James Cowan

“ Now the ancient owners of the Waipa and Puniu plains are but a remnant and their tales and songs are but the faintest memory; but the old volcano-gods remain, graceful nature-carved monuments, and their poetry no less than their beauty of form should inspire even the matter-of-fact pakeha with something of the Maori love and veneration for the high places of the land. ”

“ There were men having the carcases of pigs strapped to their bodies; one even carried a live young sow, baby-wise in his arms, restraining its desperate struggles and screams by the strength of a powerful arm. There were men mounted on Maori horses, one of them my half-caste Sergeant Southee, decorated with feathers used at the Maori war dance. The whole two companies bristled with Maori spears, tomahawks, double-barrel guns, and so forth. I myself had a magnificent long-handled tomahawk, given to me by one of my men, who picked it up on the battlefield. I gave it to General Cameron. ”

“ The pakeha’s cattle graze over the unfenced, unmarked trenches where scores of brave men were laid to rest. Technically they were rebels, holding stubbornly to nationalism and a broken cause, but the glory of Orakau rests with those rebels. And now that the old racial animosities have disappeared Briton and Maori join in fraternal worship of the men and women who died for a sentiment. A Waikato Regiment has taken for its motto the war-cry of the people whom Cameron defeated but could not conquer, and has inscribed on its colours the words, “Ka whawhai tonu matou, ake, ake, ake!” ”

“ One strives to marshal them into some order, but the most that can be done is to recall the things that chiefly fixed themselves on the youthful mind. There was the home on the hill, on the famous battlefield, the garden with its sweet old flowers, the cherry orchard, the huge almond trees (with flat stones at their feet upon which Maori children long before us cracked those almonds) —trees grown in the old days from the Rev. John Morgan’s orchard—the wild mint that grew in the tiny creek that went rippling down a swampy gully near the big acacia grove ”

“ A far more richly-cultivated country than that which the wandering geologist saw in 1859 stretches in all directions, and the railway engine trails the smoke-banner of the pakeha past Kakepuku’s foot, between him and his hill-wife Kawa. But some relics of Hochstetter’s day remain. The picture-like spires of the English mission church at Te Awamutu and the English and Roman Catholic Churches at Rangiaowhia still rise above the tree-groves, heaven-pointing fingers that carry a suggestion of antiquity all too rare in man’s work in New Zealand. ”

“ Then there is the curious nature-myth which tells how gently-rounded Kawa was Kakepuku’s wife, a story told with much circumstantial detail by the old Maoris of the Waipa and the Puniu, a story over-long to be told here with its tale of battle between the jealous Kakepuku and that mountain Lothario Karewa—now Gannet Island, off Kawhia; one which seems dimly to reveal the geological past of these volcanic peaks.1
This singular beauty of landscape setting cannot but enhance the love of one’s native land in those whose lives are cast within sight of the mountains and hills of the border. ”

“ Yet when the result of all this volcanic wrath broke against us, when the simple crack of our carbines sent line after line of their skirmishers back into the bush, then the third war dance to get the steam up anew became a most laughable affair, particularly as its result was equally pusillanimous with the first two. No! that open ground under the muzzles of our carbines was not at all to the liking of the war-dancers. There they remained in the bush firing at us at long range, their bullets coming amongst us with that asthmatic, overtravelled sound denoting exhaustion of strength. ”

“ Orakau, Kihikihi, Te Awamutu, and Rangiaowhia were then the favoured land of the most delicious fruit that ever this countryside has known. Peach-groves everywhere, the good Maori groves, trees laden with the big honey peaches that the natives called korako because of their whiteness. Tons of peaches grew in those groves, and those wanted were gathered by the simple process of driving a cart underneath and sending one of us youngsters up to shake the branches until the cart was filled with fruit. ”

“ Some skirmishers still lurked between us and that part of Rangiaowhia where the two churches stood; so we took our way in that direction, getting now and then a sight of a Maori and a hearing of their bullets. I was just directing one of my foremost skirmishers to aim at a figure of a man which I could see behind a bush, when something struck me in the attitude as being nerveless like that of a wounded man. I gave the word to stop firing, and, surrounding the Maori carefully, as some sham being dead and then blaze into you, then approached him. ”

“ The ancient Maori story of the Waipa plains and downs, as preserved by the word-of-mouth historians, the old men of the tribes, is a record of land-seeking, exploration, and place-naming by the chiefs who came in the Tainui canoe, and by Rakataura the priest; then a succession of tribal feuds and wars, raids, pa-buildings and pa-stormings, ambush, massacre, slave-taking, and man-eating. That warrior tale need not be gone into here; we take up our story of Te Awamutu with the first introduction of the pakeha interest, and in truth the place was savage and rough enough then. ”

“ The roaring sound of approaching destruction inside the house, the certainty of death outside! What man can bear such wrath of fate?
“Behold! There is one such man! Like an apparition he suddenly stands in front of the door—stands bolt upright—and fires his last two shots at us. Defiance flashes from his eyes even as he sinks under a shower of bullets.
‘The house is one mass of flame—it is near falling—when another Maori bursts from it, gun in hand, and drops pierced by bullets while dauntlessly aiming at the foe. ”

