CHAPTER III. A HODGE-PODGE OF REMINISCENCES.
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CHAPTER III.
A HODGE-PODGE OF REMINISCENCES.
ON my leaving Waikato at the time of the anticipated attack by the Ngapuhis, I went to reside at Te Horo, a settlement on the Waipa, where I was living when the Waikatos mustered to follow the Ngapuhis. During their absence I determined to shift my quarters, and made arrangements with other natives to bring canoes and take my property. I had nearly cleared the house of the moveables, and sent the canoes away loaded, when I got a hint from a pakeha living near me that it was intended to rob me. Very soon after, I perceived a posse of about a dozen natives approach the gate; three entered and the rest remained outside. On the three entering the house, after the usual salutations, I asked them their object. I should mention that as soon as I got the hint that they were coming, I provided myself with a musket, buckled a cartridge box on, placed cartridges between the fingers of my left hand after the most approved native style, and suspended a dirk stick from my wrist. This latter article was the terror of the natives. It had been a sword stick and got broken, upon which I shortened it sufficiently to permit its being carried in the trousers' pocket; it was one of those that had the dirk thrown from the end. Seeing me so well prepared for them, they became confused and said that, having heard that I was about leaving their settlement, they had come to see me before I went away. I told them that I was well aware of their intention, and suggested they should weigh the matter well before
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acting for the first person who attempted to take anything or to molest me I would not hesitate to shoot; and that, before they could dispatch me, I would have two or three more of them. They went on excusing themselves by saying that they had merely come to see me before my departing and leaving the house, but on their way out I heard them say to those who had remained outside that it wouldn't do, as I was prepared for them. They had not left me long when I received another message informing me that they were going in pursuit of my canoes to strip them, and I immediately started by land to join the party in charge, a European. Passing the end of the pa in which the natives resided, I found them launching a canoe; but on seeing me they desisted, and asked me where I was going. I told them I was going to shoot ducks: "Ah, ah," they said, "you think to shoot ducks that can't fly!" I went on, overtook my canoes, and informed my servant of the intended muru, or robbery; telling him in Maori, to shoot the first man who touched anything in the canoe, then to throw his musket into the water and defend himself with his cutlass. A native lad who had followed me heard my instructions, and rushed back to his people, who, of course, as I had expected, had broken into and robbed my house. It was not, however, the party I had seen; they had, on my passing them, desisted from launching their canoe, and gone up to the house; but, on seeing how little property there was and how useless, the principal of the party remarked it would be folly to interfere with anything there, for on my return, if I found the things gone, I would set fire to my house, and, from its close proximity to those in the pa, the whole settlement would be burned; so they left without touching anything. But another party, thinking they might have a finger in the pie, walked off with two or three trifles, amongst which were an iron pot, some provision I had retained for
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my support during the absence of the canoes, and a dog. I soon learnt who had perpetrated the theft, and went immediately in search of the delinquent. On entering that part of the pa where he lived, I saw my dog tied up to the fence and the man who had taken it sneaking away. I followed in pursuit, but by the time I had got out he had disappeared, having run down a slope in front of the pa and hidden in the high fern. I followed on his track, and came upon him; thinking he had the iron pot with him, I declared if he did not give it me I would shoot him, at the same time cocking my musket. This so intimidated him that he jumped up, throwing open his mat to show he had not got it. I felt sure he had hidden it, and foolishly looked for it, turning my back towards him, which he availed himself of by clasping me round the waist from behind, at the same time endeavouring to throw me; in this he, fortunately, did not succeed, though he was doing his best, and uttering all kinds of threats. I took it very coolly; and fearing that in the struggle the piece, being loaded and cocked, might go off and perhaps wound some of the spectators, I requested a lad to take it. As soon as the gun was out of my hands, my friend, imagining I was unarmed, became outrageous; fortunately I had my pocket companion, the dirk-stick, with me, and, unperceived by him, I got it out and gave him a prod or two, the last one having the effect of making him loose his hold and bolt off at a great rate. I had a little difficulty in regaining my gun as it had been stolen from where the lad had hidden it; the sister of the chief under whose protection I had been living took the matter up, threatening the delinquent with any amount of makutu (witchcraft) if it was not produced immediately. The same evening I had it returned to me, and on my leaving I presented it to her as an acknowledgment of her kindness.
