical advantages such as these have changed the outcome entirely? The
potential for this fortification to have inflicted a deadly repeat of
Pukehinahina was not lost to the military in published reports. One such
account described details of the pā’s already sophisticated formation, despite
its unfinished state.
“….the shortest and clearest mode of explaining the position will be by imagining the capital letter A to be the piece of land, bounded at the apex and two sides by gullies, with the road from the Gate Pā leading to the base. The transverse line in the letter will admirably represent the traversed rifle-pits, which in the course of a single night had been carried, semicircularly, for a distance of from 160 to 170 yards, three feet or more in depth, and two feet in width. The earth had been thrown on the south side of the pits, preparatory to forming the parapet, but the works had not been sufficiently advanced to give the latter any precise form, when the soldiers appeared on the ground. The rebels continued working at the pits, deepening and widening them, whilst the skirmishers were favouring them with occasional shots. A number of posts had been placed in the ground on the right side, and rails were found laid in front of the pits, measured to the requisite lengths, with a good supply of supple-jack for wattling. It was thus evident the gallant colonel had not made his dispositions for the assault one moment too soon, for, in all probability, in another day the fence would have been put up; and, from the number of hands engaged in the work, great progress would also have doubtless been made with the parapet...”[3]
Various records of old that I skim over show conflicting numbers of Māori killed and buried in the defensive trenches they themselves dug. Journals of the Deputy Quartermaster General in New Zealand records 108[4] Māori were buried there, another account noted 120[5] whilst Private George Alfred Crabbe’s first-hand account says 125 were buried in total.[6] Even if the exact number of those buried at Te Ranga remains uncertain, the weight of that loss is undeniable. For iwi, it was not only those who fell, but the extinguishing of a generation of rangatira and the loss of future generations whose paths also ended there.
Colonial accounts, however, like that of Lieut. General Fiennes Colvilles, reveal actions that underscore a profound cultural dissonance in their attitudes toward the fallen. He who led the storming party on the left side of the rifle pits, later wrote to his parents describing how he cut a lock of hair from ‘head chief’ Rāwiri Puhirake’s head immediately after he fell. He further described how the sudden assault prevented any return for the fallen, who lay in rows near the rifle pits through the night until they were buried the following day.[7] Other voices linger over the scene, the stillness after the violence, and the cautious concealment of tupāpaku within the battlefield’s trenches. Crabbe, a participant in the battle described chief Puhirake as having been "laid by himself, wrapped in a blanket and positioned at the head corner of the trench", with others buried en masse nearby.[8] Fifty years later in 1874 at the request of Rawiri's people, his remains would be exhumed and reinterred in the shaded grounds of Mission Cemetery, traditionally known to his people as Otamataha Pā (see Figure 2.).
In the aftermath of this skirmish, accounts suggest that the range of arms used by Māori in the trenches was relatively limited, yet still of notable significance. The weaponry used by warriors at Te Ranga was vividly illustrated by Horatio Gordon Robley, a settler-soldier whose artistic ability employed him to capture pivotal moments during these conflicts.[9] These items, aptly deemed taonga in today’s terms ranged from close combat weapons such as the patu (short hand-held club), and toki patiti (short handled steel headed hatchet) to the taiaha (long tongue-headed spear) and the deadly tewhatewha (long club-like spear).[10] These relics bore witness to a final act of resistance against overwhelming colonial force, yet, in hindsight, the spirit and momentum of that resistance did not end with their deaths. Beyond these physical remnants is a powerful legacy of those who fell where they fought and those who escaped their pursuers and sought refuge in the darkness of nightfall.
The mounds that once defined their resting place have levelled with its surrounds over the decades. With the passing of both Māori and Pākehā who knew its whereabouts, the site has become elusive, its presence now obscured by the very earth they fought to defend. What was once a place of urgency and violence now appearing as unremarkable pasture, shaped by the same contours that once influenced the battle on that fateful day 162 years ago.This place however, still holds its memory. Beneath the soil and sand lie traces of hurried digging and lives lost, marks of moments that reshaped Tauranga’s history and carried lasting consequences for mana whenua across generations. But there they rest, returned to Papatuānuku, held within her and within us, and remembered through collective memory. For those like the kaumatua and I, who move through this place with quiet awareness, Te Ranga is not silent. The echoes of struggle, loss, and resilience remain in the whenua, carried through the kōrero we share so they are not forgotten, and ensuring those who fell here are always present in place and story.
Māringi ngā roimata mā koutou, okioki atu rā hei whetu mārama i te pō nui, te pō roa, te pōtangotango, moe mai e ngā rangatira, i te aroha mutunga kore o te Atua, mō ake tonu atu, kei wareware tātou.
[1] Battle of Te Ranga., (Manatū Taonga - Ministry for Culture and Heritage). https://nzhistory.govt.nz/page/battle-te-ranga
[2] Te Rangi, N.Z. Rough sketch of ground occupied by rebels on 21st June 1864 / by Lt. Warburton ... sketched on day of action. Te Rangi. N.Z. Rough sketch of ground occupied by rebels on 21st June 1864 by Lt. Warburton, R.E. Sketched on day of action - Heritage Maps - Kura
[3] Sydney Mail (NSW:1860-1871) Sat 16th July 1864, p.7, ‘Latest from the Rebel Position’. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/166657204
[4] Journals of the Deputy Quartermaster General in New Zealand : from
the 24th December, 1861, to the 7th September, 1864, p.122, https://kura.aucklandlibraries.govt.nz/digital/collection/rarebooks/id/14250
[5] Geelong Advertiser (Vic. : 1859 - 1929) , Mon 11 July 1864, Page 3,
BATTLE OF TE RANGA. https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/150463632
[6] Crabbe, George Alfred, 1840-1905, Land wars history, Māori culture,
fauna/ flora/ reptiles, and sketch of Orākau pā. Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City
Libraries: https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/74775
[7] Letter to his parents, Tiaki IRN: 802248 Tiaki Reference Number: MS-Papers-11967-1,
MS-Group-2403: Colville, Fiennes Middleton (Sir), 1832-1917: 1864. https://tiaki.natlib.govt.nz/#details=ecatalogue.802248
[8] Crabbe, George Alfred, 1840-1905, Land wars history, Māori culture,
fauna/ flora/ reptiles, and sketch of Orākau pā. Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City
Libraries. https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/74775
[9] Maori arms taken at Te Ranga fight, New Zealand, 21st June 1864
[picture] / by Major General H.G. Robley. URL: https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-140441624/view
[10] Tauranga Campaign: Images of arms: Te Ao Mārama - Tauranga City
Libraries. https://paekoroki.tauranga.govt.nz/nodes/view/10327
