"Tenei hoki auKi te Ngutu-o-te-Manu."("Here am IIn the Beak of the Bird.")
"Tenei hoki auKi te Ngutu-o-te-Manu."("Here am IIn the Beak of the Bird.")
"Tenei hoki au
Ki te Ngutu-o-te-Manu."
("Here am I
In the Beak of the Bird.")
Then the people would all file into the sacred house and seat themselves on the mat-covered floor, thefighting-men of thepain front. The war-chief took his seat cross-legged on his sacred mat that was spread on an elevated stage at the rear of theWharé-kura, with a short rail in front; this dais wastaputo him. The men all chanted together a wildhakasong, and then sat silent as death, waiting the will of Titoko's war-god and the divination-by-taiaha.
The chief stood, grim and stern, facing his people, his sacred carved hardwoodtaiaha, called "Te Porohanga," in his hand. His wild eyes glittered as he recited in quick, sharp tones his invocation of the war-god Uenuku and the battle-spirit breathed on the wings of thewhakaruabreeze. Then, balancing his long plumed weapon in a horizontal position on his thumb and forefinger, the tongue-shaped point directed at the warriors, he stood stiff and motionless as in a trance. He was awaiting the message of hisatua, the guiding-breath of Uenuku.
Suddenly, apparently of its own volition, and without any visible movement or effort on the part of the chief, the weapon would move. It would slowly, slowly turn—watched with intense, breathless earnestness by hundreds of fanatic eyes—until its tongue pointed so as to indicate some particular man. Ha! 'Twas the breath of Uenuku, deity of blood and fire, that gave it its impulse; Titoko was but the medium of the gods!
The ambuscadeTHE AMBUSCADE.From a sketch by Major von Tempsky in Taranaki, 1866.)
THE AMBUSCADE.From a sketch by Major von Tempsky in Taranaki, 1866.)
The warrior indicated would be questioned by the war-chief, and asked whether his "heart wasstrong" within him. If his answer were deemed satisfactory, he would be told off as one of theTekau-ma-rua, the sanctified advance-guard.
Again and again this strange method of divination was repeated, the balanced weapon indicating—to the perfect satisfaction of the superstitious Hauhaus—the men whom the Maori war-god desired as the instruments of vengeance on the whites. Name after name the priest and chief pronounced, as histaiahapointed along the squatting ranks, until the tale of bare-legged warriors was complete.
Then, when thetaua, or war-party, had filled their cartridge-belts and seen to their weapons, there was a ceremony of a livelier sort. The women and girls of thepaattired themselves in their waistpiupiuof coloured flax, decked their hair with feathers, dabbed ochre-paint on their cheeks, and lined up on themaraefor thepoi-dance, to send the warriors off "in good heart," as the Maori has it.Hakas, too, were danced by the men and boys of the village, and the merrypoi-songs and the loudly yelled war-chants put a brisker jig into the feet of the brown soldiers as they marched out of the settlement and struck into the forest, hunting forpakehas.
As the men of theTekau-ma-rualeft the stockade, Titokowaru himself would loudly farewell them, shouting in his terrible gruff voice the ferocious injunction:
"Patua, kainga! Patua, kainga! E kai mau! Kaua e tukua kia haere! Kia mau ki tou ringa." ("Kill them! Eat them! Kill them! Eat them! Let them not escape! Hold them fast in your hands.")
Should theTekau-ma-ruameet with success in their murderous raids, it was usual for the leader of the party to chant in a loud voice, as the home-palisades were neared, a song beginning, "Tenei te mea kei te mou ki toku ringa," meaning that he had in his hand a portion of the flesh of a slainpakeha. This was called themawé; it was an offering to the god of war. Themawéwas almost invariably a human heart, torn from the body of the first man of the enemy killed in the fight.
On two or three occasions Kimble Bent witnessed the ceremony of the offering of themawé, the ancient rite of theWhangai-hau. The heart (manawa) or other piece of human flesh, was brought into themaraeand given to a man named Tihirua, who was the priest of the burnt sacrifice. He was a young man about twenty-five years of age, belonging to the Ngati-Maru tribe, of the Upper Waitara. "He would take the heart in his hand," says Bent, "and strike a match, or take a firestick and singe the flesh. When it was slightly scorched he would throw it away; it wastaputo Uenuku. This was an ancient war-custom of the Maoris; Titokowaru adopted it because he believed it would cause thepakehasto lose strength and courage, and become unnerved in time of battle. After the fight at Papa-tihakehake, in 1868, I saw this man Tihirua cut a white man's body open outside themarae, tear out the bleeding heart, hold lighted matches underneath it until it was singed, and then throw it away."[5]
A more frightful scene still that the sun looked down upon in that forest den was a cannibal feast. On June 12, 1868, a party of about fifteen Hauhaus from thepa, prowling out in the direction of the Waihi redoubt, cut off and shot and tomahawked a trooper of the Armed Constabulary, a man named Smith, who had incautiously ventured out to look for his horse beyond rifle-range of the redoubt. An Armed Constabulary officer, who happened to be walking across the parade ground at the time, heard and saw the firing, and with his field-glasses distinctly saw the flashing of the tomahawks as the Hauhaus cut the man to pieces. An armed party was immediately sent out at the double, but all they found when they reached the spot was half the body! The legs and hips were lying on the trampled and blood-drenched ground amongst the fern; the head and the upper part of the body down to the waist had been carried off by the savages, who had vanished into the forest as quickly as they had come. The remains of the poor trooper were cooked and eaten by the people in Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu,after the heart had been offered to Titokowaru's god of war by the young priest Tihirua.
