1838 - Polack, J. S. New Zealand [Vol.II] [Capper reprint, 1974] - Chapter VI

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CHAPTER VI.

No name is so materially connected with the missionary transactions in New Zealand, for the first sixteen years of their existence, as that of E'Ongi.

To this chief must be attributed the stand the Church missionary labourers were enabled to make, and to E'Ongi is also owing the fall of the Wesleyan Mission at Wangaroa. There is no name so rife in the mouths of the people through-

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E'ONGI VISITS SYDNEY.

out the Northern Island as that of this indomitable warrior. His possessions and those of his immediate relatives were of great extent, containing more inhabitants than has been known to belong to any previous chieftain family in the country. The number of warriors he was enabled to bring into the field were sufficient. with the preponderating quantity of muskets they possessed, to carry all before them. He was celebrated as the principal warrior of his time. He was remarkably sagacious, and in the domestic arts of carving and other mechanical contrivances he displayed uncommon ability. Had he been born with similar powers in a more civilized soil, he would have rapidly raised himself to distinction. In addition to his own possessions, he gained also large accessions of territory by several marriages, which added to the power and influence of this political chief.

In 1814, E'Ongi went to Port Jackson, and remained sufficient time to gratify his curiosity. He was introduced to the governor, who made him several useful and valuable presents, among others, a cow. He returned in that year, in company with the Reverend Samuel Marsden, together with his nephew, Tuatara, and his rival Korokoro.

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180 VISITS ENGLAND.

In 1820, he visited England in company with his friend, Waikato, a wily chief, now living in the district of Tepuna, in the Bay of Islands. They arrived in London in the month of August, and were honoured by an audience of George the Fourth, from whom they received some attention and many presents of infinite value to the chiefs. The vast quantities of ammunition they saw displayed in the Tower and elsewhere in the British Metropolis, struck them with delight and astonishment. The forests of masts, disposed in various groups on the bosom of the Thames, were themes on which those savage warriors were never tired of expatiating.

Both the chiefs were attacked with an epidemic of the country, under which E'Ongi was so prostrated, as almost to sink under the weight of his disease. A comfortable passage was provided for them on board the "Speke" convict ship, bound to New South Wales, where their conduct at the cabin table was so studiously respectful as to draw forth the praises of the officers of the ship and the respectable portion of the passengers.

In Sydney, the Governor gave the gratified E'Ongi a military suit and other presents; most of these gifts were exchanged for muskets and ammunition of greater estimation, which

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HIS VINDICTIVE SPIRIT.

alone possessed charms to his warlike mind. These possessions so far elated the chief, that he entertained serious thoughts of subduing the entire island, and raising himself to the chieftainship of the whole people. In Sydney he proposed that the Wesleyan Mission should be established among his friends and relations at Mokoia on the banks of the river Thames, which would have been an eligible situation; but a native informed E'Ongi, that one of his dear relatives had been killed and devoured near Witianga or Mercury Bay, at hearing which, the irritated chief declared war against the whole of the offenders. Their leader, named Hinake, who accompanied E'Ongi in the same vessel which took them all to New Zealand from Sydney, attempted to turn the ire of the dreaded warrior, by offering a payment or any satisfaction he would propose; but the incensed chief would not hear of anything less than the extermination of the entire tribe.

The hostility of E'Ongi is supposed to have been a feint, as he was anxious to show what his powerful supply of ammunition could do in the hands of his valiant followers. About three thousand warriors were collected, and he commenced his voyage. The battle was dreadful, no quarter being allowed; the chief Hinake

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REVOLTING CANNIBALISM.

was slain by E'Ongi, who drank the blood as it gushed from the decollated head of the murdered warrior; the left eye was hastily scooped out and swallowed by the demoniac leader, that it might add to the refulgence of his own eye, when at his death it would be translated as a star in heaven.

One thousand of the enemy were slain, a fourth of whom were devoured the same day on the spot, where such disgusting scenes took place, so utterly revolting to humanity, that Waikato who accompanied E'Ongi, could not touch food for some time after, and on his return from this expedition, gave over going to war.

