CHAPTER IV. A HAU HAU MARTYR
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CHAPTER IV
A HAU HAU MARTYR
LET me spin you a yarn of how a Maori was so imbued with fanaticism that he faced in cold blood extinction for the same.
Many of the Hau Haus, bloodthirsty, cruel fanatics as they were, whom the Colonial forces ruthlessly knocked on the head during the latter half of the New Zealand wars, are just as much entitled to be enrolled in the army of martyrs as are the early Christians or any other poor devils who have perished by fire or sword for believing and sticking to their faith.
Again, there are many instances of Hau Haus who were so strong in their convictions that they of their own free will deliberately offered themselves up to undergo the fiery ordeal by leaving their harbours of safety and, unarmed, trusting alone to spiritual aid, faced certain death; and I have never read of any persecuted communities doing the same.
When in 1865 the Pai Marire religion was promulgated by a demented Maori named Te Ua, the two principal promises held out to induce the Maoris to join the new religion were: first, that they should be rendered invulnerable in action; and, secondly, that they should be granted the gift of tongues. They were also promised the assistance of legions of angels, and that those white soldiers who
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were not turned into stone should with the rest of the settlers be driven into the sea, after which the natives should be given the knowledge of all the European arts and sciences. Please note he made no promise about a future state, nor, like Mahomet, did he invent any gorgeous paradise, thronged with pretty girls, where free drinks would be served out ad libitum.
Now these were queer promises to captivate a Maori warrior, as after the first excitement there was but little in them to induce him to abandon Christianity and cling to Hau Hauism. Let us take them seriatim, remembering at the same time that the Maori is an astute reasoner. First of all the promise of invulnerability. Well, that would be all right so long as they only had to fight against the white man, but the pakeha was to be driven out, and what would follow then? War was the Maori's greatest pleasure, and each tribe hated his neighbour quite as much as he hated the white man. Yet his neighbour was to become just as invulnerable as he was to be himself. Where, therefore, would be the fun if he could not kill his enemy, eat him, nor turn his bones into useful and ornamental articles? Bah! the zest of war would be gone. Then again the second promise. What on earth use could the gift of tongues be to a man when there was not to be a single foreigner left in the country with whom to collogue? As for the other promises, they were not worth a row of pins, for if the warriors became invulnerable they wanted no further angelic aid; and as far as acquiring the arts and sciences went, so long as they could learn how to make rum and grow tobacco, all the rest could
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go swing, they being willing to live as their fathers had lived before them.
Now I am sure that if the natives had only reasoned as I have just done they would not have thrown off their Christianity in such a hurry and become stark raving Hau Haus; but they seem on this occasion to have lost their wits altogether, for, carried away by the crazy incantations of Te Ua's apostles, they not only embraced the new faith, but believed in the truth of it, so much so that there are plenty of instances of their laying down their lives for it--and no man can do more.
Another wonderful thing is that even after four years' continuous fighting, during which period the angel had not only failed to bear a hand, but had not even rendered one man invulnerable, as apostle, priest and warrior had been put out of mess by the white man's bullet, still they were strong in their faith, and there are plenty of instances of Hau Haus, believing in the promise of the angel, offering their bodies as a target so as to prove the truth of their religion. And now for the yarn.
The scene is a Maori kainga on the east coast of New Zealand, date 1869, time of day about 9 A.M. The village, composed of some twenty huts, stands in a clearing surrounded by dense bush, and in the foreground stands the Niu, the sacred pole round which the fanatics perform their mad dances and mystic incantations. I said it was a Maori kainga; so it had been, though the only Maoris at present inside it are perhaps a score, and these lie about very dead indeed. The remainder of its whilom inhabitants have fled away into the depths of the bush and are safe from the pursuit of the strong
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party of Colonial Irregulars, who, having, after a long, wearying night's march, surprised and rushed the place at daybreak, are now in occupation of it. These men, having eaten their frugal meal, and worn out by their overnight's march, with the exception of the guard lie around booted and belted and with their carbines by their sides, trying to get what sleep they can, as at any moment they may again be called upon for active service. On the low fence surrounding the Niu ring, which is about thirty feet in diameter, the ground within the magic circle being trampled as hard and smooth as stone pavement by the feet of its former worshippers, lounge some half-dozen officers smoking and dozing. The day is a fine one, the sun shines hot, the white men rest, the Hau Haus, far away in the recesses of the bush, bind up their wounds and talk of utu (revenge). No, not all of them, for the undergrowth parts and out into the clearing strides a big, stark-naked Maori, who, without paying the slightest attention to any of the astonished and by now wideawake men, passes through them and, without apparently seeing the group of officers, enters the Niu ring, where, after saluting the pole, he prances slowly round it, chanting in a minor key the words: "Hau Hau, Pai Marire" (Wind, wind, good, peaceful), over and over again. Gradually he gets up steam and, paying no attention to the throng of armed enemies who now surround the mystic circle, he cavorts higher and faster, while his monotonous chant is raised to the full gamut of his deep, bass voice. Presently he foams at the mouth, his features become distorted, sweat pours through his skin like water, on his hands held rigid
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his fingers quiver, while with leaps and bounds his stamping feet beat time to the chant of "Hau Hau, Pai Marire."