Titokowaru, according to Bent, did not eat human flesh himself, but a boastful letter sent by him a few days later to a philo-pakehachief at Mawhitiwhiti, seems to indicate that he was a cannibal of the most ferocious sort, unless, as is quite possible, he was speaking of his people generally when he used the first person singular. In this letter, addressed to Puano, and dated "Wharé-kura, June 25, 1868," he wrote this emphatic warning:
"Cease travelling on the roads, cease entirely travelling on the roads that lead to Mangamanga (Camp Waihi), lest ye be left upon the roads as food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the field, or for me. Because I have eaten the white man; he was cooked like a piece of beef in the pot. I have begun to eat human flesh, and my throat is continually open for the flesh of man.Kua hamama tonu toku korokoro ki te kai i te tangata.I shall not die, I shall not die. When death itself shall be dead, I shall be alive (Ka mate ano te mate, ka ora ano ahau).—FromTitoko."
THE ATTACK ON TURUTURU-MOKAI REDOUBT
Hauwhenua's war-party—A night march—Attack on Turuturu-Mokai Redoubt—A heroic defence—The heart of the captain—Touch-and-go—Relief at last.
Onebiting cold evening in July, 1868, the whole population of the "Bird's-Beak"pagathered on themaraeto watch the departure of a fighting-column launched by Titokowaru against the whites. It was a night fitter for the snugwharéthan for the war-path, but the omens were propitious for the expedition, and the war-god's sacred breeze, thewhakarua, breathed of Uenuku, blew across the forest.
The sixty warriors of theTekau-ma-ruatook the trail with the lilt of the dance-girls'poi-chant in their ears, and the war-choruses yelled by their comrades in the village gritted their battle-spirit. They were fittingly and thicklytapu'd for the night's work,karakia'd over with many hardening and bullet-avertingkarakias, and thoroughly Hauhau-bedevilled for the fight.Some of the warriors, belted and painted, carried long Enfield muzzle-loaders, some double-barrelled guns, some stolen or captured carbines, and a variety of other firearms. Each rifleman's equipment included a short tomahawk thrust through his flax girdle; a few—the storming-party—were armed with long-handled tomahawks, murderously effective weapons in a hand-to-hand combat. Though a winter's night, most of them were scantily clad, as befitted a war-party. Some wore shirts and other part-European dress; some only flax mats and waist-shawls.
Up and down the village square, as the Hauhau captain, Hauwhenua, led his band out into the forest, strode Titokowaru, in a blaze of fanatic exaltation, crying his commands to the warriors. Waving his plumedtaiaha, he shouted, "Kill them! Eat them! Let them not escape you!" And as they disappeared in the darkness he returned to his place in the great council-house, where on his sacred mat he spent the night in commune with his ancestral spirits and in reciting incantations for the success of his men-at-arms.
In single file the Hauhau soldiers struck into the black woods. As they entered the deeper thicknesses of the forest, where not a star could be seen for the density and unbroken continuity of the roof of foliage above them, they chanted this briefkarakia, a charm invoking supernatural aid to cleartheir forest-path of obstructions and smooth their way:
"Wahi taratara e iMe tuku ki te ArikiKia taoro atu e—i,Nga puke puke i noa."
"Wahi taratara e iMe tuku ki te ArikiKia taoro atu e—i,Nga puke puke i noa."
"Wahi taratara e i
Me tuku ki te Ariki
Kia taoro atu e—i,
Nga puke puke i noa."
Away through the bush they tramped, lightening the march with Hauhau chants, until their objective was neared—the little redoubt of Turuturu-Mokai.
One word of warning Titokowaru had given theTekau-ma-ruawhen he chose them for this expedition. Kimble Bent, squatting with his fellows in the big house, had watched the divination-by-taiahaand the demon-like red tongue of the high priest's sacred weapon turning now to one silent warrior, now to another. He heard Titokowaru's injunction to the chosen of the war-god:
"Kaua e haere ki te kuwaha o te pa; kei reira te raiana e tu ana! Ka pokanoa koutou, ka ngaua te raiana ia koutou!" ("Do not charge at the gate way of the fort; there stands the lion! Should you disregard this command, the lion will devour you!")
This caution was designed to restrain the more impetuous of the young warriors, for Titokowaru was a crafty general, and did not believe in wasting good fighting-men. He had learned by dear experience at Sentry Hill in 1864 that to dash straight and blindly at the foe, though valiant enough, was not always sound tactics.
