Situated thirteen miles northeast of Tutukaka on the east coast of Northland is a small group of islands which were named the Poor Knights by Captain Cook in 1769.
Set like jewels in a clear, legend-whispering sea, are the two main islands, Tawhiti Rahi and Aorangi, surrounded by a cluster of islets, including Aorangaia, Te Aaka, (Archway) and Motu Kapiti. Hidden in the rocky shorelines of the larger islands are huge deep-water caves, rich in the mysteries of Tangaroa, the great god of the sea.
Once these lovely islands were the home of Te Tatua and his tribe, who lived on a pa on Aorangi. There came the day in 1823 when the great warlike chief Hongi Hika, persuaded Te Tatua to take his taua to join him on a fighting expedition to the Hauraki Gulf and the Urewera country.
No sooner had the party left, than Paha, a slave who had been in some trouble about a pig, and who was furious at the punishment that had been meted out to him, conceived a wicked plan.
Stealing a small canoe from Aorangi, he paddled it to the mainland and then journeyed on to Rangihoua at the mouth of the Bay of Islands. As he travelled along, traitorous thoughts ate into his mind like maggots, getting bigger and bigger every hour.
When he reached Rangihoua, he incited the warriors there to attack the defenseless stronghold of Te Tatua, promising them certain victory, saying, "Come, 0 warriors of Rangihoua, the gates of victory are wide open at the islands of Aorangi and Tawhiti. Gone are all the warriors of Te Tatua to the wars down the coast. Only women, children and old men remain. Now is your chance."
Excited by the thought of such an easy conquest, the chief, Waikato made rapid preparations for the attack. He fitted out three large canoes with sails made from the canvas of the ship, Brampton, which had been wrecked in the Bay a few months before. Then the taua set out for the pa of Te Tatua on Aorangi.
The deepening night hid their approach from the unsuspecting people on the islands, and it was easy for the traitor Paha, to guide the attackers to a safe landing place. There followed a terrible massacre of the defenseless islanders.
When they found that the invaders had guns, islanders were panic-stricken, and rushed hither and thither, desperately seeking some safe spot in which to hide. But it was too late.. Many of the islanders hurled themselves over the steep precipices into the sea and were drowned or dashed to pieces on the rocks below.
After this wholesale slaughter, the Maoris from the Bay indulged in an orgy of feasting. They rested a while to recover from their gastronomic excesses, and then loaded their canoes with a number of captives and some of the remaining bodies in order to continue their hakari on their own pa at Rangihoua.
Among the captives were Te Tatua's wife and three male relatives, who were carried off in triumph to the Bay. Watching this ghastly scene was the terrified five-year-old son Hori, and a slave Omanoa, who both had escaped capture by being safely hidden in a cave.
On his return, despair, horror and rage filled the heart of Te Tatua, when he saw the dreadful scene of desolation on his islands. Only his little son and twenty of his people, mainly women, had survived the massacre.
With despair in his voice he cried, "Ka whatiwhati nga parirau 0 Rupe", the wing of Rupe is broken, which is a saying meaning that the men of the tribe were all dead, or departed. He put a tapu of blood on the islands so that no one would live there again, and then he sadly took the remnant of his tribe to the mainland to live.
Reference: Florence Keene, Tai Tokerau, Northland Room, Whangarei Library