Captain Mair's flying column, 1870

Twenty-one members of Captain Mair’s Arawa Flying Column, returning after a fight with Te Kooti, photographed at the redoubt at Kaiteriria, Lake Rotokākahi (Green Lake), February 1870.

Captain Gilbert Mair had met Te Kooti in 1867 during the latter’s exile on Wharekauri. During the final campigns against Te Kooti, Mair trained and commanded a unit of Māori Armed Constabulary known as the Arawa Flying Column. Consisting of 100 young Te Arawa men, this was raised specifically to counter Te Kooti’s guerilla tactics.