Mount EgmontMOUNT EGMONT, TARANAKI.
MOUNT EGMONT, TARANAKI.
In March, 1864, the 57th were ordered from New Plymouth to Manawapou (not far from the present town of Hawera), near the Tangahoé River. The fanatic Hauhau faith had just been born amongst the Maoris, whose palisadedpasdotted the outskirts of the great forests on the farther side of the Tangahoé, and whose war-songs could sometimes be heard from the white soldiers' camp. At Manawapou the regiment went under canvas, and now began the regular round of sentry-go and outpost duty, and all the preparations for an advance on the rebel positions.
Taranaki Frontier FortA TARANAKI FRONTIER FORT.(Sketch by Mr. S. Percy Smith, 1865.)
A TARANAKI FRONTIER FORT.(Sketch by Mr. S. Percy Smith, 1865.)
Meantime there was fighting in the northern and western parts of the Taranaki province, between the 57th camp and New Plymouth. There was the disastrous affair at Te Ahuahu, where Captain Lloyd and several soldiers were killed; their headswere cut off and smoke-dried by the Hauhau savages, and were carried away to distant tribes by Kereopa, Patara, and other rebel emissaries, the Hauhau recruiting officers. Another momentous affair which happened soon after the 57th took post at Manawapou was the desperate assault on the British redoubt at Sentry Hill (Te Morere). A large force of Hauhau warriors, deluded by their prophet Hepanaia into believing that his incantations rendered them invulnerable to the white man's bullets, rushed against the redoubt in open daylight one morning, but were beaten off, leaving some fifty of their number lying dead in front of the fort. It was in this engagement that Titokowaru—who was afterwards Kimble Bent's chiefand master—lost one of his eyes through a bullet wound.
Kimble Bent's final revolt against constituted authority came one wet, cold day in the Manawapou camp in April 1864. It was pouring with rain, but a corporal, one who took a vindictive sort of pleasure in asserting his authority over those privates whom he happened to dislike, ordered Bent to go out and cut some firewood in the bush. Irritated by the manner in which the order was given, the young "Down-Easter" was foolish enough to argue with his enemy the corporal.
"Look here," he said, "this is no day to send a man out cutting wood. The officers can stay in their tents laughing at us fellows out in the rain. We're treated like a set of blessed dogs."
"Oh, you won't go, won't you?" sneered the corporal, rejoicing at having irritated the soldier into insubordination.
"No, I won't go," said Bent defiantly; "so you can do what you like about it."
The corporal reported Bent to his immediate superiors, and the soldier was arrested and lodged in the guard-tent. Next morning he was brought before a court-martial and tried for disobedience of orders. Major Haszard was the president of the court. With him sat Captain Clark, LieutenantBrown, and Ensign Parker. Bent knew it was useless to attempt a defence, for his offence was an inexcusable breach of discipline. He was found guilty, and the sentence of the court was that he should receive fifty lashes, and serve two years in gaol.
The triangles were then a familiar institution in every military camp in the Waikato and in Taranaki; for those were flogging days, when even slight breaches of military rules brought down the lash upon the soldier's back.
One of the regimental surgeons, Dr. Andrews, examined Bent, as was the practice before flogging was inflicted, and he reported that in his opinion the young soldier was not constitutionally fit to endure the fifty lashes ordered.
Soon after Bent had been taken to his tent under guard, one of the officers of the court-martial came in to see him. This was Captain Clark, a fine jovial young Canadian-born soldier, who had rather a liking for the unfortunate man from his end of the world.
"Cheer up, Bent," he said; "you'll only get twenty-five—the sentence is reduced. And put that in your mouth when you go to the triangles," and he threw down a sixpence. Then, when the guard-tent corporal was not looking, the kindly officer took a flask of rum from his breast-pocket, laid it on the tent floor, and walked away to his quarters.
When Bent was called out for punishment, he quickly drank off the rum, and put the sixpence in his mouth. He knew the old soldier's recipe for a "stiff upper lip" in the agony of flogging—"bite on the bullet." The sixpence would serve him as well. It would keep his teeth from biting through his tongue in the throes of that horrible punishment.
A bugle sounded the "Fall in." No. 8 Company was paraded in review order on the drill ground to "witness punishment." Bent was marched down to the square; he was stripped to the waist and tied to the triangles. The big drummer of the Company stepped to the front; he was the flagellant. Bent bit on his substitute for a bullet as the cat swished through the air and fell like a red-hot knife on his quivering back. Again and again came the frightful cuts, criss-cross upon his back and shoulders, till the tale of twenty-five was complete. Then the prisoner was cast loose, swearing in his pain and passion to have the drummer's life. A blanket was thrown across his raw and bleeding shoulders, and he was marched back to the guard-tent, where the surgeon prescribed for him in rough-and-ready fashion; then to prison—he refused to go into the camp hospital.
Bent served some months in Wellington Prison, doing cook-house work, in expiation of his offenceagainst military discipline. Then he was sent back to his hated regiment. The shame of that morning at the triangles, with his comrades paraded to witness his disgrace and agony, was burned into him for ever. He grew morose and desperate. At last he resolved to desert to the enemy. He confided his resolve to his tent-mates, and they, knowing that other soldiers had deserted to the Maoris and had not been killed, did not attempt to dissuade him. "I can't be worse off with the Maoris than I am here," he told them; "if they do tomahawk me, it will end all my troubles. I don't very much care."
So he bided his time for a favourable opportunity to steal from the camp; and soon his chance came. It was on June 12, 1865, that he broke camp and fell in with the Hauhau scout on the banks of the Tangahoé.
THE CAMP OF THE HAUHAUS
In the Maori country—Arrival at a HauhauPa—Maori village scenes—The ceremonies round the sacred flagstaff—"Riré, riré, hau!"—The man with the tomahawk—A white slave—The painted warriors of Keteonetea—The blazing oven.