How long this exhibition would have continued the Lord only knows, for it was brought to a sudden termination by a big Scotch Presbyterian sergeant, who, being as bigoted as they make them, could not tolerate the ritual of a foreign denomination, so he stepped out of the crowd of men and, as the fanatic devotee pranced past him, he with a leg as brawny as that of a Highland stot let fly a kick, at the same time exclaiming: "Hae done, ye pagan, wi yer satanic cantrips." Out flew the No. 12 boot, which, catching the unfortunate bounder fair and square on the crupper bone, launched him through space till, the momentum being expended, he landed on his nose at the Colonel's feet.
"Get up," quoth the O. C. in Maori, at the same time giving the officious non-com. a look that made the ower-guid mon wilt. "Now, what made you come here?"
The Colonel spoke the language like a native, and what he did not know about Hau Haus was not worth learning, so he was not in the least bit surprised when the somewhat blown native staggered to his feet and answered him in perfect English: "I came here among you to turn you all into stone, and should have done so had not that man, whose head is fit to be boiled, interrupted me."
"Ah," replied the O. C., "I know you; you assisted Nama to torture women and children at Poverty Bay."
"I did," triumphantly exclaimed the fanatic. "Sweet is the blood of women and children." (Note
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this fellow had been mission bred and educated, in fact had acted as a lay Bible reader.)
"Ah, is it," growled the Colonel. "Sergeant O'Halloran, detail four men, take this fellow to that tree and do your duty."
The Sergeant saluted smartly, quickly told off four men, advanced to his prisoner, whose arm he grasped with a shoulder-of-mutton fist, at the same time exclaiming: "Come along wid me, ye bloody-minded Fanian."
A few steps took them to the huge tortara-tree that had been pointed out, against the trunk of which the Sergeant, drawing his revolver, placed the Hau Hau. "And now," said he, "a Christian ye were wance, and a bloody pagan ye are now, bad luck to the likes of ye, but ave ye wist to recant and make yer sowl, sure it's foive minutes I'll give ye to make it.--Fall in, boys, tin yards forninst us."
Now no good soldier man, be he regular or irregular, likes to make one of a firing party, told off to shoot a man in cold blood, law or no law, and it is usual in such cases to detail the worst characters in a regiment to perform that obnoxious duty; but when it comes to letting daylight into a fiend who brags of having tortured helpless women and children, then no frontiersman jibs at making one of a party to do so. Therefore, no matter how distasteful the job might be to any of the four men told off on this special occasion, they fell in with great alacrity and brought their carbines to the shoulder like one man.
"Hurry up, ye spalpeen, and make yer sowl," quoth the Sergeant.
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"You can't shoot me," replied the fanatic, "the great Gabriel and all his angels protect me; you can't kill me."
"Nabocklish" (maybe not), answered the imperturbable non-com., "but by the holy poker we'll have a darned good try. Will yez call on the blessed saints or not, ye contumacious blaggard?"
"Hau Hau, Pai Marire," shouted the fanatic, raising his arms, stretching them to the full extent and turning the hands, palms outwards, towards the firing party.
"Ah, thin ye won't," growled the now somewhat enraged non-com.; "thin go to hell yer own way. Ready!"
"Hau Hau, Pai Marire," yelled the fanatic.
"Present!" ordered the Sergeant.
"Hau Hau, Pai Marire," triumphantly shrieked the Maori.
"Fire!"
"Hau Hau" bang came all together, and the misguided fanatic, smote full in the chest by four sneider bullets, collapsed and fell on his face as dead as Julius Caesar.
Now was that Hau Hau, blood-stained brute as he undoubtedly was, a martyr or only a bally fool? Remember, he had only a few hours previously escaped from out of a sharp fight in which many of his co-religionists had been killed, and after winning through to safety himself he is so strong in his faith that he voluntarily returns alone and unarmed to justify the truth of his conviction, although he well knows he is facing certain death providing he be wrong in his belief.
You may call him which or what you please, but
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I maintain that he is just as much to be enrolled in the army of martyrs as any of the poor devils who were stretched on red-hot gridirons, or were put to death in other unpleasant ways, for testifying to what they believed to be the truth.