On the termination of hostilities, in which the tribe were all cut off, E'Ongi returned to the Bay of Islands, bringing a number of slaves to grace his triumph. Many of those doomed creatures were slaughtered and cooked, for the purpose of giving a hakari or feast to their friends. In this battle at Mokoia, Hinaki's people had but eight muskets, whereas E'Ongi's men were all fully supplied with ammunition. E'Ongi lost his son-in-law, and a brother of the latter, whose wife immediately hung herself, according to the custom of her people.

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VARIOUS EXPEDITIONS.

Another expedition was undertaken to revenge the deaths of those people; and the insatiate chief is supposed to have destroyed fifteen hundred more of the tribes inhabiting the Thames. E'Ongi, on his return home, paid much attention to the forming of a fort, in case of being obliged to act in self-defence, of which at one period he had his fears. This pa was formed on a small promontory of land, which extends some distance in the lake of Morperi. This promontory is almost disjoined from the main land, and by a trifling excavation could be made an island. The fort was skilfully arranged, and the skill shown by E'Ongi in its construction, added greatly to his consequence among his countrymen, as a military commander. He spent most of the year 1823 in his war expeditions on the coast, during which he penetrated to Waiappu or the East Cape, vast numbers of whose natives were swept from existence. That place was the farthest south the chief personally besieged, but the troops under his command circumnavigated the island.

In 1825 he visited Wangaroa, to give battle to the resident tribes. Those also living at the North Cape, were made to feel the effects of his prowess in the same year.

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ESCAPES IN BATTLE.

In Hokianga he also had several battles with the inhabitants of that river, who fought under Muriwai, a warlike chief, scarcely inferior to his invader. E'Ongi escaped death in these latter conflicts more than once. His helmet and bodily armour saved him several times; these he received from the King of England. At one time he was struck down by Muriwai, who broke his talc meri on the armour of the prostrate chief, whose followers coming up, bore him off the field.

The battle of Kaipara in 1826, reunited those hostile chiefs, who joined their forces, and those of the northern tribes in battling with the western natives, who were by treachery, as has been related, almost entirely exterminated.

Muriwai lost two promising sons in this battle, and E'Ongi was deprived of his eldest; their bodies were devoured by the Kaipara people, and their heads preserved as trophies.

The conduct of E'Ongi and his warriors, in these numerous battles, was wholly diabolical; many of the victors killed themselves by gluttony in devouring human flesh, and the dreadful scenes enacted were often sickening and repulsive to those engaged in these wars.

In the year 1825, this successful warrior went to reside at the Waimate, from which he was

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HIS MISFORTUNES.

soon after driven by domestic misfortunes. His son-in-law was detected in an illicit intercourse with one of his favourite wives. On being discovered, the woman hung herself, the young chief shot himself, and another of E'Ongi's wives was shot by the friends of the former wife, as payment or satisfaction for her untimely end. Others again were murdered as satisfaction for the last piece of butchery, and misery and horror raged among them. E'Ongi was determined to leave a place which reminded him of transactions that nearly unhinged his mind. He accordingly mustered a large force, and again directed his course to Wangaroa, where he drove away the tribes that had destroyed the "Boyd," "Mercury," &c.

At this period E'Ongi felt a further bereavement in the loss of his wife Turi, whose heroism and military abilities were so invaluable, that notwithstanding she was blind, her husband never undertook an expedition without being assisted by her advice and company. E'Ongi pursued the Kaitangatas' or men eating tribes, and destroyed great numbers of them. The ovens were crowded with human victims, and the places around presented dreadful scenes of carnage. All parts of the human body, mangled, were strewed about in every direction; the suck-

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RECEIVES A WOUND

ling infant, the aged mother, the young female and the venerable parent, all lay in undistin-guishable masses, and clotted gore in deep puddles, bedabbled the adjacent paths.

E'Ongi pursued the enemy as far as Hunahuna, a village near the Maunga muka. At this place, which is a bush, the flying enemy made a stand. E'Ongi who fought after the native fashion, namely, by lurking behind the trunks of trees, stepped on one side to discharge his musket, when a ball struck him, supposed to have been discharged by one of his own party; it broke his collar bone, passed in an oblique direction through his right breast, and came out a little below his shoulder blade, close to the spine. This wound stopped his career. Most of the surgeons in the different whale ships that entered the Bay of Islands examined it, but found his case past all remedy. The wound never closed, and the whistling noise caused by the air in entering, afforded amusement to the chief.