Thesaturnine Hauhau spoke little to the white man during that journey to the rebel camp. He stalked silently on in front, his rifle over his shoulder, turning quickly now and again to assure himself that the soldier was still following him. Presently they forded another stream, which Bent afterwards came to know as the Ingahape, and passed through a deserted settlement, with its tumble-down dwellings ofrauporeeds, and its old potato-gardens. A few minutes later they came in sight of their destination, the Ohangaipa. A high stockade of tree-trunks sunk in the ground, some of the upper ends hewn into sharp points, others with round knobby tops that suggested impaled human heads, surrounded a populous village of thatched huts. Just beyond it was the bush, stretching away as far as the eye could carry.It was a secluded, pretty scene, that village with its neat enclosure, its rows of snugwharéswhich could be seen through the gateway and the openings in the palisade, and its squares of maize and potato cultivations, sheltered by the friendly belt of dark green forest.
Some little, nearly naked children were playing about on the open space in front of the palisades. When they suddenly beheld a white man riding along towards them, with a Maori walking by his stirrup, they stared wide-eyed and open-mouthed, and then rushed helter-skelter into thepa, calling out at the top of their voices, "He pakeha, he pakeha!"
What a commotion that cry of "Pakeha" aroused in the slumberingpa! Men leaped from the flaxwhariki(mats), where they had been drowsing away the afternoon awaiting the opening of the steam ovens, and poured out of the narrow gateway armed with their guns and tomahawks. When they saw that the European was a harmless, unarmed individual, and that he was apparently the prisoner of one of their own people, the clamour died away, and they escorted the soldier and his captor into thepa. Bent quickly perceived that his companion was a man of some importance, from the peremptory orders he issued and the alacrity with which they were obeyed. The scout was, in fact, the chief Tito te Hanataua, arangatiraof high standing in the Ngati-Ruanui tribe, and one of the Hauhaus' best fighting-leaders.
It was a wild scene that met the young soldier's gaze when he entered the stockade, and his heart sank before the savagely hostile gaze of a crowd of armed, half-stripped warriors, the black-bearded and shaggy-headed men of the bush, and their scarcely less savage-looking women.
A strange ceremony began.
In the centre of the village square ormaraestood a rough-hewn pole or flagstaff, about fifteen feet high, on which flew one or two coloured flags. This was theNiu, the sacred staff which the Hauhau prophet Te Ua had commanded his followers to erect as a pole of worship in each of their villages. [TheNiuwas in more ancient times the name of a peculiar ceremony of divination often resorted to by thetohungasor priests; it is perhaps worth noting, too, that in the Islands of Polynesia, the traditional Maori Hawaiki, it is the general name for the coco-nut-tree.] All the inhabitants of the village—men, women, and children—formed up, and began to march round and round theNiu, with a priest in their midst, rushing frantically to and fro, and brandishing a Maori weapon as he yelled a ferocious-sounding chant. The people, too, lifted up their voices as they marched, and, after listening a while, Bent found to his astonishment that part of what they were chanting in asingular wild cadence were these words in "pidgin" English: "Big river, long river, big mountain, long mountain, bush, big bush, long bush," and so on, ending with a loudly chanted cry, "Riré, riré, hau!" This meaningless gibberish formed part of the incantations solemnly taught to the Hauhaus by Te Ua, who professed to have the "gift of tongues" of which thepakeha'sNew Testament spoke; his disciples fondly believed that they were endowed by their prophet's "angel" with wonderful linguistic powers.
The singular march suddenly ceased, at an order from the shawl-kiltedtohungain the centre, and then the people filed into the village meeting-house, a largeraupo-reed-built structure, taking Bent with them. He was motioned to a seat beside a Maori, whose name, he afterwards found, was Hori Kerei (George Grey), and who could speak English fairly well.
Sitting opposite Bent was a white-bearded old fighting-man, a dour-faced savage, his brown face deeply scored with the marks of blue-black tattoo; his sole attire was a blanket; in his right hand, and partly concealed by the blanket, he held a tomahawk. His hand twitched now and then, as if he were about to flash out the tomahawk and use it on thepakeha, from whose face he never withdrew his fierce old eyes. He was the chief, Te Rangi-tutaki.
A long talk began. Hori Kerei interpreted. The Maoris asked Bent why he had come to them, why had he run away from his own people. The deserter frankly told them that he was tired of being a soldier, that he had been ill-treated and imprisoned, and that he came to them for protection.
"Pakeha," said Kerei, "they want to know if you will ever leave the Maori and go back to the soldiers."
"No," said Bent; "tell them I'll never run away from the Hauhaus. I want to live with them always; I don't ever want to see a white man again!"
"Kapai!" said Grey good-humouredly. "That the talk! All right, I tell them true."
When Kerei had interpreted the white man's reply, the old man with the tomahawk leaned over and said, very earnestly, tapping the blade of the weapon with his left hand as he spoke:
"Whakarongo mai!Listen,pakeha! You see thispatitiin my hand? Yes. If you had not at once replied that you would never return to the white soldiers I would have killed you. I would have sunk this into your skull!"
After this brief speech, delivered with a fierceness of mien and glitter of eye that made the refugee tremble in spite of his efforts to appear calm, the old barbarian shook hands with him.
Then Tito te Hanataua—the man who had brought the soldier to thepa—rose and said:
"O my tribe, listen to me! Take good care of thepakeha, and harm him not, because our prophet has told us that if any white men come to us as this man has done, and leave their own tribe for ours, we must not injure them, but must keep them with us and protect them."
Tito's word assured Bent's safety, and the tone of the people changed to one of friendliness; many of them shook hands with the lonely white man. The women cooked some pork and potatoes for him in an earth-oven, and he was given to eat, and received into the tribe. Henceforth he was as a Maori.
Now began for the runaway an even harder life than that which he had endured in the army. He found that he was virtually a slave amongst the Maoris. He had had fond imaginings of the easy time he would enjoy in the heart of Maoridom, but to quote from his own lips, "they made me work like a blessed dog." Soon after his arrival in thepaa party of men was sent off to Taiporohenui—a celebrated old village and meeting-place near the present town of Hawera—and he was ordered to go with them, and was set to work felling bush, clearing and digging, gathering firewood, and hauling water for the camp. Tito was his master—not only his master, but in hard fact his owner,with power of life and death over him. Bent divined the Maori nature too well to refuse "fatigue duty," as he had done in the Manawapou camp. There would have been no court-martial in Taiporohenui—just a crack on the head with a tomahawk. So he bent his back to the burdens with what cheerfulness he might, and was thankful for the good things Tito provided, though they took no more elaborate form than a blanket and a flax mat for a bed, and two square meals a day of pork and potatoes.