The leader of thetaua, old Hauwhenua, must have been nearly seventy, but he was as active and agile and keen-witted as any young man of his fighting band. He was a product of the ferocious old cannibal times when every tribe's hand was against its neighbour's, and when year after year Waikato armies besieged the stockaded holds of Taranaki. In person he was not the ideal of a Maori warrior, for he was short of stature, a stoutly built man, with short grey beard and no tattoo-marks on his face. But he had fought against Maoris and against whites for many years of his life, and no war-captain surpassed him in the many stratagems of bush-warfare, and particularly in the artful laying of ambuscades.
Marching with the savages of theTekau-ma-ruawas the white man—Charles Kane, or King, called by the Maoris "Kingi," the deserter from the 18th Royal Irish. He was armed with a gun, intending to assist his Hauhau friends in their attack on his fellow-whites. Kimble Bent, it was reported afterwards in thepakehacamps, also accompanied the warriors, but he denies this, asserting that he did not stir from thepaall night; this is confirmed by the Maoris. "Kingi," he says, was a fiercely vindictive man, and swore to have a shot at the white men from whom he had cut himself off for ever.
Emerging from the forest, the warriors stolequietly down over the fern-slopes, and crossing the Tawhiti creek, which wound down through a valley close to the present town of Hawera, they worked round to the front of the little parapeted fort that stood in a singularly unstrategic position on a gently rising hillside, close to the celebrated ancientpa, Turuturu-Mokai. Hauwhenua passed round the word to hide in the fern and remain in cover there as close up to the redoubt as possible, until he yelled the "Kokiri!" cry—the signal for the charge.
The Turuturu-Mokai redoubt was but a tiny work, so small that the officer in charge, Captain Ross, had to live in araupohut built outside the walls. The entrenchment, consisting of earth-parapet and a surrounding trench, was being strengthened by its garrison of twenty-five Armed Constabulary, and the work was not quite finished when the Maori attack was delivered.
The night dragged on too slowly for the impatient and shivering warriors. Some wished to rush the white men'spaat once, but Hauwhenua and his sub-chiefs forbade it till there was a little more light. Several of the younger men began to crawl up through the fern towards the wall of the little fort. The form of a solitary sentry was seen, pacing up and down outside the walls. He could easily have been shot, but the Hauhaus waited.
The sentry was relieved at five o'clock in the morning. The new sentinel was not left in peace verylong. Five minutes after he went on duty, while he was walking smartly up and down to keep warm, he heard a suspicious rustle in the fern. He stopped and peered into the dimness. Yes, he couldn't be wrong; those dark forms crawling towards him through the fern were Maoris! He raised his carbine and fired, then turned and raced for the redoubt, shouting out, "Stand to your arms, boys!"
The darkness—it was not yet dawn—was instantly lit up by the blaze of a return volley, and, with a fearful yell, the host of half-naked Maoris leaped from the fern and rushed for the redoubt.
The white soldiers, roused by the firing, rushed from their tents and manned the parapets and angles of the work, so furiously assailed by the swarming forest-men.
Captain Ross had leaped from his sleeping-place at the first alarm. He ran out from hiswharé, armed with his sword and revolver, and clothed only in his shirt. He just managed to cross the ditch by the narrow plank-bridge ahead of the enemy, who missed the plank in the darkness.
The captain quickly called for volunteers to defend the gate.
"I'll make one, sir!" cried Michael Gill, an old Imperial soldier.
"All right, Gill," said the captain; it was pitch dark, but he knew Gill's voice. "Any more?"
Yes; they rushed for the gate—Henry McLean,George Tuffin, Swords, Gaynor, and Gill. The others manned the two flanking angles.
Private George Tuffin, one of the garrison—who is still alive, in Wanganui—was up with the others at the first alarm. He fired his revolver into the mass of Maoris outside the gateway; then, dropping the revolver, he got to work with his carbine. He had fired one shot out of his carbine, and stooped under the shelter of the parapet to slip in another cartridge. Just as he was rising to fire again he was struck in the head by a Maori bullet, and fell to the ground unconscious. He could not have been in that condition very long, for when he came to, Captain Ross was still alive and fighting to keep the Maoris out of the gateway.
"Hello, old man!" cried the captain; "are you hit?"
Young Tuffin lay there, unable to reply.
"Where's your rifle?" asked the captain; he was reloading his revolver while he spoke.
Tuffin pointed to where his gun was lying on the muddy ground beside him.
"Come on, boys!" yelled the captain; "they're coming in at the gate!"
Those were the last words Tuffin heard his commanding officer utter. A few moments later, in that fearful confusion of attack and defence in the darkness, the gallant Ross was struck down, defending the gateway to the end with his sword.
A Hauhau charged right into the redoubt, and killed the captain with his long-handled tomahawk. Making a clean cut in his breast, he tore out the heart, a trophy for the terrible ceremony of themawéoffering. Then he darted back as quickly as he had come, yelling a frightful cry of triumph. And another heart was torn from a white man's body even before it had ceased to beat. This was the corpse of Lennon, the keeper of the store and canteen. He had been killed alongside his little hut, just outside the redoubt, when the fight began. He was tomahawked almost to pieces and his heart cut out.