The only case of quarrel in which I struck a native
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occurred at this settlement, and that was in self-defence. A man named Te Kakare, who had been in the habit of frequenting my house, used, without my permission, a knife I kept for killing pigs; during his absence I wanted the knife, but, not finding it, I had to let the pig go, and put out the fire. On his return from work he brought it back, and I remonstrated with him for not asking permission before taking it, at the same time telling him to leave the premises and never presume to come there again. To my surprise he rushed at me with his head down, meaning to clasp me round the legs and throw me; but I fancy he was a little astonished when I jerked up my knee into his face, bringing him upright, and followed this up with my fists right and left. Down he went, the blood rushing copiously from his nose; he was not yet satisfied, for up he got, rushed at me again, and I had to repeat the dose. This might have gone on, but a chief, who happened to be sitting in the house at the time, seeing what was up, called out to him to know if he wished to be killed, and told him to clear out, which he did. The next morning on my rising, a little after daylight, I found six large baskets of potatoes and a fine hog tied to the fence near the gate, and was told they were Te Kakare's. I thought they were brought for sale, and so, from his conduct the day before I refused to purchase them; but I was undeceived, and told they were there as utu or reparation for his conduct of the day before; I declined to accept them, but the fine was enforced by the chief. Te Kakare did not put in an appearance for a length of time, but at last he came to me and we made friends; I paid him secretly for his goods, and we have remained on capital terms ever since.
On my going to Toroakapakapa, the natives built me a house, and I settled down quietly waiting for advices from Sydney, which, by the way, I never received. I had been there some time when two gentlemen from the Thames paid
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me a visit, and I accompanied them on their return after their remaining with me a fortnight. On the way we had to cross the Waikato, and, in the absence of a canoe, we managed it on a moki. A moki is a quantity of flag or bulrush tied together, and from its buoyancy when dry will support a considerable weight. We then ascended the Maungakawa range, and descended into the Kawheriki Valley, in which we came across a corpse suspended by the heels from a tree, and, a little further on, a head. In the bottom of the valley was a deserted pa that had been set on fire, probably by accident, as we saw amongst the remains portions of burnt guns and a few iron pots, both articles, in those days, very scarce and consequently valuable; by some accident the pa may have become tapued, and its inhabitants fired it to get rid of the tapu. It appears that, during the quarrel between the Ngatihaua and the Ngatipaoa, &c, the latter, with a party of Ngapuhi, made a raid upon the Ngatihaua at Kawheriki; Ngatihaua sallied out, attacked the assailants, and succeeded in capturing three of the Ngapuhi, one of whom they suspended alive by the heels, the other two they killed, decapitating them, placing the heads on stumps of trees, and eating their bodies: the other head we saw in the vicinity of the pa at Matamata. The treatment the captured men received so intimidated the rest of their party that they were off before the next morning. On the Matamata plains the remains of two pas, within a few chains of each other, were pointed out to me as the spot where the occupants kept on fighting for three days and, like the Cockney sportsman who was out all day and shot nothing, had committed no execution, but withdrew by mutual consent.