Tito was, says Bent, a man of about forty-five years of age, a stern, but not unkindly owner, with a pretty young wife of seventeen or eighteen, whose big, dark eyes were often turned with an expression of pity on the unfortunate renegadepakeha.
The people watched the white man closely, thinking no doubt that as he was being worked so hard he might be tempted to run away if he got the chance. And whenever he went out of doors the old man who had sat opposite him in the meeting-house on the day of his first arrival followed him about, never speaking a word, with his tomahawk in his hand.
The news that a white soldier had run away to the Hauhaus soon spread amongst the Ngati-Ruanui. One day a messenger from the large village of Keteonetea came to Taiporohenui andannounced that he had been sent to fetch the strangepakehato that settlement.
"What do they want with me?" asked Bent, when Tito told him that the envoy was waiting for him.
"They want to see the colour of your skin," replied Tito.
Bent, in alarm, begged Tito not to send him to Keteonetea, for he greatly feared that he would be killed.
Tito reassured his white man, telling him that the Keteonetea people were his relatives, and that he was not to be alarmed at their demeanour, because they would not harm him.
The messenger and his white charge tramped away through the bush to the village, a lonely little spot hemmed in by the dense forests—long since hewn away and replaced by grassy fields and dairy farms. A palisade surrounded thekainga; within were clusters of large well-built reedwharés, and the inevitableNiupole stood in the middle of themarae.
Bent found a large number of Maoris, about three hundred, assembled on themarae, the village parade ground. The scene still lives vividly in his memory—an even wilder, more savage spectacle than that of his first day at Tito'spa. The men's faces were painted red, in token of war—red smudges of ochre on their cheeks and red lines drawn acrosstheir brows; they wore feathers in their hair, their only clothes were flax mats. The lonepakehamight well have imagined himself back in the days of ancient Maoridom, before missionaries or traders had changed the barbaric simplicity of the aboriginal life. The only modern note was the firearms of the warriors; all the men carried guns (most of them double-barrelled shot-guns, and a few rifles and carbines), and wore tomahawks stuck in their broad-plaited flax belts. Most of the women were as primitive in their garb as the men; their clothing consisted chiefly of flaxen cloaks; a few wore shawls and blankets.
"The people looked at me very fiercely as I came into themarae," says Bent, "and I felt my heart sinking low, in spite of Tito's assurance." They put him into araupohut by himself, and fastened the door—a proceeding that did not at all tend to elevate his spirits.
The ex-soldier was left to himself in the darkwharéfor quite a couple of hours. He could hear the people gathered on the village square discussing him excitedly; one orator after another declaiming with frantic energy. At length a Maori unfastened the door of thewharé, and, taking Bent by the hand, led him out on to themarae. The native could speak English; Bent afterwards found that he had been an old whaler, and had lived amongst white people for many years; his name was Kere(Kelly). He told thepakeha, with some show of kindness, that he must not be frightened, that no one would harm him, but he must go to the sacredNiuand promise that he would never return to thepakehas.
The first thing that met Bent's eyes on stepping out through the low doorway of thewharéwas a great fire blazing in the centre of themarae, surrounded by a ring of short stakes. Accustomed as he was by this time to sights of terror, this struck a fresh note of alarm.
"Good Lord!" he said to himself, "are they going to burn me alive?"
"Friend," he said to Kere, "tell me, what's that fire for?"
The Maori explained that it was anahi tapu, a sacred fire, used in the Hauhau war-rites.
Bent was very doubtful. "I'm afraid," said he to his companion, "that it's for me! Are they going to throw me into it? I've heard they do such things."
"No, no,pakeha! It's all right. You'll be safe. But remember, do as thetohungatells you, and promise him you'll never go back to thepakehasoldiers, or you'll die!"
The Maori led the white man up to the foot of theNiupole, a tall ricker, with rough crosstrees and with flag halliards of flax rope. Bent was told to sit down at the foot of the pole. The people all gathered around in a ring.
A tall old warrior stood in the middle of the ring, facing Bent—the prophet of theNiu. He was naked from the waist up; his face was completely covered with tattooing. He was atohunga, or priest, Bent afterwards discovered; by name Tu-ahi-pa, or Tautahi-ariki, a man held in much awe by the people as a worker ofmakutu(witchcraft).
For a long time the old wizard closely eyed the pale-faced stranger before him. Then he said, through the interpreter, Kere:
"You behold this ring of people, the people of Keteonetea?"
"Yes," said Bent.
"I ask you this, will you return to your people or remain with us?"
"I will never return to thepakehas," Bent replied; "I want to live with the Maoris and to make them my people."
"Good!" exclaimed the Hauhau priest. "Now, turn your eyes upon yon fire, burning there upon themarae. Well, if you had not promised to become a Maori and live with us, the tribe would have thrown you into that blazing oven. It is well that you have spoken as you have."
This, to Bent's great relief, ended the ordeal. The Hauhaus, at a cry from the priest, began their mad march round theNiu—men, women, and children—chanting as they went their savage psalms,rolling their eyes and lifting their arms high in the air as every now and again they cried their wild refrain, "Riré, riré, hau!"—the last word literally barked out from the hundreds of throats.
When the Hauhau ceremony was at an end, a young woman who had joined in the march round theNiucame to Bent, took him away to a hut and gave him a meal of pork and potatoes, and then led him to her father's house. The father was the principal chief of thekainga, and, as it turned out, cousin to Bent'srangatiraTito.
Here the white man spent the night, the chief's daughter lying across the entrance just inside the doorway, for fear—as the chief told him—that some young desperado might take it into his head to earn a little notoriety by tomahawking the pale-face. Outside, the Maoris were gathered on themarae, by the light of great fires, the chiefs making speeches andtaki-ing up and down in excited fashion, weapon in hand; now and again the fanatic crowd would burst into a loud Hauhau chant that echoed long amidst the black encircling forest. So the wildkorerowent on, far into the night.
IN THE OTAPAWA STOCKADE
The return from Keteonetea—The hill-fort at Otapawa—Akorerowith the Hauhaus—Bent's one-eyed wife—"The wooing o' 't"—Bent is christened "Ringiringi."