And in the very midst of that battle in the dark the pagan ceremony of thewhangai-hauwas performed, the oblation to the god of war. The priest of the war-party offered up one of thepakehahearts—some Maoris say it was Captain Ross's, although Lennon's would really be the heart of themata-ika, the "first-fish" slain, which was usually the one offered to the gods. The savagetohungalit a match (he carriedpakehamatches for this dreadful purpose), and held the bleeding heart over the flame. Immediately it began to sizzle and smoke, he cried in an exultant voice, "Kei au a Tu!" ("I haveTu!"), meaning that Tu, the supreme god of war, was with him, or on his side. Then he threw down the burnt sacrifice, and, clutching his long-handled tomahawk, rushed into the fight again. The captain's heartwas discovered after the fight was over lying on the blood-stained ground outside the trench.
For two hours it was desperate work. The Hauhaus charged up to the parapets, and many of them jumped into the ditch, whence they attempted to swarm over the walls, but were beaten off again and again by the little garrison. The endeavour to rush in force through the gateway of the redoubt did not succeed. The impulsive young men, however, disregarded Titokowaru's warning about the "lion" in the path, and it was in this tomahawk charge at the fort gate that most of those who were killed fell.
After the captain's death Gill and McLean took up their posts in one of the angles, and fought there till daylight. Their Terry carbines gave them a good deal of trouble. After a few rounds had been fired the breech-blocks jammed, and were difficult to open and close.
Unfortunately, all hands did not show equal bravery. At least four—Michael Gill says five—men bolted for the redoubt, some of them jumping from the parapet, soon after the fight began. Gill called to them to stop and help to protect the wounded. But they fled and left their comrades.
One of the pluckiest men in the redoubt was Cosslett Johnston (now of Hawera), a military settler. Mr. Johnston's intrepid example put fresh courage into his despairing comrades on that terriblemorning. Michael Gill was an old Imperial soldier; he had served in the 57th Regiment, the old "Die-Hards"—Kimble Bent's regiment—and his coolness did a lot to steady his fellow-soldiers. Gill was recommended for the Victoria Cross for his bravery, but did not get it. He, like his comrades, certainly deserved that decoration or the New Zealand Cross, but did not get either.
When the Captain fell, Tuffin crawled, more than half-dazed with his wound, to one of the angles. There he received four more bullet wounds. In the angle there were five other men; of these two were killed.
Failing in their first attempt to take the redoubt by assault, some of the Hauhaus took post on the rising ground a little distance off, where they could fire into the work, and one after another the defenders dropped, shot dead or badly wounded. The ditch was full of Maoris. Only the narrow parapet separated them from the whites, and they yelled at the defenders and shouted all the English "swear-words" in their vocabulary. Thepakehas"talked back" at them, says one of the few survivors of the heroic garrison, and cried "Look out! The cavalry are coming!" but the Hauhaus only laughed and said, "Gammon,pakeha—gammon!" Then, finding that any Maori who showed his head above the parapets was quickly shot down, they started to dig away at the wall with their tomahawks,and succeeded in undermining the parapet in several places. By this time half the garrison had been shot down. One of the first killed was Corporal Blake, who fell in one of the angles. Private Shields, the captain's orderly, was killed in one of the angles; Private George Holden was shot dead behind the parapet; Gaynor was killed at the gate. Then Sergeant McFadden fell while bravely helping to hold an angle against the swarming enemy.
Private Alexander Beamish, who fell mortally wounded while helping to defend an angle of the fort, told his brother, John Beamish (now a resident of Patea), who was fighting by his side, just before he died, that he believed it was a white man who shot him. Bent says that the deserter Kane, while taking part in the attack, was wounded in the right cheek by apakehabullet, and then retired from the fight. John Beamish was struck by an Enfield bullet and severely wounded about the time his brother was shot, but though then unable to shoulder his carbine, he opened packets of ammunition and passed cartridges to Gill, the only unwounded man in his angle of the redoubt, until the end of the combat.
Here is John Beamish's story of the fight, as he told it to me some years back:
"The Maoris surrounded the redoubt and tried again and again to swarm over the wall, and they kept it up till broad daylight. We could not seemuch at first but the flashing of guns all around us. Presently some of the Maoris set fire to thewharésoutside the redoubt. They were armed with muzzle-loading Enfields and shot-guns, and we could now and then see the ramrods going up and down as they rammed the charges home. Then sometimes we would see the flash of a tomahawk and catch a glimpse of a black head above the parapets. One of our troubles was that there were no loopholes in the parapets, otherwise we could have shot many of the Maoris in the ditch. We were exposed to the fire of the enemy on the rising ground close by, and this was how so many of the men in our angle were hit.
"Then they started to dig and cut away at the parapets with their tomahawks. We could plainly hear them at this work, and I heard one Maori ask another for a match. I suppose he wanted to try and fire our buildings inside the walls. One after another our men dropped, shot dead or badly wounded. I had very little hope of ever getting out of the place alive. But we well knew what our fate would be if the Maoris once got over the parapets, so we just put our hearts into it and kept blazing away as fast as we could load. We had breech-loading carbines which had to be capped. One incident I remember was a black head just appearing over the parapet in the grey light, then came a body with a bare arm gripping a long-handled tomahawk.Quietly the Hauhau raised himself up, and was just in the act of aiming a blow at one of our men who did not see him when we fired and brought him down.