Fifteen months after this mishap, E'Ongi went to reside at Panieu. He was reduced almost to a skeleton. Several chiefs from Hokianga went to pay him a visit. On seeing the state to which he was reduced, they burst into tears, and said they were afraid of his approaching

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THAT OCCASIONS HIS DEATH.

death. He replied he was never better in his life.

After staying a few days, they were on the point of leaving him, and returning to their settlements, when E'Ongi was suddenly taken with spasms. Perceiving his approaching end, he said, "I shall now die, but not to-day." He called for his children, and said, "ka ora koutu," you will be well.

His muskets, battle axes, meris', coats of mail, &c. he bequeathed to his sons; he spoke of the tribes who would probably be kind to his children after his disease, and said "kowai ma te hia kai mai ki a koutu? kaore!" Who will wish to swallow you all up? none!

His last moments were applied in strenuously exhorting his followers to be valiant, and defend themselves against the numerous enemies they had provoked, and who would take advantage of his departure to the reinga or world of spirits, adding he wanted no other payment for his death. He besought them to allow the church missionaries to subsist in peace, for they had ever acted for the best. His dying lips were employed in repeating the words "kia toa! kia toa! be courageous, be valiant." The demise of this indomitable warrior was awaited in fear and trembling by many of his nearest friends, who were fearful

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HONOURS PAID TO THE DEAD.

the Hokianga chiefs would kill them, as sacrifices to accompany their departed master's spirit on his road to the regions of the dead; but Patuone, a well known chief of that place, bade them dismiss their fears. The children of the illustrious defunct, were also fearful of being surprised by an enemy; and were induced to place the body in a wai tapu the day after his death, an especial insult to the tupapaku or corpse of a native chief, on which Patuone said, "How is it I have only just become acquainted with those, who are unworthy of an illustrious father, and who wish to bury him alive?" Many days were, therefore, spent in all the honours these people confer on the illustrious dead.

The village resounded with the discordant tangi, and streams of blood were shed with the aid of the muscle shell. Innumerable addresses and speeches were made on the merits of the deceased. Dancing, and singing in mournful cadences ensued, while the chants of the Pihe descriptive of the valiant enterprizes of the magnanimous defunct, with continual discharges of artillery, added to the solemnity of the scene.

E'Ongi in battle was an insatiable destroyer: to wade in the blood of his enemies afforded him peculiar delight. War and all its cannibal hor-

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HIS CHARACTER.

rors was his pastime, and on obtaining from England and Sydney the quantities of ammunition which were afterwards employed against those whom he chose to account as foes, he returned, determined to fight his way for supremacy over his brother chiefs. Yet during peace, few persons could exhibit milder habits. His affection to his relatives was unbounded. On the death of his brother Kaingaroa, he more than once attempted to hang himself, but was prevented.

Many insults were digested by this chief from the intemperate behaviour of Europeans on board ships that put into the Bay of Islands, when scarce a civilised man possessing the like power would have passed over similar conduct.

His figure was slight, and his countenance, though fully tattoed, handsome; his natural disposition was mild and apparently inoffensive. He appeared before Europeans without any ostentation or pretensions to pride; and on board ship, when his attendant followers would rush into the cabin and devour every thing that lay before them, this commander would remain on deck, often employing himself in the art of carving, in which he was a proficient, or playing with little children. On meeting with a relative, or bidding adieu, this chief would lament with the usual

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CHIEFS LESS WARLIKE.

bitter feelings of his people; and on parting with his favourite son, who was leaving for Port Jackson, the heart of the affectionate parent appeared almost broken.

E'Ongi died on the 6th of March, 1828. The last haihunga, or exhumation of his bones, in honour of his memory, took place for the third time in April 1830.

Since his death, the warlike character of the northern natives has undergone a thorough change. No chief has now the power of gathering as many hundreds as E'Ongi could command thousands. The native quarrels to the northward at the present day, are happily of no importance; hostilities are smothered, and truces patched up that would have caused such irascible warriors as E'Ongi, Korokoro, Muriwai, Pomare, Tarra, Parra, and a host of similar kindred spirits to have expired with shame and vexation. This feeling is principally caused by the country becoming more Europeanized, if the term is admissible, as scarce a district is now inhabited by the natives, but one or more of the new comers are located.

