Patu parāoa (whale bone hand club)

This beautifully proportioned whale bone patu was fashioned from dense bone taken from the jaw of a sperm whale and has an aged yellowish patina. The elegant carved form on the butt depicts mirror-image bird-like figures joined at the beak. This figurative bird form is thought to be an archaic style associated with early South Island, Whanganui, and Taranaki carving forms.

Epiha Tokohihi
Epiha Tokohihi lifted this patu from the body of a fallen comrade during the siege of No 3 Redoubt at Kairau, Taranaki, on 23 January 1861. The 65th Regiment ('Royal Tigers') was defending the redoubt at the time.

Epiha was a Ngāti Maniapoto fighting chief who flourished during the New Zealand Wars. He served on the Ngāti Maniapoto rūnanga (council), chaired by his elder relative Rewi Manga Maniapoto, that debated whether to support Wi Kingi Te Rangitaake's military opposition to the British incursion into Taranaki. Maniapoto, Epiha, and the rūnanga elected to support Te Rangitaake, even though the recently elected Māori King, Pōtatau Te Wherowhero, had forbidden the Waikato tribes from getting involved. Ngāti Maniapoto suffered severe losses, relative to British losses, during these campaigns. Epiha and the rūnanga's decision to participate was later recalled in the waiata tangi (lament) by Hokipera for Ngāti Maniapoto's fallen warriors at the battle of Mahoetahi.

'Kāore taku huhi, taku raru, ki a koutou,
E pā mā, e haupu mai ra!
Ka hua hoki au ki a Epiha mā e hui nei ki te runanga,
He kawe pai i te tika.
Kāore he mahi nui i ngā maunga a Whiro kua wareware'

'Alas, my grief, my woe!
Alas, for you, my chieftains, lying in heaps on yonder mound of death!
Ah, once I listened to Epiha and his chiefs in council;