CHAPTER III. THE MARTYRDOM OF FRIGHTENED PHEASANT.
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CHAPTER III.
THE MARTYRDOM OF FRIGHTENED PHEASANT.
During the middle Sixties and early Seventies I was often called upon at a few hours' notice to hurry into the Arawa territory and raise a fighting force of two to five hundred, as the emergency required. There was always irrepressible anxiety to enlist among these ultra-loyal people, and I often experienced great difficulty in keeping the number of aspirants within my orders.
One such occasion arose when news was received that a force of six hundred hostile natives from Waikato were on the march to join the Piri-rakau ("Cling to the Bush") tribe, then living along the outskirts of the great forest extending from Oropi to Whakamarama. At that time I was residing temporarily at Rotorua, and had a large number of Tower percussion muskets, square tin cartouch boxes containing fifty rounds, which the Maoris called "kitinis" (kitchens), on account of their size and awkwardness. Blue serge jumpers and a kind of sailor cap with a band of turkey red, and small bright shawls worn kilt-wise, composed the uniform, a supply of which was kept stored there in case an emergency should suddenly arise. My quarters were in a large whare, called "Tiki," the fine carved doorway of which is now in the Auckland Museum. I had twelve Maori policemen at my disposal, serving out musket, ammunition, blue serge shirt, and cap and badge to each man after I had formally enrolled him and he had taken the oath of allegiance (really a work of supererogation, when dealing with such intensely loyal people as the Arawa tribe).
The very first man to offer was a grey-haired tattooed warrior named Wehi-Peihana ("The Frightened Pheasant"), about seventy years of age. He was lithe, active, brave as a lion, as I had proved through seeing him under fire on many occasions previously, but knowing I had a large number to choose from, I told him he was too old, and called on the next man, despite
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the old chap's wild cry of disappointment. Still he never relinquished hope, and persisted in coming forward forcing me to invent some more or less genuine excuse each time to dampen his military ardour and loyalty. It was a long, tiring, hot summer's day, and about four o'clock I had got my pick of the best men (about four hundred, I think), and cried out, "Kati ra" ("It is enough"), when Wehi-Peihana sprang forward with flashing eyes, shouting: "You say I am too old. Behold me dance; I am more active than some of those young men you have chosen. I was fed on fern root and hinau bread--the sustaining food of our ancestors (Te Whatu-turei-a-Rua). I can run through the forest without shaking the dewdrops from the leaves." He then performed several war dances, displaying wonderful agility, and concluded with a prodigious bound like an old-man kangaroo. He stood confronting me, shouting: "Give me my gun! Let me fight for the Queen!"
I felt nonplussed. I had been working hard since daylight, and was peevish and irritated at the poor old man's persistence, and I said: "I will not enlist any tattooed man."
He seemed utterly crushed, and cried: "Kahore ahau e mate tara-whare" ("I will not die under the eaves of a house").
The scene was the shore of the warm Ruapeka Bay, immediately below Lake House Hotel, but the water in those days came right up to the bath buildings. Over a thousand men, women and children were sitting round in front of the carved house "Tiki," and right along the western side of that large furiously boiling spring, "Te Wai-hunu-hunu-kuri" ("The Water Wherein the Dog was Scalded").
Wehi-Peihana rose to his feet, and throwing off all his old clothing except a twill shirt, he walked deliberately to the terrible pool and jumped in, sitting down in it up to his neck. A dreadful wail of distress rose from the women and children, and hoarse cries from the men of "He atua porangi"; "he rewera" ("A mad god; a devil"). Then they all fled incontinently, none daring to look back, the women covering their heads as they ran.
I was left alone to do the best I could towards saving him, and by treading dangerously near the boiling water I managed to get him by his shirt collar and dragged him out. Somehow I got him over the narrow sandspit of ten to fifteen feet to the lake. Then I bethought myself I had seen the day previously a large number of salad oil bottles in a little wooden store, where Lake House now stands, then kept by a native named Hone
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Werahiko (the discoverer of the Karangahake goldfield). Like a man possessed, I dashed through the crowd, sprang over the counter, and took about two dozen bottles in my arms, and then rushed back, when, to my horror, I found that the old man had gone back into his dreadful bath, and when I essayed to reach him he actually moved further away to get out of my reach.
Owing to the village being crowded with visitors, many hundreds having come here for safety, there had been a large number of accidents, and I had given orders to have the dangerous springs fenced in. All had been made secure except this one, but a huge bundle of manuka poles lay handy for this purpose. I was just able to put them across the narrowest part, and, keeping my balance with difficulty, I walked along the swaying, sagging poles to within the reach of the old man. When I endeavoured to put my left hand under his right arm, he pressed it tightly against his side, causing me to use such force in pushing my hand through that the skin tore away in strips. While dragging him toward the shore, my left foot slipped in, and as I was too much occupied to take my boot off I got badly scalded, my hands as well.
Again I got him into the tepid waters of the Ruapeka, and shouting sternly in his ear: "E noho!" ("Stay here!"), I rushed up to my room, tore the large hune (raupo) mattress from my bed, spread it on the floor, and, rolling up the sides, I laid my military waterproof sheet over it, placing the poor victim in the hollow. Then, knocking off the tops of the bottles with my sheath knife, I poured the oil on him, constantly splashing it over the body, and I gave him a big tot of commissariat rum. The poor old fellow poured out the vials of his wrath on my unfortunate head, saying: "If you had let me join your force you would have saved yourself all this trouble. It serves you well right. I am not sorry for you." Later on he drank a pannikan of tea and ate a tin of sardines, then passed away at three o'clock in the morning. He assured me that he was so angry and excited that he felt no pain. Only after he died did any of the natives come to my assistance.
Years afterwards, when that fine author and congenial good fellow, the Hon. James Ingles--who wrote so many excellent books under the nom-de-plume "Maori"--visited Rotorua, I told him this story. When writing "Our New Zealand
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Cousins," he quoted this incident as a proof of "the gallant Captain's popularity," which was such, he averred, that Maori warriors on being refused admission to his force used to commit suicide. A slight perversion of the facts.
Anthony Trollope, too, who at a later date, while standing at my side at the "Pool wherein the dog was scalded" and listening to my story of "The Frightened Pheasant," also jumped to similar erroneous conclusions as set forth in the first edition of his hook, "Our Antipodes."
I cannot believe after all these years even that I gave any justification, but whenever I met my brother officers after these books were published they used to chaff me most unmercifully, saying enviously: "By Jove, Mair, you did pull those old boys' legs properly."
Of course, they were well aware of the facts of the case--there never was any doubt about the incident--but the only wrong inference was that it was quite usual for Maoris who had been refused admission into my Arawa Flying Column to commit suicide in their mad despair and disappointment.
