The strong terraced and trenched pa on Tokanui, the middle conical hill of the row of three, was built by the two tribes named, under Kiharoa, about a hundred and fifty years ago. The same people fortified and occupied the other two hills; the eastern one is Puke-rimu (“Red-Pine hill”) and the western Whiti-te-marama (“The Shining of the Moon”). There were many good fighting men among the people of these hill forts, but their tower of strength was Kiharoa, who stood hugely over his fellows; he was twice the height of an ordinary man, and he wielded a taiaha of unusual length and weight, a hardwood weapon called by the name of “Rangihaeata” (“The First Rays of Morning Light”). Many a battle he had fought successfully with this great blade-and-tongue broadsword, sweeping every opponent out of his path. Kiharoa was tattooed on body as well as face, and when he leaped into battle, whirling “Rangihaeata” from side to side in guard and feint and cut, his blue-carved skin glistening with oil and red ochre, his great glaring eyes darting flame, his moko-scrolled features distorted with fury, few there were brave enough to face him. But there came a day when Kiharoa met his better on the battlefield of Whenuahou. The Ngati-Maniapoto tribe, whose great fortress was Totorewa, an impregnable cliff-walled pa on the Waipa River, raised a feud against the Ngati-Raukawa and Ngati-Whakatere, and a large war-party set out under the chief Wahanui, who himself was a man of great frame, though no giant like Kiharoa. The “taua” took a circuitous route, coming upon the Tokanui hills from the south via Manga-o-Rongo, and then making a detour to the east to avoid the deep morass which defended the southern side of “The Three Sisters”—the present main road from Kihikihi to Otorohanga traverses this now partly-drained swamp. Meanwhile the garrisons in the hill forts had prepared for war, and their sentinels stood on the alert on the tihi or citadel of the terraced strongholds, keeping keen watch for the expected enemy. Harua, one of the chiefs of the forts, had descended to the plain with a small party before the approach of the foe was detected, and although the people on the hill forts called repeatedly to him warning him to return, no heed was given to the long-drawn shouts. At length a keen-eyed sentry saw the glisten of a weapon—perhaps a whalebone mere—in the westering sun; the direction was well to the east of the pa, and by that token it was plain that the enemy army was lying in ambush waiting to advance silently in the night. It was imperative that Harua and his men outside the pa should be warned, and so in the still watches of the night a strong-lunged warrior on the battlements of Tokanui lifted up his voice in this whakaaraara-pa, or sentinel-chant: