A Maori History of the War

Thomas McDonnell

First published by H. Brett in 1887

Digitised and made available online by the University of Auckland Libraries and Learning Services.

Epub © 2013 Early New Zealand Books Collection

ISBN 978-1-927289-30-3

[TITLE PAGE]

A

MAORI HISTORY

BEING

A NATIVE ACCOUNT

OF THE

Pakeha-Maori Wars in New Zealand

BY

LIEUTENANT-COLONEL McDONNELL

OF THE NEW ZEALAND MILITIA

Auckland

H. BRETT, PRINTER AND PUBLISHER, SHORTLAND STREET

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

[DEDICATION]

DEDICATION.

THIS BOOK, CONTAINING OUR HISTORY, IS MOST RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED

BY

KOWHIA NGUTU KAKA

TO THE

OLD RANGATIRA PAKEHA TRIBE

AND TO THE

VOLUNTEERS AND MILITIA

WHO ARE NOW RESIDING IN OUR COUNTRY, CALLED BY THEM

NEW ZEALAND

BUT BY US

TE IKA O MAUI.

INTRODUCTION.

INTRODUCTION.

IN the following pages, I have endeavoured to give a brief Maori account of the early colonization of New Zealand, as also a history of the native wars that have taken place in this colony, which I gathered from a Maori chief, who was an eye-witness of many of the events recorded, and had learned from others on good authority. In every instance I have strictly adhered to the facts related, and have allowed my Maori historian to draw his own inferences from them. Of course, many of these inferences will be found absurd, as, for instance, the missionary who denounced Kahu and his people for fishing on the Sabbath, and assured them that they would "all go to hell and be burnt with fire for ever and ever, just like their wicked forefathers, who knew not Jehovah," did not mean to insult them. He merely did what he conceived to be his duty; while Kowhai Ngutu Kaka's inference was that as these fits of cursing, so dangerous to the tribe, might come upon these missionary wizards at any time, it was necessary for their own safety to destroy them. As a rule, the early missionaries were well-meaning men, and some were high-minded and self-sacrificing; but some were what we might expect men to be who, taken from inferior positions in society, suddenly found themselves at its head. Power is always a dangerous temptation, and a narrow theological education does not lessen its force. Religious enthusiasm was largely mixed with spiritual pride, and as time lessened the former it increased the latter in too many cases. Despite the idiosyncrasies of those early soldiers of the Church, they were, with few exceptions, faithful servants of their Master, and we cannot but admire the heroic self-sacrifice and devotion to duty of the pioneer missionaries, who were the bearers of the banner of the Cross in primeval New Zealand. Unfortunately, the Christian graces of the missionaries did not at first make so much impression on the natives as the rough-and-ready methods of the runaway sailors, who were amongst the earliest colonists, and were the progenitors of the class of Europeans still known as pakeha-Maoris. The Maori thought the Maori pakeha a good sort of fellow, and the missionary a mere visionary. His judgment was wrong in both cases; but it was his own, and I have studiously avoided giving my own impressions. What I have written are merely Maori ideas, and what I know to be such.

In the same way, I must not be considered responsible for what Kowhai Ngutu Kaka says about the folly of distinguished Imperial officers, or of Colonial Governments. I am no more responsible for his opinion of these persons and institutions than I am for his opinion that Te Ua caused the

wreck of the steamship Lord Worsley by his incantations. In like manner, I leave him to say what he really thinks about confiscation and other matters. In short, I only wish to be regarded as the translator of the thoughts of a people in regard to ourselves whom I know thoroughly. I understand their language and traditions. I have fought with them and against them. I have dealt with them as a settler, bought land of them as a Government officer, and sold it for them as their agent. I have lived amongst them as one of themselves, helped them, and have been helped by them in peace and in war. I know their good qualities and their bad, their knowledge and their ignorance, their wisdom and their folly. I have often taken an active part, and often a leading part, in public matters, where European and native interests came into collision. I am no Philo-Maori, nor am I blind to the faults of my own countrymen. I think if we had acted more on the motto "Be just, and fear not" in our dealings with the Maori it would have been better for both races. I believe our intentions have been excellent, but most of them have gone to pave a well-known road. All I can hope is that the road will never reach its terminus. Purgatory is fair enough for both pakeha and Maori. We have, I fancy, just reached that stage, and I think I have done no harm in showing how the natives of New Zealand think we have got there.