In 1834, being short of necessary stores, I made a second trip to Kopu, on the Thames, accompanied by a European; this time we crossed the Frith of the Thames from Whaka-
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tiwai. We remained a week and obtained what we went for; but, leaving the Waiho, or Thames proper, we found the sea too heavy to cross; consequently our chief, Te Aho, recommended our going into Kauaeranga (the present Shortland), and remaining until the wind and sea dropped. we were met in a very friendly way by the natives, chiefly out of courtesy to the chief who accompanied us. In the morning we took a walk about the settlement, and seeing a nice little piece of secluded bush without any pouwheros (a pouwhero is a post painted red, and indicating a tapued spot) to intimidate us, curiosity induced me to inspect it, and I did so without remark, probably from my not having been seen; but my companion, when going over the same place under the impression that a similar excursion would do him good, was seen coming out of it, and a most serious rumpus occurred, as, unfortunately, this was stated to be a most sacred burial-place. The first intimation I had of the affair was from seeing several natives rushing to seize their muskets to shoot the individual who had presumed to desecrate their tapu whakaharahara (an important tapu), I caught hold of the object of their displeasure, covered his body with mine, and hustled him into the whare where our chief Te Aho was quietly sleeping unconscious of anything wrong. We were pretty sharp in waking him up, and when he heard the particulars of the grievous insult offered to his pakehas, he sprang out of the house into the open space in front and demanded to know who had presumed to affront him in such a way as to even talk about molesting his pakeha? He considered he had shown great condescension in permitting his pakehas to visit them, not quite recollecting at the time that he was making a virtue of necessity, as we had been driven in there by stress of weather, and were making a convenience of them. Anyhow, as it was always customary to entertain visitors, and that usually with the best the tangata whenua (land folk)
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had, he insisted upon their launching our craft (a large war canoe) immediately, that we might depart from such inhospitable shores, and we did so, notwithstanding the boisterousness of the weather. We had a large native sail made of raupo or bullrush, and went scudding away, but for a while it was so rough that we did not dare to make a straight course, and we edged along the land till we got to the opposite side of the Frith where we had to haul our wind to pass round a point at Pukorokoro. This was done all right, but at the next point we had to strike the sail, and, finding that no headway could be made against the sea, the canoe was beached half-filled with water, and all our clothing, of course, saturated; notwithstanding this, however, and to add to our distress, some of the Ngatipaoa made a taua on one of our party for a real or imaginary offence, took some few articles from the natives, and attempted the same with us Europeans. The natives gave up their property with a good grace, but we declined to surrender what we had gone so far to procure and had overcome so many difficulties to obtain. Te Aho, having lost some trifles, was not to be done. The wily old boy set to work and ransacked his memory as to former doings. A happy thought struck him, and he was delighted at being able to recollect that, at some time or other, the Ngatipaoa had committed a breach of etiquette with regard to his tribe. He forthwith made a taua upon them, and in it obtained a considerable amount of property, not at all a bad return for the few things that his people had lost.
This visit to the Thames reminds me of a story told formerly of a captain of a trader, who used to visit Tauranga. He was there with his vessel in 1831 or 1832, and, having taken a dislike to a certain chief (who had made himself, certainly, obnoxious to the Europeans generally), endeavoured to poison him with oxalic acid; failing in this, he deliberately shot him as he was leaving the vessel's side in his
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canoe, the vessel at the time being under weigh and leaving the port. The murdered native's companions pulled ashore in the canoe with the dead body, and, to their joy, saw that the wind had dropped, and that the vessel was floating helplessly about between Te Papa and Maunganui. Revenge seemed at hand; they were strong in numbers, the Europeans but few; the very winds were on their side; and, with loud shouts, they hastily manned a number of large canoes. Meanwhile all on board thought themselves lost; and, if there be such a thing as conscience about a South Sea trader, the skipper must have felt uncomfortable; luckily for them a puff of wind came just in time to take them outside. The natives, however, were not going to be done out of utu, so they got up a party to attack a man who was trading for the skipper to the southward. As usual, the object of the expedition got wind, and the individual for whose benefit it was intended was on his guard. There was another European, also a trader, living in the neighbourhood, and he agreed to make common cause with the captain's man. The bales of flax were moved into one house and disposed along the sides so as to afford protection (they were ball-proof against the muskets then in use); all the arms, ammunition, &c, which they could lay hands on were got together, and the two men prepared for a regular siege. On came the taua and, surrounding the place, demanded a surrender; the answer was, of course, a shot, and the departure of one of the assailants to his "happy hunting grounds;" and this was the signal for a general assault. It was a case of life or death for the two pakehas, and they did their best, the one loading while the other fired. A good many natives were knocked over, but an unlucky shot came in, killing one of the two. The natives outside soon discovered there was something wrong and made a rush, which succeeded; they reserved the survivor for future death and "kai," plundered all the trade, and burned
