The leading character in this feud was Tama-i-hara-nui, principal chief of the Ngāi Tahu, who appears to have lived both at Kaiapoi pa and at Takapūneke near present-day Akaroa. Of Tama-i-hara-nui's character Stack (in his book "Kaiapohia. The Story of a Siege") says: "Unlike most Maori chiefs of exalted rank he was cowardly, cruel and capricious." The 'eat relation' feud began when Murihake, a woman at Waikakahi on the eastern shores of Lake Ellesmere, happened to put on a dog-skin cloak left in the village by Tama-i-hara-nui, who was then absent at Kaikoura. This sacrilegious action required that the chief, or his relations on his behalf, should immediately take "utu" (or payment in revenge). But instead of taking revenge on the woman herself, the chief's relations ambushed and killed a slave belonging to one of her relations. In revenge for the death of the slave, the woman's relations went to a village near Tai Tapu, and killed a man named Hape, who was related to those who had killed the slave. But it also happened that Hape's wife was the sister of the principal chief of Taumutu.