In Hokianga, the Bay of Islands, Cloudy Bay, and the south west harbours, many hundreds of Englishmen are become identified with the country.

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DESERTED TERRITORIES.

In 1835, I visited Wangaroa, the scene of the last battle of E'Ongi; there was nothing locally to interest me, save the recollections that crowded on my memory of the transactions in former times. The harbour is the most beautifully romantic that can well be conceived. There were traces of former European inhabitants distinguishable by poles or branches of trees thrown carelessly across the gullies and streamlets, serving as bridges.

At Wesley Dale, the old station of the missionaries, a stack of bricks, the remnant of a chimney, alone remained to show what the place had been appropriated for. Noble tracts of land which had lain uncultivated for many years past were continually presented, and the then very scanty portion of the inhabitants, contrasted in a melancholy degree with the formerly numerous people of the soil. Several fortifications met our view which had been occupied by the conquerors under E'Ongi, but they in turn had been destroyed in a similar manner to the former inhabitants. In those parts that had been most frequented it was now laborious to pass, from the quantity of wild overgrown turnips, fern, kaikatoa, and brushwood. All these parts had been the gardens of the destroyers of the "Boyd," who were at the time of my visit, either

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THE "MACQUARIE."

killed or dispersed, principally in slavery at a distance from the soil of their birth.

For many miles the pleasing sight of a native residence does not meet the eye, in parts that were thickly inhabited. All the adjacent villages, even to the North Cape, show the same depopulating effects of war, and are equally wanting in the habitations of man, or the cultivation of the fertile land.

The natives of Wangaroa have not been the only adverse tribes who have attempted or succeeded in taking shipping on entering the harbours.

The first vessel that ever entered the Hokianga, was commanded by the late Captain Kent, whose long and continued residences in various parts on the west coast of the island, made him as favourite a foreigner as ever stationed himself among these people.

On his vessel, the "Governor Macquarie," casting anchor in the newly discovered river, the natives nocked on board in such numbers, that any room to move was impossible. Wainga, my levitical friend, was at that period, as were also the natives of that river, as wild and incorrigible a race of cannibals as ever feasted on a friend without salt, or any other condiment. As a priest and medical man (the two professions

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MEDICAL PRESCRIPTION.

merge in one in New Zealand) he recommended to himself and friends a change of diet, and pitched upon Kent and his crew for the purpose. Mr. Martin, who was chief officer of the vessel, and has been since for many years pilot of the river, had formed an intimacy with Wainga's daughter, who informed the Europeans of the intentions of her friends, who had proposed murdering them and taking the ship on the following day.

These crafty people tried, by every blandishment and apparently hospitable manners, to lull their visitors into security; but at dusk Kent placed a gun on each side the deck, with their breaches against the taffrail, filled with grape shot, that should an attempt be made to take the vessel, the actors should smart for their temerity. As the period approached, the master and mate alone remained upon the deck, close to the guns, prepared to defend themselves.

The natives, who had crowded on deck, suddenly commenced hostilities by stripping off their only garment, dancing naked, and yelling the war dance; on which the daughter rushed before the guns, and called out aloud to the hostile natives that their intentions were discovered; she implored them to fly instantly, or not one would escape death by the discharge of na purepo, or the great

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PEACE PROCLAIMED,

guns. The terrified assailants cleared off instantly by jumping into the river and swimming on shore, leaving their garments behind.

Wainga was in the act of imitating the speedy flight of his comrades, when he was captured by his daughter, who caught this prudent general by the heel.

The old man was treated kindly, for the service his daughter had performed, and it was agreed the natives should scrape flax for the white people, and that the mate should return and reside on shore. These arrangements subsequently took place, and some years after the lady underwent the ceremony of baptism, and has since figured as "Kitty;" she was married to the pilot whom she had been instrumental in preserving. In a short time, as is the wont of native females, she threw aside the customs of her people, said, and acted like Ruth, "Your people shall become my people, your God, my God," &c.