"My younger brother was fighting not far from me. He fell mortally wounded, and before he died he told us he believed it was a white man who shot him. I was wounded about the same time. An Enfield bullet struck me in the left shoulder. It took me with a tremendous shock, just as I was stooping down across a dead man to get some dry ammunition. The bullet slanted down past my shoulder-blade and came out at the back. This incapacitated me from firing, or, at any rate, from taking aim, so I had to content myself with passing cartridges to Michael Gill—one of the men in my angle—who kept steadily firing away, and with levelling my unloaded carbine as well as I could with my right hand whenever I saw a head bob up above the parapet. When the fight ended Gill was the only unwounded man in our angle of the redoubt; out of the six who manned it when the alarm was given, three were shot dead and two were wounded. One man, George Tuffin, was wounded in five places.
"Daylight came, and those of us who could shoulder a carbine were still firing away and wondering whether help would ever reach us. We knew they must have heard the firing and seen the flashes of the guns at Waihi redoubt, only three miles away.Suddenly the Maoris ceased firing and retired into the bush. Their sentries had given them warning that troops were coming. As they dropped back we rushed out of the redoubt and gave them the last shot, and then Von Tempsky and his A.C.'s arrived at the double, and the fight was over. My wound kept me in the hospital for five months. The only wonder is that any of us ever came out of that redoubt alive."
The sun had risen before the fight was over. A few minutes more and the Hauhaus would have succeeded in undermining the parapets sufficiently to force an entrance, and the defenders would have fallen to the last man, and the whole of their arms and the post-supplies have been carried off to Titokowaru's fort in the forest.
The little redoubt was a frightful sight. Dead and wounded men were lying all over the place in pools of blood; two of them were shockingly mutilated with tomahawks. Out of the twenty-one defenders of the redoubt, ten were killed and five were wounded; only six came through the fight without a wound.
Hauwhenua withdrew his disappointedTekau-ma-rua, carrying those of their wounded who were unable to walk, and marched back to Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu. The "lion" of Titoko's speech, though sore wounded, had in truth closed his mouth on some of their most daring braves. Takitaki, abold, athletic young Hauhau, who was in theTekau-ma-rua, was one of those who attacked Captain Ross at the gateway. The Captain shattered Takitaki's left arm with a bullet from his revolver before he fell.[6]
THE KILLING OF KANE
Bent and Kane brought before Titokowaru—Kane's flight—Captured by the Hauhaus—A traitor's end.
Whenthe renegade Charles Kane, or "Kingi," fled from the Turuturu-Mokai fight after receiving his bullet-wound, he made his way to the Turangaréré village, and announced that he would not return to Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu. The Maoris, however, took him back to Te Ngutu, and he and Kimble Bent were brought before Titokowaru, who was sitting in theWharé-kura. Bent now appears, from his own account, to have wearied of his terrible life amongst the Hauhaus.
The war-chief fiercely questioned "Kingi," whom he suspected of an intention to return to the European camps.
Then turning to "Ringiringi," he said:
"E Ringi, speak! Do you ever think of leaving us and running away to thepakehas?"
Bent confessed that he now desired to return to the men of his own colour, adding. "But I will never take arms against you."
Titokowaru glared at his white man, then he went to the door of the council-house and called to the people in themaraeto enter.
When they were all in the bigwharé, Titokowaru ordered them to close the door and the sliding-window.
In the gloom of the praying-house the people sat in terrible silence, and the white men trembled for their heads.
Titokowaru, fearfully stern and menacing, addressed thepakehas.
"Whakarongo mai!Listen to me. If you persist in saying that you wish to return to the white men, it will be your death! I will kill you both with my tomahawk, now, in this house, unless you promise that you will never leave the Maoris! I will slay you, and your bodies will be cooked in thehangi!"
"Ringiringi," in real fear of his life, made answer that he would remain with the Hauhaus if Titoko would protect him, for he dreaded some of the chief's fiercer followers. "Kingi," too, hastened to give the required promise—a promise which he, unlike his fellow-pakeha, broke at the first opportunity.
When the people had left theWharé-kura, Titoko spoke to "Ringiringi" in a more friendly and reassuring tone, saying that he wished thepakehato remain with him in thepa, and that, in order to assure his life against the wilder spirits in the tribesgathered under his command, he wouldtapuhim, as Te Ua had done two years before. For histapu, he explained, was a far more effective and binding one than that of the Opunake prophet; a spell that no man dared break on pain of death.
Not many days later the Irish traitor "Kingi" deserted from thepa, taking with him a watch, a revolver, and some clothing which he had "commandeered" from the natives.
For some little time nothing was heard of him. At length the warriors of theTekau-ma-rua, while out scouting one day in the direction of Turangaréré, discovered on the track leading to the settlement a note addressed to the white soldiers' commander at Waihi, stating that the writer (Kane) and Bent were at Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu, awaiting a favourable opportunity to tomahawk Titokowaru, cut off his head, and bring it in to the Government camp. Kane was evidently clearing the way for his return to civilisation, and this note—which he had left in a spot where he hoped the white troops would come across it—was obviously intended to serve as a palliative in some measure of his military offences.
