Frederick Edward Maning

“ I do not wish to dwell upon the dangerous extravagances into which such a policy might and did occasionally run—such as letting off one native cut-throat by treating him as a civilized prisoner of war, and reprieving the next on the ground that he was a poor untutored savage who knew no better, to the utter destruction and confusion of all sense of power, justice, and security—great as was the amount of mischief that they did, but will confine myself to what I believe was the main cause of the almost total failure of this noble and, in the main, plausible policy. ”

“ So Heke lost in this battle many of his best old war chiefs, he was himself badly wounded and defeated, and escaped with difficulty to the fort at Ohaeawae, to which place he was chased by Walker and Te Tao Nui. These misfortunes would not have happened had not Heke been so thoughtless as to handle the bloody spoils of the dead, before the proper ceremonies had rendered them common. But there is nothing in this world so deaf to reason or so disobedient as a warrior—when he is enraged he only listens to his own courage, and, being led away by it, dies. ”

“ A distinguished friend of mine in New Zealand once asked a Maori chief who had fought against us on the Waikato, why, when he had command of a certain road, he did not attack the ammunition and provision trains? "Why, you fool!" answered the Maori, much astonished, "If we had stolen their powder and food, how could they have fought?"
Sometimes two villages would get up a little war, and the inhabitants, after potting at each other all day, would come out of their "pas" in the evening and talk over their day's sport in the most friendly manner. ”

“ But they had mistaken the meaning of the monster review of the Taniwha. It was a leave-taking of his favourite warrior, for the Ngati Kuri were fated to die to a man on the next land they trod. A hundred and fifty men were they—the pick and prime of their tribe. All rangatira, all warriors of name, few in numbers, but desperately resolute, they thought it little to defeat the thousands of the south, and take the women and children as a prey! Having feasted and rejoiced at Tuhua, they sail for Motiti. This world was too small for them. They were impatient for battle. ”

“ Great, indeed, was the fear of the Maori when they heard of these soldiers, for all the pakeha agreed in saying that they would attack any one their chief ordered them to attack, no matter whether there was any just cause or not; that they would fight furiously till the last man was killed, and that nothing could make them run away. Fear came like a cold fog on all the Ngapuhi, and no chief but Heke had any courage left. But Heke called together his people, and spoke to them saying, "I will fight these soldiers, I will cut down the flagstaff, I will fulfil the last words of Hongi Ika. ”

“ A few years ago the madness ran upon horses and cattle; and now young New Zealand believes in nothing but money, and they are continually tormenting themselves with plans to acquire it in large sums at once, without the trouble of slow and saving industry, which, as applied to the accumulation of money, they neither approve of nor understand; nor will they ever, as a people, take this mode till convinced that money, like everything else of value, can only be procured as a rule by giving full value for it, either in labour or the produce of labour. ”

“ Men were rushing in mad haste through the smashed windows and doors, loaded with anything and everything they could lay hands on. The chief was stamping against the door of a room in which he was aware the most valuable goods were kept, and shouting for help to break it open. A large canoe was floating close to the house, and was being rapidly filled with plunder. I saw a fat old Maori woman, who was washerwoman to the establishment, being dragged along the ground by a huge fellow, who was trying to tear from her grasp one of my shirts, to which she clung with perfect desperation. ”

“ I am now describing a regular Maori ruffian of the good old times, the natural growth of a state of society wherein might was to a very great extent right, and where bodily strength and courage were almost the sole qualities for which a man was respected or valued. He was a bullet-headed, scowling, bow-legged, broad-shouldered, herculean savage, and all these qualifications combined made him unquestionably "a great rangatira," and, as he had never been defeated, his mana was in full force. ”

“ One of the slaves, a stout, hungry fellow, seeing the chief's unfinished dinner, eat it up before asking any questions, and had hardly finished when he was informed by a horror-stricken individual—another slave who had remained behind when the taua had moved on—of the fatal act he had committed. I knew the unfortunate delinquent well. He was remarkable for courage, and had signalized himself in the wars of the tribe. (The able-bodied slaves are always expected to fight in the quarrels of their masters, to do which they are nothing loth.) ”

“ He always wore, hanging round his neck, a handsome carved flute, (this at least showed a soft and musical turn of mind,) which was made of the thigh-bone of one of his enemies; and when Heke, the Ngapuhi, made war against us, my friend came to the rescue, fought manfully for his pakeha friends, and was desperately wounded in so doing. Now can any one imagine a more respectable character?—a warrior, a musician, a friend in need, who would stand by you while he had a leg to stand on, and would not eat a friend on any account whatever, except he should be very hungry. ”

“ I have all my life been an admirer of the suaviter in modo, though it is quite out of place in New Zealand. If you tell a man—a Maori I mean—in a gentle tone of voice and with a quiet manner, that if he continues a given line of conduct you will begin to commence to knock him down, he simply disbelieves you, and thereby forces you to do that which, if you could have persuaded yourself to have spoken very uncivilly at first, there would have been no occasion for. ”

“ Doubting our professions of friendship, fearing our ultimate designs, led astray by false friends, possessed of that "little learning" which is, in their case, most emphatically "a dangerous thing," divided amongst themselves,—such are the people with whom we are now in contact,—such the people to whom, for our own safety and their preservation, we must give new laws and institutions, new habits of life, new ideas, sentiments, and information,—whom we must either civilise or by our mere contact exterminate. ”