Soon after the occupation of Hokianga, it became the resort of Europeans from Port Jackson, whose customs and habits gradually wrought a great change in the tribes that occupied the villages on the banks of the tributary streams. The largest vessels that have yet been built in

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LOSS OF THE "ENTERPRISE. '

New Zealand, have been laid down at Hokianga, and, perhaps with scarce an exception, all have been very unfortunate.

The "Enterprise" schooner was the first vessel built in Hokianga, and was spoken well of. She was put together with timbers of the Puriri and Rata trees, and planked with the Kouri. It is supposed, in running for the river on the night of the 3rd May, 1828, from Sydney the river of Wangape, to the northward, was mistaken for that of Hokianga, as the coast between the two streams has some resemblance from sea. The first knowledge of her loss was ascertained by some letters having floated on shore, directed to the European residents, and a few days after, parts of the wreck were discovered some few miles to the northward on the rocky strand; the bodies of the unfortunate people were also found, and decently interred.

Within the same hour that the disastrous news of the "Enterprise" was made known, information was also received by the Europeans of the loss of the "Herald," a vessel built in the Bay of Islands for the Church Missionary Society, which had occurred that morning on a shoal within the harbour. Mr. Fairburn, one of the catechists of the society, who was in the vessel, fully expected that the natives residing among the Europeans

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"HERALD," "NEW ZEALANDER."

would at least treat them with civility; but he had scarcely got on shore when a native forcibly robbed him of his shirt. At night the seamen on board the vessel repeatedly hailed the natives on shore to make a fire to perceive if the vessel drifted, but the latter refused, delighted at the promised booty provided for them on the morrow by Araitehuru, the atua of the river.

At earliest dawn they seized upon the vessel, and stripped it of everything portable, leaving; only the damaged hull, to which they attempted to set fire, but the flood tide prevented their intentions.

The next vessel laid down at the Horeke settlement was a brig of two hundred tons, called the "New Zealander." This vessel was so beautifully modelled for sailing, that her first trip to Sydney was performed in less than six days, the quickest passage recorded. This vessel was employed in after years in various commercial pursuits, and was accounted the swiftest sailer out of Port Jackson. At one period she was seized as a foreign vessel in Sydney cove, and, after much discussion, she was deprived the privilege of sailing between British ports. In 1836, she had made a fair voyage on the coast of New Zealand in purchasing provisions from the natives, for the

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"BYRON," "SIR G. MURRAY."

market at Sydney, when she was totally wrecked in a calm, off the Maihia, a deep bight, formed by the Table Cape, or Nukutourua, her anchor parting from the chain cable, which was cut in two by chafing against the rocks, on the same spot that the brig "Byron" in 1833 commanded by the Captain Kent, before mentioned, was wrecked in a sudden gale, that parted this latter vessel from her moorings, and she drifted on the rocks. The vessel was no sooner discovered to be adrift, than the natives launched their canoes and commenced stripping her, and she was burnt to the water's edge. The Europeans were saved, by clinging for protection to Werowero, the chief of the settlement, who attempted, but in vain, to calm the wanton fury of the natives.

The "Sir George Murray" was the next vessel laid down at the Horeke in Hokianga, by Messrs. Raine and Ramsey, merchants, settled in Sydney, to whom the settlement also belonged. The size of this vessel was nearly four hundred tons; the model equally beautiful as that of the brig. Both these vessels were built of the Puriri and Rata, the spars were Kouri, and at the end of some years were found to be as faultless as the day they were first stepped; the latter vessel, it is believed, is no longer existing.

Three smaller vessels were built at the same

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LOSS OF THE "LYNX."

river, but they all shared a similar fate to their precursors, and were in each instance seized and burnt by the natives.

It is a fixed native law, should a vessel be cast adrift from her moorings, she becomes the property of the people in whose vicinity she may be wrecked; canoes, or similar native vessels, or boats belonging to Europeans become the property of the finder; salvage is out of the question. The native laws of jetsam and flotsam sadly want revision.

In addition to the above vessels, wrecked on the coast of New Zealand, that of the whaling bark "Lynx" must be added, which was lost in the dangerous straits of Foveaux, that divide the Island of Victoria from Stewart's Island, on the 17th December, 1837. The original register of the "Lynx" had been lost, but the second form of that important document was dated nearly one hundred years since; the vessel was built in Bengal, of the incomparable teak wood.