Morningcame at last, but the solitary white man in this nest of savages had hardly closed his eyes. More than once he fancied some one was trying the low door of thewharé, and he looked round the dimly-lighted hut—a small fire was kept burning in the centre of the floor—in search of a weapon, but found none. Bent lay there, listening intently, and longing with an inexpressibly bitter longing for the old camp-life, hard though it was, and for the sound of a white comrade's voice. It had not always been "pack-drill and C.B." in his army life, in spite of the tyrant sergeants. But now it was the bush and thewharéfor the rest of his days—or, in other words, for just so long a period as he might be able to save his head from the tomahawk.
Daybreak—and no sooner was it light than the Hauhaus began to gather round thepakeha'shut,while the women were lighting thehangis—the earth steam-ovens—for the first meal of the day. "Come out to us!" they yelled; "come out,pakeha!" They ran to and fro in front of thewharé, and raised barking cries that sounded fearfully menacing to thepakehasitting on his low mat-bed, and feeling not in the least disposed to respond to the invitation to come outside and be killed.
But the old chief speedily ended the uproar by opening the sliding door and shouting angrily:
"Haere atu! Haere atu!" an imperative phrase that the deserter had already learned to recognise as one that could be exactly translated "Clear out!"
Thereafter there was comparative peace. The white man was under the protection of the chief, and was allowed to wander round the village pretty much as he chose; but he was warned not to go far, or some warrior might take a fancy to his head.
Four or five days passed without incident, and then a horse was brought up for Bent, and he returned to Tito'skainga, escorted by the chief's daughter and ten armed men, all mounted. Tito seemed relieved to have hispakehaback again in safety, and after feasting the Maori guard on the best the village women could lay on the dinner-mats, he sent them back to Keteonetea loaded with new clothes and baskets ofkumara(sweet potato)andtaro—another tropic root-food brought from Polynesia by the ancestors of the Maori, but now no longer grown by the Taranaki people.
Soon Bent was on the tramp again. His chief, Tito, set off one morning, taking his white man with him, for a fortified village called Otapawa, where the Hauhaus were preparing to offer a strong resistance to the British troops. Otapawa was about four miles away by a narrow and winding forest track. A small river, the Mangemange, had to be forded on the way, and here Bent had a taste of some of the minor adventures of the bush. Bent being a rather small man and Tito a big, powerful fellow, the Maori good-naturedly took hispakehaon his back topikauhim across the stream. Bent was rather heavier than Tito had imagined, and after balancing to and fro precariously on a slippery place in the deepest part of the ford, the Maori's feet suddenly went from under him, and he and his protégé were capsized in the middle of the creek. Tito, however, kept a tight grip of the white man, and, though the stream was running swiftly, they managed to struggle out to the opposite bank in safety, and after drying their clothes as well as they could continued their bush journey.
About midday the Hauhau chief and his companion emerged from the solitudes of the forest to find themselves in the Otapawa clearing. A hill about three hundred feet high rose like anisland from the greatrimuandratawoods that compassed it on every side; at the back ran the Tangahoé River. At the foot of the hill there was some cultivation; a steep winding path led to the top; here were a ditch and a bristling double stockade of tall tree-trunks set solidly in the ground, connected by cross-rails lashed with forest vines; within was the Hauhau village. The only access to the interior of the stockade was through a low and narrow gateway, painted red.
A shawl-clad figure with a gun rose from a squatting position just outside thepagate as the two travellers walked out from the shade of the forest and began the ascent of the mound. A loud cry of astonishment and warning brought out the villagers, one after the other, bobbing their heads as they ran through the gateway. Then the shout was raised, as they recognised Bent's companion:
"Aue!Here comes Tito with apakeha! Apakeha!"
Waving shawls and blankets and weapons, the people cried their greetings to the chief, and the white man and his protector walked in between two lines of wondering men and women and children, who pressed in close behind the new-comers as they passed into the palisadedpa.
A long, low-eaved, thatched house stood near the middle of thepa, somewhat apart from the smallerwharés. Into this building Tito and Bent weretaken, and finely woven flax mats, patterned in black and white, were spread out for them. Tito rose and addressed the crowd. He explained, with a good deal of pride, as Bent imagined, how he had become possessed of a live white man—a somewhat unusual acquisition amongst the Maoris in that unrestful period, for the impatient Hauhau was, as a rule, too fond of trying his new tomahawk on apakehaskull to keep a prisoner long. Thekoreroover, food was brought in in freshly plaited baskets of green flax—boiled pork, dried shark (a present from a seaside tribe), boiledtaroandkumara—quite a bountiful meal for a war-time bush camp.
Up to this time the deserter's adventures had been, if not exactly tragic, at least of a severely unpleasant turn. Now, however, they took a humorous twist—humorous from an onlooker's view, though to the white man himself it seemed rather the final pannikinful in the bucket of his misfortunes.
A woman was brought into thewharé. She walked over and seated herself on the flaxwharikiby Bent's side.
The white man turned and looked at her in some surprise. Her vision still haunts the memory of the old adventurer as that of a particularly ugly woman. She was not old, probably not above twenty-five, but she was blind in one eye, her lips were of negroid thickness—such "blubber" lipsas seen here and there among Maori tribes tell their tale of an ancient Melanesian strain in the blood of the Polynesian immigrants. She was tattooed on the chin, and there was a deeply chiselled blue line on the inner cuticle of her lower lip. Her hair hung round her face in a tangled mop. "Well," said Bent to himself, "she is no beauty."
The woman spoke some words of greeting to Bent, but he steadily gazed on the floor and said nothing.
Then a Maori sitting near by, who could speak a little English, said, "This woman wants to marry you!"
"Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Bent. "What for? I don't want to get married."
An old man, whose name was Peneta, and who was draped from shoulder to ankles in a red blanket, walked up to the white man and, halting in front of him, pointed to the one-eyed woman.
"Pakeha," he said, with a quiet grimness in his tone, "this is my niece, Te Rawanga. You must marry her (me moe korua). If you refuse, you will die! That is all."
This was translated to Bent.
Here was a dilemma, indeed! Bent had nothing to say. He looked at the woman by his side, and she smiled at him as coquettishly as her one good eye allowed. He looked, and the more he lookedthe less he liked her. Then he glanced at the dour old uncle, and cast his helpless eyes around the crowded meeting-house. The men were glum and scowling; one or two of the young girls seemed to perceive the humour of the situation, for they giggled, and then hid their faces in their shawls.