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the house with the dead man in it. It was very comfortably arranged that the prisoner should be put to death in the evening as a sweet morsel of revenge for the chief shot at Tauranga; but in the interval another chance of additional vengeance seemed at hand; there was actually a vessel in the offing, evidently intending to speak the shore. Here was a prospect of utilising the pakeha and obtaining utu by a good wholesale slaughter, not to mention a decent chance of loot. The prisoner was told, on pain of instant death, to signal the vessel. He did so, and a whaleboat approached the shore; he was ordered to entice the boat close in, and this was the ticklish moment; luckily none of the Maoris understood English, so, putting on an air of nonchalance, the poor wretch called out to his countrymen, whatever they did, not to row in stem first, but to back in. He told them he was a prisoner, and that he was going to make a bold stroke for liberty. The crew did as they were bid, each man nerving himself up to the task; and, while the boat was in the midst of the breakers, and the natives were licking their lips in anticipation of their horrible feast, the prisoner dashed into the water, seized the gunwale, and held on tight while the rowers bent their backs and gave way with a will. So astounded was each Maori that the whole lot got out of range, and the rescued man was hauled in before a shot was fired. 1
While on the theme of murder, I may mention an episode that occurred between two individuals personally known to myself. Manukawehi, a slave belonging to a chief of one of the tribes of Waikato, ran away with his wife to the Ngatipaoa in the Thames; but, having discovered some impropriety in the conduct of his wife, and having no lawyer to advocate his cause or Divorce Court to appeal to, he thought
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he would simplify the matter by making away with her; he dug a hole in the ground, cajoled her in the dark to the edge, tripped her up into it, and buried her, as he hoped, alive. Thinking that he had finally disposed of her, he went back home, chuckling quietly, and keeping his act a secret. During the night the wife, only stunned by the blow, contrived to get out of the hole, went up to the house where her husband was sleeping, sat at the door, and added fuel to the fire, which had nearly burnt out. On its blazing up, the man awoke, and, perceiving his wife sitting at the door covered with earth, just as she had risen from the grave, took her for a ghost. Frightened was no name for him: down he went, squatting and groaning, with his head well covered up in his mat. The wife seemed to enjoy his bother; and after resting a short time she got up, left the settlement clandestinely, and reached Auckland. The man kept his own counsel; the woman remained in Auckland unseen by her husband and that section of natives residing in his vicinity; and it was generally believed that she had run away, until one day the husband confessed to having killed her. She was subsequently seen in Auckland, and was looked upon as a spirit until she explained how she had managed to escape. It was not an unusual thing for husbands to kill their wives for incontinence, or to inflict other modes of punishment as their fancies might lead them. I have known several instances of chiefs killing their wives for infidelity.
Derangement of intellect is very prevalent amongst the Maoris; some are harmless, others mischievous. The majority have a great liking for fire: I have on several occasions seen both mad men and mad women with a piece of bark slung round their necks and suspended in front, as piemen carry their pies; on the bark they place a little earth and on that they have their miniature fire which, in the distance, when smoking, makes them somewhat resemble an itinerant tinker
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with his furnace. One case is on record of a man who was daft from his infancy, and who had never left off sucking his mother. When he grew up he left his people and lived in the bush upon, what it produced; but at times he would go into the settlement, seek his mother, obtain his accustomed milk, and retire to the bush again. On one occasion she had a very narrow escape from his violence; during one absence, which had lasted longer than usual, her milk had dried up, and the son, imagining that his mother was withholding his nourishment purposely, would have committed some outrage had he not been restrained by the seasonable arrival of some friends, when he decamped off to the bush again.