The deserter's letter was brought to the "Bird's-Beak"pa, where it was translated by an English-speaking Maori. "Ringiringi," questioned, disclaimed any knowledge of it, and as to the incriminating reference to himself, he assured Titokowaru that "Kingi" was lying.
Titokowaru immediately despatched the white man and four armed Maoris after "Kingi." They found him at Te Paka village; he disappeared that evening, but was later caught by a party of seven Maoris and confined in araupohut at Te Paka.
They killed him there that night.
Bent was lying half-asleep in awharéin the settlement when the seven Maoris, who had brought "Kingi" in, entered, in an intensely excited state, sat down, and asked him if he had heard of the judgment on his fellow-white. Then one of them said, "Kingi is dead."
Another man, leaning forward until his passionate face almost touched Bent's, exclaimed:
"Ringi, had you done as Kingi has done, we would not have killed you in the ordinary way. Your fate would have been burning alive in the oven on themarae!"
Then the seven, after a conversation between themselves in a strange language the white man could not understand, listen as he would—the Maoris sometimes improvise a secret tongue, by eliding certain syllables in words and adding new ones—the executioners rose and left thewharé.
It was not until next day that "Ringiringi" learned the details of the deserter's end.
"Kingi," after being given a meal, was left alone in his hut, but was watched through crevices in the wall until he sank to sleep, fatigued with hisenforced tramp. He lay with a blanket partly drawn over his head. One of the Hauhaus, a man named Patumutu ("The Finishing Stroke"), stole quietly into thewharé, and attempted to deal him a fatal blow with a sharp bill-hook. The blow, however, only gashed his nose, and he leaped up and grappled with his assailant.
The Maoris outside, hearing the noise of the scuffle, rushed in. An old man—Uru-anini of the Puketapu—seized the white man by the leg, brought him down, and dealt him a terrible blow with an axe as he lay on the floor.
The other Hauhaus completed the work with their tomahawks, and the dead body of the renegade Irishman, cut almost to pieces, was dragged out and thrown into a disused potato-pit on the outskirts of the village.
ADVENTURES AT TE NGUTU-O-TE-MANU
In the midst of dangers—Bent stalked by Hauhaus—Old Jacob to the rescue—"Come on if you dare!"—The white man's new Maori name—Government forces attack and burn Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu—A new use for hand-grenades.
WhenBent returned to the "Bird's-Beak" stockade he found himself in a position of extreme peril.
The Hauhaus, excited by the news of Kane's treachery and summary execution, were fiercely hostile in demeanour, and some of the young bloods came dancing about the white man, as he walked into the village, with menacing shouts, emphasised by savage thigh-slapping,pukana-ing, and grimacing with out-thrust tongue and rolling eyes, and similar demonstrations of derision and hatred.
A council of the people was held on themarae, and the killing of Kane was narrated in minutest and barbaric detail. Then several Hauhaus rose in turn and demanded the death of "Ringiringi," on the principle that allpakehaswere unreliable, and that it was a foolish policy to keep one in the camp who might sooner or later betray them. "Let uslead him outside thepaand shoot him," proposed one truculent young warrior of theTekau-ma-rua.
"Kaati!" cried Titokowaru, in his great roaring voice, as he rose with his spear-staff in his hand. "'Ringiringi' is mypakeha. I havetapu'd him, and I have told him that his life is safe. If you want to shoot him—well, you must kill me first!"
Then, turning to the white man, the war-chief took him by the hand, led him to his own house, and shut the people out. He told "Ringiringi" that in the present temper of the tribesmen he had better remain as much as he could in thewharé, and that, at any rate, he must not venture far from the door unless he, Titoko, were with him or in view.
Some days later, "Ringiringi," imagining from the more settled and pacific attitude of the Hauhaus that he no longer ran any risk in taking his walks abroad, wandered a short distance outside the stockade into the forest, and, seating himself on a fallen tree-trunk, filled his pipe for a quiet smoke. Suddenly he heard a cough. He looked about him, but saw no one.
"Who's there?" he called out.
A voice close above him replied, "It is I—Hakopa."
"Ringiringi" looked up quickly, and saw an old tattooed man named Hakopa (Jacob) te Matauawa, perched on the lowest branch of arata-tree, with a double-barrelled gun in his hand. Hakopa was atall, lean, straight old fellow, a veteran of the ancient fighting type. Bent had a thorough admiration for him as a man of singular courage, without the braggadocio of the youngtoas; Hakopa had for a long time exhibited a kindly leaning towards the white man, and had been a firm friend of his all through the troubled days in thepa.
"Quick, quick!" he said, in a low, cautious voice. "Hide yourself, Ringi! When you walked out of thepaI heard two men who were watching you say that they would follow you up and kill you as they had killed Kingi. They went to theirwharésfor their weapons, and I followed you quickly to warn you. I saw you standing there, and climbed on this branch to see what those men are doing.E tama!Conceal yourself! They are coming."
