The main purpose of the operation was to punish Tūhoe for supporting Te Kooti Rikirangi, whose ‘rebel’ force they had sheltered after it was defeated at Ngātapa, inland from Poverty Bay, in January.
Rua Kēnana was a Tūhoe prophet who set up a community at Maungapōhatu in the Urewera mountains. In 1916 he was arrested for sedition for his opposition to Māori conscription in the First World War. His trial was one of the longest in New Zealand's legal history.