During our stay at Ruakaka we were guests of Pareoterangi and his family, which consisted of the old chieftainess, Hinepareoterangi, or the "woman of the heavenly crest," as her name implied; Ani, wife of Pareoterangi, a tall, gaunt woman with blunt features, and who wore her hair in short, thick ringlets about her head; Te Ahi, her daughter; and Toma, the tattooed savage who had called our horses "rats." We took up our quarters in the _wharepuni_ with these people, but the dismal, and, I may say, dirty, tenement was constantly filled with the natives, who kept continually dropping in to chat or to have a look at us. In this way we had a good opportunity of studying the manners and customs of the Hauhaus of Ruakaka, and, all things considered, they seemed to be following about the same mode of life as they must have done before the arrival of Cook, their manners still presenting that mixture of rude freedom and simplicity suggestive of the infancy of society, before art had taught men to restrain the sentiments of their nature, or to disguise the original features of their character. Shut up in the midst of their forest wilderness, and having little or no connection with the outer world, they seemed to know nothing or to care for nothing beyond their own day-to-day existence. We learned that since time immemorial this wild and secluded valley had been a place of settlement for different _hapus_ of the tribes inhabiting the region of the Whanganui River, and that those at present dwelling there were the Ngatihau, Ngatiapa, Ngatimaringi, Ngatitamakana, Ngatiatamira, Ngatiruakopiri, Ngatiikewaia, and Ngatitara. We were informed that their common ancestor was Uenuku, and that their forefathers came from Hawaiki in the _Tainui_, _Arawa_, and _Aotea_ canoes. In former times the whole valley of the Manganui-a-te-Ao was fortified with formidable _pas_, so that it was impossible for an enemy to get up the river. During the troubled times of the great war with the Europeans Ruakaka was always considered as a safe meeting-place for the Hauhau tribes of this part of the country, since the _pakehas_ did not know of its existence; and even if they had, as the natives reasonably remarked, they would never have attempted to penetrate into its fastnesses with any prospect of returning alive.