The white man hastily selected a hiding-place. He lay down behind a big log near by, a fallenpukatea-tree; the log and the creepers and ferns that grew about it quite concealed him from the view of any one approaching from thepa.
Hardly had he hidden himself than two villainous-visaged young Hauhaus walked quickly along the track from thepagateway. Both swung tomahawks as they came, and one carried at his girdle a revolver—trophy taken from some slain white officer.
Seeing Hakopa descending from his tree-perch, they stopped and asked:
"Where is thepakeha? Did you see him pass?"
"Why do you ask?" said the old man.
"We have come to kill him," replied one of the men. "Where is he?"
Hakopa instantly put his cockedtuparato his shoulder and levelled it at the foremost of the Hauhaus, the man with the revolver.
"Haere atu!" he said sharply. "Go! Leave this spot at once, or I will shoot you. 'Ringiringi' is my friend."
The old fellow's determined air quite overawed thepakeha-hunters, and they sulkily and silently returned to thepa.
Jacob watched them off, and when the white man had risen from his hiding-place he escorted him back to thepa, walking in front of him with his gun cocked, on the alert for any attack on his protégé. He took "Ringiringi" to his house, and then reported the affair to Titokowaru.
The chief showed genuine anger. He assembled the fighting-men, and sternly ordered them to molest the white man no more. "If you harm him," he said, "I shall leave thepaand return to my own village. Listen! 'Ringiringi' is henceforth mymoko-puna—my grandchild—and I now give him another name, the name of one of my ancestors. His name is now Tu-nui-a-moa."
And behind Titokowaru leaped up old Hakopa, a bright tomahawk in his hand. Making sharp, quickcuts in the air with his tomahawk, he cried, as he danced to and fro:
"Yes, and if any one attempts to touch the white man, he will have to kill me too! Kill me and Titokowaru! Who will dare it? Come on, come on!"
Thereafter Bent was not molested. He went by his new name, and "Ringiringi" he was called no more; at any rate, not by Titokowaru's tribe.
The "Bird's-Beak" soon received its baptism of blood and fire. Colonel McDonnell, with a force of about three hundred Armed Constabulary and volunteers, under Majors von Tempsky and Hunter, attacked thepaon August 21, 1868. The whites charged right into the village under a heavy fire, and the Maoris fled to the bush, losing several killed.
Bent, fortunately for himself, was not in thepa; he had gone over to the Turangaréré settlement, a few miles away, to procure gunpowder and paper for the manufacture of cartridges, and most of the other men were out cattle-shooting in the bush. Titokowaru retired to his praying-house when the firing began, and sat there muttering incantations, and it was only with great difficulty that he was persuaded by his people to leave thewharéand retire. The great house was set fire to by Colonel McDonnell when thepawas captured, and the sacredwharé-kura, where the high-priest had so often exhorted his people and with enchantedtaiahatold off the warriors of theTekau-ma-rua, was soon amass of flames. The Government troops lost four men killed and eight wounded in the engagement. Most of these casualties occurred in the march back to Waihi, which became a heavy rear-guard action, for the main body of the Hauhaus came up in time to attack the troops briskly as they retired through the thick bush. Then they drew off and returned to their half-demolishedpa, to weep over their dead and the ashes of their greatwharé-kuraand rebuild their ruined homes.
The troops had placed a number of hand-grenades, small shells filled with powder, in the thatch of thewharéswhen they fired the village; but some of the houses were not destroyed, and on the return of the Hauhaus, they found some of these grenades unexploded. The dangerous shells were given to Bent to handle. He pulled out the fuses—which the Maoris calledwiki, or wicks—and emptied the precious powder into flasks. In this way a sufficient quantity of powder to make eighteen gun-cartridges was obtained from each hand-grenade.
A BATTLE IN THE FOREST; AND THE DEATH OF VON TEMPSKY
The second fight at Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu—Titokowaru's prophecy—Tutangé and his sacred war-mat—Bent's narrow escape—Government forces defeated—How von Tempsky fell—A terrible retreat—Colonial soldiers' gallant rear-guard fight.
Earlyone warm spring afternoon in 1868, when the vast forest lay steeped in calm and Taranaki's sentry-peak rose like a great ivory tent out of the soft blue haze that bathed its spreading base, the sharp, cracking sound of rifle-shots broke the quiet of the wilderness.
The shots came from the mountain side of "The Beak-of-the-Bird," the opposite one to that by which the white troops had advanced the previous month. Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu was being taken in the rear this time. Colonel McDonnell had set out from the Waihi Redoubt before daylight in the morning, with a force of about two hundred and sixty whites, composed of three divisions of Armed Constabulary (many of them ex-Forest Rangers), the newly joined Wellington Rifles and Rangers, anda few veteran volunteers, besides about a hundredKupapas, the friendly Maoris from the Whanganui and Ngati-Apa tribes under Kepa te Rangihiwinui. Fording the swift Wai-ngongoro River (the "Waters-of-Snoring"), the Colonel's force, guided by the woman Takiora, marched through the native village of Mawhitiwhiti, which was found deserted, then turned into the dense forest, searching for the Hauhau stronghold, which was now reported to be at Te Rua-ruru ("The Owl's Nest"), situated somewhere in the rear of Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu. A disastrous search, for it ended under the palisades of the "Bird's-Beak," the savage beak that closed savagely on many a gallantpakehabefore the sun went down in the western sea that day.
