Arapeta Awatere, New Zealand interpreter, military leader, politician, and murderer (d. 1976)
Arapeta Marukitepua Pitapitanuiarangi Awatere (25 April 1910 – 6 March 1976) was a New Zealand interpreter, military leader, maori welfare officer, and local politician. Of Māori descent, he identified with the Ngati Hine (Northland), Ngati Porou and Te Whanau-a-Hinetapora iwi. He was born in Tuparoa, East Coast, on 25 April 1910. He served as a colonel in the Māori battalion during the Second World War and is father to the former MP Donna Awatere Huata.In 1969 he stabbed to death his girlfriend's new lover, which he unsuccessfully tried to blame on diabetes induced psychosis, and was later convicted and sentenced to life in prison, where he died unexpectedly seven years later.