The most famous and far-reaching of Rauparaha’s raids were among the Ngaitahu, whose scattered bands were masters of nearly all the wide half-empty spaces of the South Island.  In one of their districts was found the famous greenstone.  On no better provocation than a report which came to his ears of an insulting speech by a braggart southern chief, Rauparaha, early in 1829, manned his canoes, and sailed down the east coast to attack the boastful one’s pa.  The unsuspecting natives thronged down to the beach to meet the raiders with shouts of welcome, and on hospitable thoughts intent.  Springing on to land, the invaders ran amongst the bewildered crowd, and slew or captured all they could lay hands on.  Then they burned the village.  Further south lay a larger pa, that of Kaiapoi.  Here the inhabitants, warned by fugitives from the north, were on their guard.  Surprise being impossible, Rauparaha tried guile, and by assurances of friendship worked upon the Kaiapois to allow his chiefs to go in and out of their pa, buying greenstone and exchanging hospitalities.  But for once he met his match.  The Kaiapois waited until they had eight of the chiefs inside their stockades, and then killed them all.  Amongst the dead was Te Pehi, Rauparaha’s uncle and adviser, who three years before had visited England.  Powerless for the moment, Rauparaha could but go home, vow vengeance, and wait his opportunity.  After two years it came.

Pre-eminent in infamy amongst the ruffianly traders of the time was a certain Stewart.  At the end of 1830, he was hanging about Cook’s Straits in the brig Elizabeth.  There he agreed to become Rauparaha’s instrument to carry out one of the most diabolical acts of vengeance in even Maori annals.  The appearance of Stewart, ripe for any villainy, gave the Kapiti chief the chance he was waiting for.  For thirty tons of flax the Elizabeth was hired to take Rauparaha and a war-party, not to Kaiapoi, but to Akaroa, a beautiful harbour amongst the hills of the peninsula called after Sir Joseph Banks.  It lay many miles away from Kaiapoi, but was inhabited by natives of the same tribe.  There, moreover, was living Tamai-hara-nui (Son-of-much-evil), best-born and most revered chief in all the South Island.  Him Rauparaha determined to catch, for no one less august could be payment for Te Pehi.  Arrived at Akaroa, Rauparaha and his men hid below, and waited patiently for three days until their victim came.  Stewart, by swearing that he had no Maoris in the brig, but merely came to trade, tempted the chief and his friends on board.  The unhappy Son-of-much-evil was invited into the cabin below.  There he stepped into the presence of Rauparaha and Te Pehi’s son.  The three stared at each other in silence.  Then Te Pehi’s son with his fingers pushed open the lips of the Akaroa chief, saying, “These are the teeth which ate my father.”  Forthwith the common people were killed, and the chief and his wife and daughter