James Cowan

“ 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 the pakeha bullets 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. ”

“ The women and girls of the pa attired themselves in their waist piupiu of coloured flax, decked their hair with feathers, dabbed ochre-paint on their cheeks, and lined up on the marae for the poi-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 merry poi-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 for pakehas. ”

“ A clear, bright, moonlight night of summer; a moon that silvered the sharp hill-tops of the broken Maori country, but left black mysterious shadows in the gorges and river valleys that every few miles cut deeply into the rolling fern lands; valleys full of danger and death, for in their depths crept the war-parties of the savage, laying ambushes, planning murder and mutilation. On a gently sloping rise on the open fern lands a hundred white tents, the camp of the pakeha troops, glittered in the full moonlight. ”

“ 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.
Early one 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. ”

“ 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. [Pg 23] It was a secluded, pretty scene, that village with its neat enclosure, its rows of snug wharés which 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. ”

“ There was small wonder the A.C.'s took Bent for a Maori, for it would have been difficult in the half-light of that bush, at the distance of a few yards, to have detected much resemblance to a white man in the dark, shaggy-headed, bare-footed fellow with an old and dirty blanket strapped around his waist, a ragged jacket about his shoulders, and a red handkerchief tied round his head. ”

“ It was an even lonelier spot than the refuge-camp in the Ngati-Maru country; life here was simple and primitive in the extreme. The people tended their little plots of food-crops, shadowed by the dark forest; they snared and speared the forest birds, they hunted the wild pig, and climbed the hollow trees for wild honey. For nearly two years the pakeha-Maori lived with his little tribe in Rukumoana. ”

“ The Whanganui Kupapas were fully as savage as any wild rebel. No quarter was given to any Hauhau warrior, and no Hauhau thought of asking for any mercy. Of one frightful scene Porter was an eye-witness. After killing and beheading two or three men in a little valley in the forest, the Whanganui Maoris tied flax ropes to their ankles and hung them up to the branches of the trees, eviscerated them and thrust sticks into them to keep them open, just like animals in a slaughter-yard. ”

“ Titokowaru, fearfully stern and menacing, addressed the pakehas.
"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 the hangi!"
"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. ”

“ A warrior orator would rise, weapon in hand, and throwing off his blanket for freedom of action, go bounding along the marae in front of the assemblage, shouting short, sharp sentences as he taki'd to and fro, his athletic figure untrammelled except for a waist-shawl or short dangling mat, fire in his movements, and ferocity in every gesture and in every cry—the embodiment of belligerent Maoridom in its savage prime. ”

“ Kimble Bent lived in this securely hidden place of refuge, and at Paihau village, near by, from the end of 1869 until about 1876. He was now a Maori in all his ways; he planted food-crops and harvested them, snared birds, fished for eels, cut out canoes, and paddled his canoe on the river, joined the Hauhaus in their songs and their sacred chants, and danced with them in their hakas; he wore as little clothing as any native in the camp.
Life did not go too easily with the white man during those days on the Waitara. He was still Rupé's bond-servant ”

“ The whole bush-castle was alive and ready. Every man and boy who could shoulder a gun was in the well-hidden firing lines.
The wet mist slightly lifting as the morning light came, the musketeers presently saw dim figures moving out from the dark forest on their front and right and left flanks. Moving quickly, half running, in a cautious, crouching gait, they flitted from tree to tree, and burnt stump to stump, and nearer and nearer to the stockade. ”

“ The Maori looked puzzled and suspicious, and kept his gun at the ready.
"Listen to me, friend," said Bent quickly; "you are in danger. There are six Government Maoris close behind you, and they want you dead or alive. Now, go on, and go quickly. And don't venture back, lest you die!"
"Ka pai koe!" ("You are good!") was all Hiroki said. Turning, he went quickly at a half-trot along the path, with his gun at the trail, and his wild-looking, mongrel dog close on his bare heels, and in a few moments both disappeared in the dark forest. ”

“ Yet no man probably has lived a wilder life, using the term in the sense of an intimate acquaintance with primeval, passionate savagery, and with the ever-near face of death. He is the sole living white eye-witness of the secret Hauhau war-rites; the only white man who has survived to tell of those terrible deeds in the bush, to tell the story of the last Taranaki war from the inner side—the Maori side.
Bent has reached the age of seventy-three; and now the old man's thoughts go to his boyhood's home in the far-off State of Maine, and he sometimes expresses a wish to reach his homeland again. ”