Bent eyed his prospective uncle-in-law again. The old man was impatient. He said again, "Take my niece as your wife."
"Ae," assented the white man, who could see no hope of escape. "I'll take her."
So the young soldier was mated, to the satisfaction of every one but himself. "She wasn't my fancy, to put it mildly," he says. "But I suppose it was her last chance, and the old man would have tomahawked me if I hadn't taken her."
Mrs. Bent's wedding-furnishings, which she bundled a little later, with determined air, into the corner of the communal house assigned to the white man, were spartan and primitive in the extreme.
They consisted solely of a large plaitedwhariki(sleeping-mat) and a wooden pillow, which, to the white man, seemed alarmingly like some weapon of chastisement.
Matrimony amongst the Hauhaus was simplicity itself.
Bent, now fully received into the tribe, had a Maori name given to him. It was "Ringiringi," a name he bore for two or three years, until thewar-chief Titokowaru rechristened him "Tu-nui-a-moa."
The origin of this name "Ringiringi" may be explained, as an example of the way in which the Maoris so frequently acquire new names often from very trivial incidents. It was a contraction of "Te Wai-ringiringi," which was one of Tito te Hanataua's nicknames, bestowed upon the chief about two years previously. A party of Ngati-Maniapoto Maoris from the King Country were at that time on a visit to Taiporohenui, where a large war-council of the rebel tribes was held. Tito te Hanataua was one of the Taranaki orators, and as hetaki'd up and down, spear in hand, in the usual energetic manner of the Maori speech-maker, he spoke so rapidly and fluently that the Kingites dubbed him "Te Wai-ringiringi," meaning "The Pouring Water," because his words poured from his lips like water. Tito was rather proud of this nickname, and his bestowal of it upon Bent was in a sense a mark of favour.
Bent at this time was a thin, rather weak-looking man, and his slimness was made the subject of ahakachorus amongst the people, a little song for which his one-eyed wife was responsible. These were the words:
"Ki te kai, e Ringi,Kai poroporo te manawa,Te iti to hopé,Whakapai Angoré,"
"Ki te kai, e Ringi,Kai poroporo te manawa,Te iti to hopé,Whakapai Angoré,"
"Ki te kai, e Ringi,
Kai poroporo te manawa,
Te iti to hopé,
Whakapai Angoré,"
("Eat away, O Ringi,Eat your fill ofporoporoberriesTo make you strong again;Lest your waist be small and weak,Eat to become a fine Englishman!")
("Eat away, O Ringi,Eat your fill ofporoporoberriesTo make you strong again;Lest your waist be small and weak,Eat to become a fine Englishman!")
("Eat away, O Ringi,
Eat your fill ofporoporoberries
To make you strong again;
Lest your waist be small and weak,
Eat to become a fine Englishman!")
Theporoporois a forest shrub which bears an abundance of large red berries, a favourite food of thetuiand pigeons, which become very fat on this rich bird-fare.
The white man, however, as he told hiswahiné, preferred to leave theporoporoto thetuis, and to fill out his attenuated waist, which the people looked upon with some amusement, with good Maori pork and potatoes.
TE UA, PRIEST AND PROPHET
Te Ua and his gods—ThePai mariréfaith—"Charming" the British bullets—Bent's interview with the prophet—His lifetapu'd—Preparing for battle—Life in the forestpa.
Aboutthis time Kimble Bent became acquainted with a man whose name has passed into New Zealand history. This was Te Ua Haumene, the founder and high-priest and prophet of the Hauhau religion, or, more correctly speaking, fanaticism. Te Ua came riding into the Otapawa village one day with a bodyguard of armed men. Bent describes him as a stoutly built man of between forty and fifty, attired in European clothing, and carrying a carvedtaiaha—a chief's halbert or broadsword of hardwood, flattened at one end in a blunt blade, and sharpened at the other into a tongue-shaped point, and decorated with tufts of redkakafeathers; in a plaited flax belt round his waist was thrust a greenstonemere.
Te Ua was the man who taught the Taranaki rebels thekarakia, or incantations—some of them a curious medley of Maori and English—which theychanted in their wild marches round the sacredNiuin their village squares. These incantations and chants he professed to have heard from supernatural visitants, the spirits who came on the four winds, and from the angel Gabriel, who spoke in his ear as he lay asleep in hisraupohut and bade him go abroad and spread a new religion, which should band together the tribes of the Maori nation. Many strange tales Bent had heard about the prophet and his wondrousmana. Te Ua had succeeded in imbuing his fanatic disciples with an unquestioning Moslem-like faith in the potency of the Hauhau cult and its accompanying charms and magic formulæ. He was the Mahomet of the Taranaki people, and exercised an influence over the bush-fighters of Ngati-Ruanui and allied tribes almost as great as that which Te Kooti, the Chatham Islands escapee, commanded a few years later amongst the warriors of the East Coast.
The absolute faith the Hauhaus reposed in Te Ua's precepts and his pretences to supernatural power has parallels in the records of the Mahdi's wars in the Soudan, and in other campaigns waged under the banner of Islam, and more recently still in the Zulu rebellion in Natal. He assured his followers that when they went into battle the bullets of the white soldiers would be turned aside in their flight if they but raised their right hands as if warding the ball off, at the same time repeatingthe words "Hapa! Pai mariré!" ("Pass over me! Righteousness and peace!") The expression "Pai mariré" was adopted as one of the designations of the Hauhau religion; and the sign of the upraised hand became the outward sign and symbol of the warrior faith. To-day, should you visit the large European-built house of the late Te Whiti, the Prophet of the Mountain, at Parihaka, you will see a picture of Te Ua on the wall of the speech-hall, his right hand raised to his shoulder, palm outwards, as if in the act of invoking his gods to turn thepakehabullets aside—"Hapa! Pai mariré!" And many a deluded Hauhau fell to the rifles of the white men before the Maori confidence in the efficacy of the charm was shaken. But Te Ua had a very good explanation to offer for any casualties—that if thepakehabullet refused to be waved aside and insisted on entering the body of a "righteous and peaceful" son of the faith, it was because the stricken man had lost faith in thekarakia—the ritual—and, very properly, suffered for his unbelief.
A sublimely simple explanation, and one that was perfectly satisfactory to the prophet and every one concerned, except perhaps the Hauhau who had happened to stop the bullet.
