By 1827 Te Rauparaha, who in 1822 had led his Ngāti Toa in their remarkable emigration from Kawhia to Waikanae and Kapiti, was beginning to attack the tribes of the northern part of the South Island, his warriors being armed with muskets as well as with Māori weapons. It was late in this year, or in 1828, that he took a strong war party by sea to Kaikoura, seeking to avenge himself for the insult put upon him by the Ngāi Tahu chief, Rerewhaka, who had boasted that if Te Rauparaha came to Kaikoura he would rip up his belly with a barracouta tooth. Fortune favoured the Ngāti Toa, for the people of Kaikoura were expecting the arrival of a party of Ngāi Tahu from the south, and mistaking the invaders canoes for those of their friends, went out unarmed to welcome them. The confusion that followed gave the Ngāti Toa an easy victory. The three pā of Kaikoura Peninsula were destroyed, and it is estimated that of a total population of nearly 2000, more than half were killed and many others taken as prisoners to Kapiti.