McDonnell had hoped by his early start to take the Hauhaus by surprise. But wary old Titokowaru was seldom caught napping.
On the previous night—as the old warrior Tutangé Waionui tells me—Titokowaru gathered all his men in the big house (wharé-kura), which had now been rebuilt. Then, when the Hauhau prayers and chants were over, the chief arose and cried:
"E Koro ma, kia tupato! He po kino te po, he ra kino te ra!" ("O friends, be on your guard! This is an evil night—a night of danger, and the morrow will be a day of danger!")
This oracular warning seemed to the superstitiouspeople to be a message from the gods, of whom Titokowaru was the living medium. That night was a night of preparation for battle. Armed men slipped out along the trail in front of the stockade, and lay in wait for the expected enemy.
Long the grim old chief sat on his sacred mat that night in thewharé-kura, his enchanted tongue-pointedtaiahalying in front of him.Karakiaafterkarakiahe recited in a low monotone, incantations and charms, ancient pagan and latter-day Hauhaukarakia, for success in the conflict that he felt was to envelop hispaon the morrow in a ring of smoke and blood.
In his own little thatchedwharéthat day sat Kimble Bent, thepakeha-Maori. He, too, was busy, squatting there on an old flaxwharikimat. By his side were a keg of gunpowder and a bag of bullets, and in front of him a pile of oldpakehanewspapers and leaves torn from looted books. He was making cartridges for the Hauhaus. Round a wooden cartridge-filler he deftly rolled a scrap of paper, forming a cylinder, which he tied securely with thread or with fine strips of flax; then, withdrawing the filler, he poured in the gunpowder. The cartridges loaded, he slipped them into the cartouche-boxes and holders, a number of which had been brought to thewharéby the men of theTekau-ma-rua; when the boxes were full, the remainder of the ammunition he stored carefully in a large flaxbasket. Most of the receptacles for the ammunition—hamanuthe Maoris called them—were primitive affairs smacking of the bush. In size and shape they resembled the ordinary military leather cartouche-boxes, but they were simply blocks of light wood, generallypukateatimber, slightly curved in shape so as to sit well on the body when strapped, and neatly bored with from ten to eighteen holes, each of which held a cartridge. A flap of leather or skin—in the earlier days it was often a piece of tattooed human skin—covered the cartridges; and straps of leather or of dressed and ornamented flax were attached to thehamanu, which were buckled or tied round the waist or over the shoulders. A well-equipped fighting-man usually wore twohamanu, by belts over the shoulders; and at his girdle he carried his pouches for bullets and percussion-caps.
Such was the lone white man's occupation in the forest stockade that day before the looming battle.
Next morning, after the first meal of the day had been set before the warriors by their women and had been quickly eaten, the war-chief came out of his house,taiahain hand, and walked out on to the village square in front of the sacred praying-house.
"Friends," he cried, as he stood there on themarae, "I salute you! You have eaten and are content; for the proverb says, 'When the stomachis filled, then man is happy and satisfied' ('Ka ki te puku, ka ora te tangata'). Now, rise up and grasp your weapons, for I wish to see you dance thehakaand thetutu-waewaeof war."
When the men were assembled on the parade ground, in their dancing costume of a scanty waist-mat, Titokowaru cried in a loud voice and prophesied, saying:
"Kaore e tu te ra, kaore e titaha te ra, ka tupono tatou kia to tatou whanaunga"—of which the meaning is, "The sun will not have reached its zenith, the sun will not have declined, before we have joined issue with our relatives"—the white soldiers.
"Then," says Tutangé, "we danced ourhakawith the fire of coming battle in our hearts, and we hardened our nerves for the fight. For we knew that Titoko was a true and powerful prophet (poropiti whai-mana,tino kaha), and we believed that that day would see blood shed again around Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu."
Tutangé Waionui, who was now to distinguish himself as a daring young warrior, was but a boy. He was not more than fifteen or sixteen years old, but was a strong, athletic youngster, full of fire and courage, and as agile as a monkey. He was of themomo rangatira, or "blue blood" of Taranaki, tracing a direct descent through a line of high chiefs and priests from Turi, the great sailor who navigated his long mat-winged canoeAoteato the black iron-sandbeach of Taranaki from the far-distant Hawaiki, the beautiful palm-fringed island of Rangiatea (Raiatea, as its people call it now) in the Society Group. His father, the old warrior, Maruera Whakarewataua, had carefully schooled him in the business of arms, the handling of the spear-tonguedtaiaha, most beautiful of Maori weapons, the quick and fatal use of the tomahawk, both the terrible long-handled one and the short hatchet, orpatiti, as well as the musket and shot-gun and rifle of thepakeha. So here, now, was young Tutangé on his first war-path.
That morning, when the very air seemed full of rumours of battle and death, Tutangé was girded with the sacred war-mat, themaro-taua.