Even when the glacis of the Sentry Hill redoubt was strewn with the dead bodies of Hepanaia and fifty of his red-painted braves, the best manhood of Ngati-Ruanui and Nga-Ruahiné—who fell in amad attack upon the walled fort in open daylight chanting their "Hapa! Pai mariré! Hau!"—the faith in Te Ua and his charms was but little abated. And, unlike the Moslem warrior, who fought to the death in the certain hope of a speedy translation to Paradise, the Maori fanatic expected no heavenly reward for his faith and his death-despising ferocity. Nohouriswith welcoming arms; no eternity of fleshly bliss. No, it was just utter blind bravery, a sheer trust in a mad creed of Death-to-the-Whites and Maori Land for the Maori Race.
So the visit of the high-priest of Hauhauism was a great event in the bushpa. The prophet was received with apowhiri, or chant and dance of welcome, by the people of the village; then thetangiand the doleful hum of weeping for the dead. Thetangiover, the prophet addressed his disciples in the meeting-house; and hearing that there was a white runaway soldier in thepa, he sent for Bent.
It was a curious interview. The white man no longer appeared in the soldier's uniform, which he had worn for some time after deserting, but had taken to the garb of the savage. He was bare-headed and bare-footed. His sole garments were a shirt made of pieces of blanket and a flax mat tied round his waist. He entered the crowded council-house and stood before the prophet.
Patara, a Hauhau ProphetPATARA, A HAUHAU PROPHET.
PATARA, A HAUHAU PROPHET.
"E noho ki raro" ("Sit down"), said Te Ua, pointing to the floor-mat in front of him.
By the prophet's side was a flax basket containing some potatoes and pork, with which he had been breaking his fast after his journey. This food being appropriated to his use was, of course,tapuin the eyes of the assemblage. Te Ua took a potato from the basket, broke it into two pieces, and gave one piece to Bent and told him to eat it; the other half he ate himself.
"Now," said the prophet, "you aretapu—your life is safe; no man may harm you now that you have eaten of my sacred food. Men of Tangahoé! Thispakehais mypakeha; and if any other white men should come to us as this man has done, fleeing from their people and forsaking thepakehacamps for ourpas, you must protect them, for the gods have sent them to us."
"You are a Maori now," added Te Ua to Bent, "and you must have a woman to cook your food for you."
Bent, in his imperfect Maori, informed the prophet that he had already been supplied with a wife by the Maoris, but, like a prudent man, made no comment on her imperfections.
"That's all right then," said the prophet. And he gave Bent a large cloak of dressed flax, called atatara. "Wear this," he said; "it is atapugarment and sacred to you; no other man may wear it."
During the next few days, before Te Ua returned to his home at Opunake, on the coast, Bent had further interviews with the prophet, who treated him with kindness, and gave him what was to the runaway a very welcome present—somepakehatobacco. Though something of a madman, like most Maori prophets, Te Ua was of more benevolent spirit than his acolytes, Kereopa and Patara, and their kin, who had been sent to preach the gospel ofPai mariréto the outer tribes. Had Kereopa, for instance, come to Otapawa, Bent would, in all probability, have fallen under the tomahawk as a sacrifice for the savage ritual of theNiu, and his head would have been smoke-dried and carried over forest-trails from distant tribe to tribe, or stuck up like a scarecrow on a palisade-pole.
Bent learnt a good deal of the personal history of the prophet, and of his peculiar delusions. Te Ua had fought the white soldiers at Nukumaru about a year before this, when a force of Hauhaus made a desperate attack on the camp of two thousand British troops, under General Cameron, and killed and wounded nearly fifty soldiers before they were driven off with the loss of about thirty killed.
The outward and visible sign or incarnation (aria) of Te Ua's deity was aruru, or owl. This bird is sacred amongst Taranaki Natives; they will not kill or harm one; they say it is anatua, a god, and has a hundred eyes.
An incident which Bent relates as occurring in another bush settlement where he and Te Ua both happened to be staying is illustrative of the prophet's peculiar respect for his owl-god. Just at dusk, when the evening meal was over, and the night creatures began their roamings, an owl flew softly from the trees and settled above the window of the house in which Te Ua was sitting. "Ha!" said the prophet, when he saw it; "there is myatua." He recited an incantation, calling theruruby name, and when thekarakiawas ended the bird as noiselessly flew back to the forest. Te Ua said nothing more till the next morning, when he announced that he would leave the place at once, because his owl-god had appeared to him as a warning to return to his home.
Soon after the wandering prophet rode out of Otapawa, word reached thepaby a spy who had been in the British camp that the troops under General Chute were preparing for an advance against the Hauhaus, and that it was probable the hill stronghold, being so close to the white men's base of operations, would shortly be attacked.
All was excitement in thepawhen this became known. The palisading of thepawas strengthened with stout timbers from the forest; trenches and rifle-pits were dug within the walls. The natives worked away like mad, and Bent with them. He had caught the fever of the moment, and in all butskin was a Maori. He was not at all happy, however, at the news that his old regiment, the 57th, was expected to march on Otapawa, and he heartily wished himself far away from these scenes of constant commotion and terror. But for the present he was safer with the Hauhaus than with the men of his own colour and tongue.
Day after day passed, and the Maoris lay behind their strong stockade waiting for the attack. The underground food-stores were well supplied; water was carried in intaha, or calabashes, made by scooping out the soft inside of thehuégourd; bullets were cast and cartridges were made. Then, as no troops appeared, and the scouts who kept constant watch on the forest outskirts reported that there was no sign of immediate action on the part of the enemy, the tension of garrison life relaxed, and the ordinary avocations of thekaingawere resumed.
In a clearing hewn and burnt from the heart of the woods were the cultivation grounds. Here all the able-bodied men of the fort were set to work, turning up the rich black soil and planting potatoes,kumara, andtaro. Planting over, the lengthening days were spent in hunting wild pigs, and in gathering wild honey, which was plentiful in hollow trees in the forests; or in strolling, pipe in mouth, about thepa; playing draughts (kaimu) on themaraein Maori fashion; singing songs and narrating old stories and legends. Night and morning there werelong Hauhau prayers, led by the priest of thepa, old Tukino, who was one of Te Ua's apostles.