“ If these two little books should suggest to any careless Englishman that foreigners of dark complexion are not all like either those white men who seem to have got into brown or black skins by mistake, whom one reads about in anti-slavery books and some missionary reports, or those equally tiresome black dummies whom one reads about in another sort of book who have no marked characteristic or intelligible custom except shooting spears and arrows at people for no apparent reason, I shall be glad to have introduced them to an English public ”

“ Now, ladies, I call that a fairish good fight, considering no one is killed on either side. I promise to be good in future and to keep the peace, if people will let me; and indeed, I may as well mention, that from that day to this I have never had occasion to explain again to a Maori how it is that "every Englishman's house is his castle."
(p. 78) "Fair play is a jewel;" and I will here, as bound in honour to do, declare that I have met amongst the natives with men who would be a credit to any nation ”

“ Then, O my children, be brave! then, O friends, be strong! Be brave that you may not be enslaved, and that your country may not become the possession of strangers." And having said these words, he died.
After this, years passed away, and the pakeha increased in numbers, and were spread over the whole country, and traded with the Maori, and lived with them, and the Maori were pleased with them, for they got from them plenty of gunpowder, and tomahawks, and blankets, and all the wealth of the pakeha became theirs, and there was no fighting between them, but all lived together as friends. ”

“ If I had laid hold of the calabash and drank in the ordinary way as practised by pakehas, I would have at once fallen in the estimation of all bystanders, and been set down as a tutua—a nobody, who had no tapu or mana about him; a mere scrub of a pakeha, whom any one might eat or drink after without the slightest danger of being poisoned. ”

“ Now, from the whole female population arises the shrill "haere mai! haere mai!" Mats are waving, guns firing, dogs barking; the chief roaring to "fall in," and form for the war dance. He appears half mad with excitement, anxiety, and something very like apprehension of a sudden onslaught from his friends. In the midst of this horrible uproar off dart three runners. They are not unexpected. Three young men of the taua are seen to tighten their waist-belts, and hand their muskets to their comrades. On go the three young men from the fort. ”

“ This was the speech of Haupokeha—"Have great patience this day, O children and friends; we have said 'Let us fight the soldiers,' and behold the rage of the soldier is at hand; be brave and enduring this day; be victorious; the parent who maintains us is the land—die (p. 249) for the land!—die for the land!" ”

“ The men of the outpost cross the line of march in pretended resistance; they present their guns, make horrid grimaces, dance about like mad baboons, and then fall back with headlong speed to the next advantageous position for making a stand. The taua, however, comes on steadily; they are formed in a solid oblong mass. The chief at the left of the column leads them on. The men are all equipped for immediate action, that is to say, quite naked except their arms and cartridge boxes, which are a warrior's clothes. ”

“ Great is the courage of the Maori people! You have now heard how they made war against the noble people of England, and were not quite exterminated, as many expected they would be. But Heke, their chief, is a very knowing man; he is learned even in European knowledge. I will tell you how he has become possessed of this knowledge, which enabled him to make war successfully against the soldiers. He has a European friend who has been a very great warrior—a very experienced warrior indeed. ”

“ Sacrifices were often made to the war demon, and I know of one instance in which, when a tribe were surrounded by an overwhelming force of their enemies, and had nothing but extermination, immediate and unrelenting, before them, the war chief cut out the heart of his own son as an offering for victory, and then he and his tribe, with the fury of despair and the courage of fanatics, rushed upon the foe, defeated them with terrific slaughter, and the war demon had much praise, and many men were eaten. ”

“ It is true that the Maori question, with all its hopes and fears, has practically come to an end. The bubble of Maori civilization has burst, the idea, that seemed at one time not unlikely to become an actual fact, of a native race becoming truly Christianized and civilized, and prospering side by side with their white brothers, has gone where many a noble and well-fought-for idea has gone before. The true level of the Maori, intellectually and morally, has become tolerably well known ”

“ My friend was all but, or indeed, quite ruined, but it would not have been "correct" for him to complain—his loss in goods being far overbalanced by the loss of the tribe in men. He was, however, consoled by hundreds of friends who came in large parties to condole and tangi with him, and who, as was quite correct in such cases, shot and eat all his stock, sheep, pigs, goats, ducks, geese, fowls, &c., all in high compliment to himself, at which he felt proud, as a well conducted and conditioned pakeha Maori (as he was) should do. ”

“ The war chief of the party who had been attacked by our friends during his absence, was now, with all his men, within an easy day's march. His road lay right through our village, (p. 32) and it was much to be doubted that he would keep the peace, being one of the most noted war chiefs of New Zealand, and he and his men returning from a successful expedition. All now was uproar and confusion; messengers were running like mad, in all directions, to call in stragglers; the women were carrying fuel and provisions into the pa or fortress of the tribe. ”

“ I have seen two or three young men fairly wearing themselves out on a wet day and with bad apparatus trying to make fire to cook with, by rubbing two sticks together, when on a journey, and at the same time there was a roaring fire close at hand at which several rangatira and myself were warming ourselves, but it was tapu, sacred fire—one of the rangatira had made it from his own tinder-box, and blown upon it in lighting it, and as there was not another tinder-box amongst us, fast we must, though hungry as sharks, till common culinary fire could be obtained. ”

“ Men by help of this quality do the most heroic actions, being all the time ready to die of mere fright, but keeping up a good countenance all the time. Here is the secret—pay attention, it is worth much money—if ever you get into any desperate battle or skirmish, and feel in such a state of mortal fear that you almost wish to be shot to get rid of it, just say to yourself—"If I am so preciously frightened, what must the other fellow be?" ”