“ Kihikihi settlement was given up that week to a Kingite carnival of feasting and war-dancing and speech-making, and the Maori camp at Rewi’s house and in the neighbouring field rang night and morning with the musical sound of the Hauhau hymns, the service of the Tariao, the “Morning Star,” chanted by hundreds of voices. Some unconventional scenes there were, characteristic of the frontier life. ”

“ To heighten the warlike face which this little fort presented to the world, above the narrow gateway there was [90] set a wooden effigy of a sentry. The figure had been carved by some Maori artist; it represented a soldier, with wooden rifle and fixed bayonet, in the correct attitude of “port arms.” It gave a kind of artistic finish to the “pa o te hoia,” as the Maoris called the Blockhouse, and it loomed very grim and soldier-like in the eyes of us small youngsters from the Orakau farm. ”

“ Six hundred armed Kingites escorted the tattooed king and his chiefs, the lordly Wahanui and his shawl-kilted cabinet of rangatiras, on the pilgrimage to the scenes of the last despairing fights, and there were amazingly animated scenes in the outermost villages of Waikato when Tawhiao came to town, riding grimly in his buggy, and guarded front and rear by his fierce-faced riflemen. The march was by way of Te Awamutu, and the Cavalry band rode out from the township along the Alexandra Road to meet the Kingites and play them through the village. ”

“ Rewi Manga made reply: ‘Kaore au e hohou te rongo’ (‘I shall not make peace.’) Then all the people cried in chorus: ‘Kaore e mau te rongo, ake, ake, ake!’ (‘Peace shall never be made—never, never, never!’) Then stood up Karamoa Tumanako, of Ngati-Apakura, and said: ‘I shall make peace.’ To this Rewi, Hone Teri, and Raureti replied: ‘We are not willing that the people should be made prisoners, but if we leave the pa you make your own peace.’ Some of the people having fired, the pakeha dropped down, and the fighting began again. ”

“ Towards the Puniu, on a lonely hill where a few bluegums mark the site of a long-razed dwelling, there lived an old soldier who had been a gold-digger, and he devised a method of winning safety, in case of an attack, which would naturally suggest itself to an ex-miner. He dug a tunnel from the interior of his little house to a point on the hill-side, concealed with a growth of fern and shrubs; there he considered he could make his escape into the scrub if his assailants burned his house over his head.
There was another pioneer, a veteran of Jackson’s Forest Rangers, now living in Auckland. ”

“ The crew were all picked men of the Ngati-Whawhakia tribe of Waahi, the best canoe-men on the Waikato. The canoe itself was about 70 feet in length, like our waka, the “Tangi-te-Kiwi.” As the King’s canoe came alongside, Miss Gorst and the Minister of the Crown (the Hon. George Fowlds) who accompanied the Dominion’s guests were transferred to her, and away down the glistening river shot the “Wao-nui-a Tane,” easily distancing our canoe. Down the river she flashed at racing speed, her paddles glinting like wet wings in the sun. ”

“ Mr Ashwell’s establishment of the mission station at Te Awamutu marked the end of the cannibal wars and the periodical fighting expeditions of Waikato in the Rotorua and Bay of Plenty districts. The grim old warrior Mokorou became a follower of the missionary, and was baptised by the name of Riwai (Levi) . Most of the people by this time had become tired of wars; there was a general longing for a more settled state of life and a desire to obtain pakeha commodities other than weapons and munitions of war. ”

“ No monthly cheques for butter-fat then; no competing buyers coming round for crops or stock. When a mob of cattle was ready for the market it had to be driven all the way to Auckland; and often there was mighty little profit for all the long hard work. Wheat was one of the staple crops, and in the early years it was threshed by hand with the old-fashioned flail and the grain carted to the nearest flour-mill. There was a water-mill on the Manga-o-Hoi, on the old swamp road between Kihikihi and Te Awamutu, and further south in the Waipa-Waikato country there were several wind-mills. ”

“ This sketch of the history of the Waipa district centreing in Te Awamutu has been written especially with a view to interesting the younger generation of colonists, and the now large population on both sides of the old Maori border, in the uncommonly dramatic story of the beautiful country in which their homes are set. The original settlers to whom many of the events here described were matters of personal knowledge are fast passing away, and a generation has arisen which has but a vague idea of the local history and of the old heroic life on the Waipa plains. ”

“ The nearest farmer neighbour was the farthest-out settler of all—Mr Andrew Kay—and very far out and lonely his home seemed, on the verge of the confiscation boundary. Maoris were more numerous than pakehas; many a savage-looking and tattooed warrior, wearing a waist-shawl—for the Maori had not then taken kindly to trousers—called in at the home from one or other of the large villages just over the border; and native labour was employed at times on the farms. ”