Life in this bush-fort presented to the lonelypakehaa picture of barbaric simplicity. Few of the people had European clothing; the men's working garb was just a rough flax mat hanging from the waist to the knees. They lived on the wild foods of the forest until their crops were ready for digging; snaredkaka(parrots) and the sweet-tonguedkorimako, or bell-birds;tui, or parson-birds, and the swarming wood-pigeons, and shot or speared the pigs that abounded in the dense woods. They lived to a large extent, too, onaruhe, or fern-root, which they dug up in the open patches of fern-land; and in the bush they gathered the berries of thehinau-tree, steeped them in water to rid them of their astringency, dried them in the sun, and then pounded them into cakes, which made a sustaining if not very palatable food. Another food-staple waskaanga-pirau, or maize steeped in water until if was quite decayed. "The smell of this Indian corn," says Bent, with an emphasis begotten of unpleasant memories, "was enough to kill a dog. Nevertheless, I had to eat it, and in time I got used to it."
"I had at this time," continues the deserter, recounting his wild days in Otapawa, "no boots, no trousers, no shirt—just Maori flax mats to cover me, and a mat and blanket for my bed. I hadmanaged to procure some needles and thread, together with paper and pencil (I kept up a sort of diary now and then), and one or two other little things which I kept in a kit, thinking that, though I had nothing to sew with the needles and thread, and very little to do with the other belongings, they might come in useful before very long. One of my greatest troubles was the want of salt; as for bread, I had not tasted any for many months."
THE STORMING OF OTAPAWA
British forces attack the stockade—The bayonet charge—Flight of the Hauhaus—Through the forest by torchlight—Doctoring the wounded—TheTangiby the river.
Summerwas on the forest. The beautiful midsummer of Maori Land, with its soft airs and brilliant sunshine, its blaze of crimson blossom on the grand oldrata-trees, and its showering of scented, white, peach-like flowers on the thickets of ribbon-wood. Birds flooded the outskirts of the bush with song; the early morning chantings and pipings and chimings of thetuiand thekorimakomade a feast of melody to which the brown forest men were in no way deaf, for they delighted as much as anypakehain the sights and sounds of the free, wild places, and the call of the creatures of the bush. "Te Waha-o-Tané," literally "The Voice of the Tree-God"—the Song of Nature—they called these morning concerts of the birds; it was their poetic expression in the classic tongue of old Polynesia for the sounds that betokened the dailyawakening to light and life of the deep and solemn forests of Tane-Mahuta. Pigeons,ku-ku-ing to each other, with blue necks and white breasts gleaming in the sun, went sweeping across the clearing on softly winnowing wings, and flapped from tree to tree and shrub to shrub in search of the tenderest leaves, for it was not yet the season of the choicest bush fruits, the big bluetawaberry, the sweet yellowkoroi, and the aromaticmiro.
Life went easily in thepawhen the early harvesting was over. There was little to do but eat and sleep and lie about in the sun, or join in the daily prayers and the procession round theNiupole, where the brightly coloured war-flags hung.[1]There was abundance of food in the camp—potatoes, maize, potted birds, pork, and dried fish sent as presents from the coast tribes. Early morning, and again in the warm, golden evenings, long, straight columns of pale blue smoke arose from the cooking-ovens of the village, and mingled with the thin vapours that crept about the tree-tops; thenlittle clouds of steam curled up as the women, with lively chatter, uncovered thehangisand arranged the well-cooked food in little round flax baskets, which they presently carried off, women and girls in a double line, keeping time with a merry old dance-song—the lilt of the "tuku-kai" the "food-bringing"—as they marched on to the greenmaraeand laid the steaming meal before their lounging lords.
It was all very pleasant and idyllic from the point of view of the brown bushmen. But "Ringiringi," thepakeha-Maori, though he led by no means a hard life now that the heaviest work of the year was over, had an uneasy mind. He was—or had been—a civilised man, and he could not forget; moreover, he often woke from unpleasant dreams. One was a vision of a British regiment charging him with fixed bayonets and pinning him against the palisades of hispa. Fervently he hoped that he would not be in the fort when the troops marched to the assault, and that the Hauhaus would not compel him to level atuparaagainst his one-time comrades, the old "Die-Hards."
This peaceful state of things did not endure for long. In a few days—it was early in the year 1866—the long-expected attack on Otapawa was delivered. Before the troops came, however, the prophet of thepaordered all the old people and most of the women and children to retire to theforest in rear of the fort, and told "Ringiringi" to accompany them. News had just been brought in that the scouts out in the fern country had noticed signs of an impending movement in the British camp. The white man and the tribal encumbrances pushed back into the bush for about three miles, and camped in a quiet little nook by a creek-side, with high, forested hills towering around. The weather now became cold and bleak, and there was little food to sustain the refugees, for the principal stores ofkaihad been left in thepa.
Early one morning the sound of cannon was heard in the distance, then heavy rifle-volleying, followed by desultory firing.
The Queen's soldiers were storming the fort.
Here I may give a more detailed description of the defences of Otapawa than has appeared in the preceding pages, to enable the reader to realise the sort of place the white general was attacking. Curving round under the rear of thepaand partly protecting it on the flanks, flowed the Tangahoé River. The hill-top where thepastood was flat, and the rear dropped precipitously to the Tangahoé. The only access to the interior of the stockade was through a low and narrow gateway. Just within, the entrance was blinded by a short fence, so that an enemy could not charge straight, even if the gate were open, but would have to turn first to the left for a short distance and then to the right, exposedto a fire from between the palisades, before the openmaraewas reached. Thepawas defended by two rows of palisading, with a ditch between, and another shallow trench inside the inner stockade. The outer stockade, thepekerangi, was about eight feet high, and was the lighter fence of the two. The principal timbers were six or eight inches thick, but the stakes between were smaller and did not quite reach the ground; they were fastened with bush-vines and supplejack to the sapling rails that ran along the stockade. The open spaces at the bottom of the fence were for the defenders in the outer trench to fire through. The inner fence, thetuwatawata, was a stouter structure, of strong, green tree-trunks set solidly in the ground, and with openings here and there for rifle-fire. And finally—an important thing in Maori eyes—there was the "luck-stone" of the fort, the greenstonewhatu. This was buried under the foot of a large stockade post, close to the right-hand corner nearest the river, as one approached from thepagate.