“ At the edge of the clearing a solitary Maori sentry, a man armed with a revolver, sat, keeping a semi-somnolent guard.
Suddenly, out of the dark forest, appeared a body of armed men. They came in Indian file; they broke into a stealthy run as they left the shadow of the trees; their bodies were bent eagerly forward; they carried their rifles at the trail; they uttered not a sound.
They were the Maori advance-guard of Colonel Whitmore's expeditionary force of four hundred A.C.'s and Kupapas. After weeks of bush-scouting a Government column had at last happened on the Hauhau hiding-place. ”

“ When "Ringiringi" heard of the Pokaikai affair from the fugitives who fled through the bush to Taiporohenui, he felt that the Hauhau prophet had indeed been his good angel, for it was only Te Ua's injunction to return to the main Hauhau camp that had saved him from the vengeful bullets of his fellow-whites. And thenceforward the white man was a dreamer of many a strange dream, and he came to believe almost as implicitly as the forest-men themselves in the omens that lay in the visions of the night, and in warning voices from the spirit-world. ”

“ The Patea was a very winding stream, flowing between high forest-covered banks; its course was impeded by frequent rocky shoals and accumulations of sunken logs, which formed rapids. Aboard the canoe, besides Bent, were Rupé, Hakopa and his niece, and a man named Te Rii, who was an urukehu, or "fair hair."
The white man and his Maori companions paddled along merrily for seven or eight miles, lightening their labours with canoe-songs. Then, in shooting a rapid, the canoe struck a rock, swung broadside on to the swift current, and immediately capsized. ”

“ 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 a pakeha skull to keep a prisoner long. The korero over, food was brought in in freshly plaited baskets of green flax—boiled pork, dried shark (a present from a seaside tribe) , boiled taro and kumara—quite a bountiful meal for a war-time bush camp. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Struggling wearily on through the tangling kareao and the densely growing shrubs, stumbling over logs and splashing through little watercourses, they emerged at last thankfully on to the open country, and soon, bearing their wounded and dying comrades across the dark flooded Wai-ngongoro, were greeted by the joyful cheers of their comrades, European and Maori, under Kepa te Rangihiwinui, who had set out from the Waihi Redoubt to their rescue when daylight broke. ”

“ While the runaway soldier is riding on to the camp of the brown warriors of the bush—a journey which is to be the beginning of a wild and savage life leading him for many a day, like Thoreau's Indian fighter, on dim forest trails "with an uneasy scalp"—there is time to learn something of his previous history and adventures. ”

“ The idea of a New Zealand Government force decapitating its enemies and smoke-drying those heads for purposes of reward is too, too savage for the refined humanitarian to contemplate without a shudder. Nevertheless, these are facts. Many an ugly incident happened in the bush-fighting of those days. It was no kid-glove warfare. In this case the Government Maoris were inflamed by anger and revenge, and indeed some of them were little better than the cannibals they were chasing. And they were wild with a desire to ngaki mate, that is, to seek vengeance, payment, for their dead—blood for blood. ”

“ Early next morning Bent climbed a tall rata-tree near his bivouac and scanned the wild country round. Nothing but forest, forest everywhere—vast waves of deep verdure sweeping away and away as far as the eye could see. No sign of human life—no guiding landmark. ”

“ He sticks his tomahawk back into his girdle, he comes bounding from the corpse, waving his dripping trophy in his hand, swinging it round his head. His fiendish yells ring echoing over the forest clearing.
What is it he flourishes so exultingly?
It is the white man's heart!
This is the young warrior Tihirua, the priest of the burnt sacrifice. He has torn out the manawa of the soldier, as a mawé—an offering to the God of War!
At his waist, buckled to his flax girdle, is a leather pouch, such as was generally used for carrying percussion-caps. Out of this he takes matches—pakeha matches! ”

“ The old Hauhau, warming to the haka, almost yelled the virulent words. The chant broke the white man's drowsing, and he sat up and listened as his companion repeated the vigorous dance-song.
[Pg 97]
"Well, pakeha!" he said; "that is our Waikato ngeri, our war-cry. That is what we think of the Governor—and of all pakehas! I hate all white men! They are thieves and pigs. I could cook and eat them all! All, every one! I would not leave a white-skin alive in this island! They are slaves, taurekarekas—like you! Now go to sleep, for we must rise when the kaka cries." ”

“ 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." ”

“ No drill day after day, no parades, no sentry-go, no buttons to polish, and no uniform to mend—surely this savage life had its compensations. When the Maoris had urgent and laborious work on hand they worked like fury, and compelled—with the spur of a tomahawk—the white man to toil with equal industry, if not willingness. Fort-building, trench-digging and timber-felling were undertakings in which the whole strength of the community laboured from dawn till dark, and the chiefs as hard as the common men and slaves. ”