“ We spent several days in our camp on the Rangiaowhia Hill, taking walks and viewing the country. We attended the races, which afforded some good sport, all being managed by the natives, assisted by some pakeha-Maoris of the neighbourhood. They were white men living a Maori life. Some of them had been well-brought-up young men, rather wild perhaps, who had drifted away from home and had taken up an idle life among the natives, getting regular remittances from their people at Home. ”

“ Meanwhile the garrisons in the hill forts had prepared for war, and their sentinels stood on the alert on the tihi or citadel of the terraced strongholds, keeping keen watch for the expected enemy. Harua, one of the chiefs of the forts, had descended to the plain with a small party before the approach of the foe was detected, and although the people on the hill forts called repeatedly to him warning him to return, no heed was given to the long-drawn shouts. At length a keen-eyed sentry saw the glisten of a weapon—perhaps a whalebone mere—in the westering sun ”

“ A few years ago, however, I gathered the story of this semi-mythic giant from two venerable warriors of the Ngati-Maniapoto, on the south bank of the Puniu River. There certainly seems to have been a veritable giant, a man of enormous stature and length of reach with the hand-weapons of those days, six generations ago. This Kiharoa, or “The Long Gasping Breath,” was a chief of the Ngati-Raukawa and Ngati-Whakatere tribes, who in those times owned the Tokanui hills and the surrounding fruitful slopes. ”

“ The taking of a human heart was an ancient custom of the Maori; it was the practice to offer it to Tu and Uenuku, the gods of war.”
This desperate deed was regarded by very many, Maoris as well as pakehas, as a prelude to war, and intense excitement prevailed on both sides of the border. The cavalry troops at Te Awamutu and Cambridge were called out for patrol duty, and the Armed Constabulary posts were strengthened. Additional blockhouses were built, one at Roto-o-Rangi and one at Paekuku, to watch the Maunga-tautari side, and a redoubt was built at the Puniu. ”

“ And over all, from Maunga-tautari’s shapelessly rugged mass along the curving sector to Pirongia’s fairy-haunted peaks, an aspect and air of solitude; a suggestion of mystery and waiting for the touch of man which was to transform that far-stretching waste. ”

“ The mothers and sisters of officers out here are not to suppose that their sons and brothers are equally comfortable; our habits are deemed quite luxurious; our hut is the envy of the whole camp. The rumour has reached us that the Colonial Government, who claim it as their property [the hut was at the mission station] , intend to turn us out, but they will find that rather difficult; possession at Te Awamutu is something more than nine points of law; we know our rights and mean to stand by them. ”

“ The only occasion on which an offender south of the Puniu was brought to justice before the chiefs of Ngati-Maniapoto voluntarily opened the country to Government authority was in 1882, when a long-wanted man was brought into Te Awamutu under circumstances unorthodox and dramatic. The Maori was Winiata, who in 1876 killed a man named Packer, at Epsom, near Auckland. Packer and Winiata had been fellow-servants in the employ of a Mr Cleghorn, and had quarrelled. Winiata, after tomahawking Packer, fled to the King Country, and for six years was safe. ”

“ On our side the green farms of the pioneer settlers, roads, villages—each with its redoubt as a rallying-place in alarm—churches, schools—primitive schools, maybe, in the early stages—the flag of British authority flying. ”

“ In front of Mr Morgan’s mission house at Te Awamutu there was a row of almond trees. These almonds—so seldom seen in a New Zealand orchard now—were widely distributed among the natives; hence the remarkably large trees, up to about thirty feet in height, which grew on the old Maori cultivations at Orakau and elsewhere, and survived long after the land had been confiscated by the Crown and settled by white farmers. ”

“ The celebrated Waiari, a few miles from Te Awamutu and a mile from Paterangi, is an example. Another excellent specimen of Maori [10] military engineering is an old earthwork called Tauwhare, on the Mangapiko, a mile south of Mr Harry Rhodes’ “Parekura” homestead; this is distinguished by a series of enormously deep trenches and high parapets, on the cliffy verge of the river. These forts on the Mangapiko belonged to the Ngati-Apakura tribe. But the King Country, on the south side of the Puniu River, is the land for hill-forts. Every cone, big or little, is trenched and scarped ”

“ A very few of those hard-fighting Rangers are left to recall the [38] incidents of a vanished phase of New Zealand life. Some—like Major Jackson—settled down to pioneer farming, but for others the warpath had attractions irresistible, and long after the battle of Orakau many of the young veterans strapped on their fighting gear again and followed “old Von” to Wanganui and Taranaki to do battle against the Hauhaus. The corps ceased to bear its distinctive name; most of its members returned to their sections of land in the military settlements on the confiscated Waikato land ”

“ One never sees such trees of peaches now. We, the Europeans, must be the cause by the importation of pests from other countries. A large portion of the ground round the hill was carrying a very good crop of wheat, for the Maoris believed in that as a crop, and they used to convert it into flour at the various flour-mills they had. It was of a very good quality, and some of the Waikato mills had a name for [19] the flour they produced, a good deal of which was put on the Auckland market, being taken down the Waikato, via Waiuku and Onehunga. ”