Kereopa Te Rau

Kereopa Te Rau (? - 5 January 1872) was a Māori Warrior. The name Kereopa is the Māori pronunciation of the Biblical name Cleopas. He was also nicknamed Kai whatu, the eye ball eater. He was a leader of the Pai Marire or Hau Hau messianic cult.

Kereopa was probably baptised by Father Euloge Regnier during the 1840s and may have served as a police officer in Auckland during the 1850s. He is known to have fought for the rebel King Movement during the Invasion of the Waikato in 1863. His wife and two daughters were killed in the attack by government forces on Rangiaowhia near Te Awamutu,when villagers fired at soldiers and his sister was killed in defence of the Hairini Line a few days later.

Shortly afterwards he met up with the prophet Te Ua Haumene and converted to the Pai Marire faith. In December 1864 he was sent on a mission to the tribes of the East Cape. His instructions were to go in peace and avoid confrontations with the Pākehā. However at Opotiki the missionary Carl Volkner, who was sending intelligence about the activities of the rebels to the government, was seized, hanged and decapitated in what became known as the Volkner Incident. Immediately afterwards Kereopa preached a sermon from Volkner's pulpit during which he gouged the missionary's eyes out of his head and ate them and drank his blood. Although this is abhorrent , it was normal Maori behaviour or utu in the context of Māori warfare but made Kereopa a murderer and a cannibal under New Zealand law.

Kereopa and his Pai Marire followers then abandoned the people of Opotiki and retreated to the Urewera Mountains to preach their cult to the Tuhoe people. Later he tried to return to the Waikato but was repulsed by a war party of Ngāti Manawa and Ngāti Rangitihi loyal Maori, who supported the government. Following the resulting battle Kereopa is said to have eaten the eyes of three of the slain enemy. He then retreated to the Ureweras again where he found refuge and where he remained in hiding for the next five years. In the early 1870s the government forces searching for Te Kooti entered the Ureweras. The Tuhoe were conquered and law and order established. Major Roparta, Ropata Waha Wahawho lead the government forces, captured Kereopa. Keropa was tried and hanged for Volkner's murder on 5 January 1872.

References

• Cowan, J. (1922) The New Zealand wars. New Zealand Government Printer.
• Lyall, A. C. (1979) Whakatohea of Opotiki. AH & AW Reed.
• Chapter 5: The Völkner and Fulloon Slayings, in The Ngati Awa Raupatu Report. Waitangi Tribunal, 1999.