It was soon after daylight that thepawas attacked. The assailing British force was assisted by some Colonial troops and a contingent of "friendly" Maoris, orKupapas, chiefly men from the Wanganui district, under the afterwards celebrated bush-fighter, Kepa te Rangihiwinui (Major Kemp). General Chute commanded theoperations. An Armstrong gun was brought to within a short distance of the hill-fort, and several shells were fired into the stockade. Then the general gave the order for the assault.
As the storming party of Imperial soldiers, with bayonets fixed, doubled eagerly up the hill face to the front stockade, the Hauhau chiefs, Tukino and Tu-ahi-pa, cried to their men, crouching in the outer trench with levelled guns:
"Sons! Be steady, and wait till they come close up, then let them have it!"
As the first files of the soldiers dashed up to the stockade, "Puhia!"—"Fire!"—shouted the chiefs, and under the thundering volley many whites fell. Another volley, and then the soldiers were at the stockade, firing through the gaps in the obstruction, and slashing at the ties of the fence. Hand-grenades were carried by some of the stormers, and one of these bursting in the outer trench wounded fierce old Tu-ahi-pa, who had just killed a soldier in the act of cutting away at thepekerangiin an endeavour to force an entrance.
The Maoris did not wait for the bayonet. The wild rush of the maddened troops was irresistible. Leaving seven of their men killed in the trenches and about the palisades, the defenders gathered their wounded and fled. The trenches led to the steep bank overlooking the Tangahoé River. Downthe trenches they ran, and sliding down the bank, they took to the bush, scrambling up along the river-side as hard as they could go. Kepa, with his Whanganui friendlies, pursued the flying Hauhaus and shot two or three.
As Bent had expected, it was his old regiment, the 57th, that stormed thepa. The 57th were led by Lieutenant-Colonels Butler and Haszard, and were supported by the 14th regiment, who were very jealous of the famous old "Die-Hards." Eleven whites fell and twenty were wounded. One of those who received his death-wound was Lieutenant-Colonel Haszard. It was generally reported afterwards that he was shot by Kimble Bent, but this was mere camp gossip. Gudgeon's "Reminiscences of the War in New Zealand," gives currency to the report, but it is strongly denied, and with every appearance of truth, by Bent. When thepawas attacked he was at least three miles away, on the northern side of the Mangemange stream. "It is false to say that I killed my old officer," says he, "or that I ever even fired at him. I never fired a shot against the whites all the time I was with the Hauhaus." This is confirmed by the Maoris, who say that Bent was not allowed to handle a gun in an engagement for fear he might use it against the Hauhaus themselves.
The refugees in the bush-camp with Bent waited anxiously for news of the fight. Was it a victory or a defeat? Soon, the first of the defenders of thepadropped into camp, blood-stained and angry. And then, as the afternoon went on, the rest straggled in. Many were wounded, and seven dead bodies were carried in on hastily made litters of supplejack vines lashed to poles. Then the full story of the battle was told.
It was a sad and angry camp, that remote pocket between the hills. Most of the Hauhaus came in nearly naked, just as they had jumped up when the first shot was fired in the grey dawn. They were desperately sullen and grief-stricken over their dead and the loss of their stronghold, which to them had seemed almost impregnable, for it was the strongest stockaded position they had yet built. Many a dark look was bent upon the white man as he sat by one of the fires, not daring to speak a word.
That night the camp was suddenly abandoned by order of the Hauhau leader, who feared pursuit, not by the Imperial soldiers, who had no relish for "bush-whacking" at night—or, indeed, at any other time—but by Kepa's Government warriors, hereditary enemies of the Taranaki men. Hurriedly packing on their shoulders what few belongings they had managed to save from thepa, they set off in single file through the thick forest, making for the banks of the Tangahoé River, which they reached beforedaylight, and there halted. The wounded who were unable to walk were carried with difficulty through the tangled bush, where it was often necessary to cut away at the supplejacks andakavines, so intricately interlaced and festooned across their path, before a passage could be made for the litter-bearers. There was no moon; it was an intensely dark night, rendered more Cimmerian still by the unbroken roof of foliage overhead. The Hauhaus made torches of pieces of dry pinewood, bound together with scraps of flax torn from their scanty mat garments, and with these they managed to dimly light their way through the forest—a wild and savage band; the warriors in front and rear, their cartouche-belts over their naked shoulders, and guns slung across their backs, or carried in their left hands; in their right they gripped their tomahawks and slashed away at the twining impediments of the jungle.
A camp was made near the banks of the Tangahoé,[2]and here, as soon as it was light, the Hauhaus musteredand reckoned up their losses. There were about three hundred and fifty of them now in camp—men, women and children. With wonderful celerity the forest-men cut a little clearing, and builtwharau, or rough huts, of saplings, thatched with the long fronds of thenikaupalm and themamakutree-fern. Here the wounded men were attended to as well as the primitive methods of the bush allowed. Women were sent out to search the river-banks for flax-plants; the flax-roots were dug up, boiled, and the resultant mucilaginous juice poured over the gunshot and bayonet wounds. This was the Maoris' most favoured method of treating injuries of this character, and it generally bore good results.
"Ringiringi" himself took a hand in the bush-surgery, for he had watched army surgeons at their work, and the Hauhau wounded, though most of them preferred their own people's doctoring, were grateful to the white man for his efforts to ease their sufferings.
A picked band of the fugitives scouted back through the forest and cautiously reconnoitred their captured fort, which had been set on fire by the troops, and was now a heap of blackened ruins. The Government force had by this time passed on to the attack of otherpas, and the scouts re-entered their destroyed fortress and searched for their dead.
The scene in the camp by the Tangahoé waters when the war-party returned from Otapawa was one that "Ringiringi" never forgot. It was the first greattangihanga, or wailing over the dead, that he had witnessed. The people gathered in the middle of the little clearing, and for hours the sound of lamentation rang through the forest, often rising into a wild, heart-breaking shriek as some blanket-draped or mat-kilted woman, her long hair unbound, and her cheeks streaming with tears, cried her keening song for her slain. The chiefstaki'd up and down, weapon in hand, and told of the deeds of those who had fallen; each ended his mournful speech with a chanted dirge. When the song was a well-known one, the whole tribe would join in and sing the lament with an intensity of feeling that made their very bodies quiver. It was the full and unrestrained outpouring of the soul of the savage.