THOMAS McDONNELL.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER I.

My Tanewha ancestry, and how I manage to prove my claims to land.

I AM descended from a long line of ancestors. The first mortal or man ancestor of mine was the offspring of a great Tanewha, who lived in the whirlpools and dark caves about Tongariro. From such a source is my origin, and as such it has been acknowledged by the Native Land Courts, one of your legal institutions; so I hope that no one will doubt this account of my original and immortal descent. I have, too, with my tribe, based our rights – well, I will say our claims, as it is a better word than rights – to many a block of fair land. I always took money when it was offered to me on account of my claim from commissioners. As the fact of having sold and accepted money was certain to secure, if not the entire block, an interest therein, I always took as much as I could get. When in Court, to support that claim, I always swore to the truth on your Bible. I rubbed my nose well on it (our form of kissing, or substitute for it), and then I traced my descent from that old and ancient Tanewha. In the main my accounts did not differ much, and I always claimed my Tanewha for my ancestor. I always won my case, as I always sold to the Government. I invariably did thus, thanks to a teaching I had had from my Tanewha ancestor, who appeared to me in a dream, and said, "All this country was mine when I dwelt in Tongariro. You are my descendant, so grasp all you can. If you don't others will. Stick to your Tanewha; quote him well; chant songs of no meaning. People don't like to expose their ignorance, and they will agree with you as to what you say is the meaning, for the less they know the more stubborn they will be to agree to it. Go to! Arise, my son! The Courts wait for you! Go, and the white Christian race will protect you! Obey their behests, and love yourself, even as they love each man themselves. E noho!" (Farewell!). And he vanished. But I often see him in my dreams, and his teachings are ever the same. My ancestry, eighty-nine generations back, each generation marked on this notched stick; the top and biggest notch is my Tanewha's mark, made with a stone axe by himself. My mother was a Waikato; my father, the one who begat me, for I have many fathers, originally came from Ngatiruanui. The tipuna (grandfather) of my mother's sister was a Uriwera chief, who again was the grandson of a Ngapuhi, who had killed an Arawa chief under the great Hongi-Hika. Fortunately for me this Ngapuhi grandfather of mine ate a portion of that

Arawa chief, so by our law he became entitled to his estates, to which I have a large right, and to Taupo and the Lake district (as your Courts acknowledge). So, as I explain to the Court, I am entitled to receive advances on the land occupied by the Ngapuhi, Arawa, Uriwera, Ngatiruanui, Rauru, and Waikatos. I could give you my own mother's ancestry, but it is totally different to that of her sister's. My father's ancestry was again different. Through him I claim at the Thames and Maketu, and Whakatane, and on a yet undiscovered goldfield. I cannot say I know where it is situated; but no doubt my Tanewha does, and will tell me in time to send in my claim, so I am in no hurry. My father's father died, his mother threatened to marry again, so my father married his own mother to keep the estate in the family. Then she died, when in her right he became possessed of the manor which has by right descended to me. So you see I am a large land owner, and always am willing to sell to anyone, but prefer the Government to buy. Further, I am related to all the Hauhaus and Kingites, and until the last few years have fought against you. That is over now for me, and now I will tell you why I have addressed you. It has long been my wish to seek out a good European, if I can find one, who understands our ways, and get him to put into your language what I tell him in mine, but who at the same time can be trusted to keep my real name a secret. Well, I have found this European translator, seen and talked him to attention, and told him that he must put down what I say word for word. I will give our history of the past war, and the fights, and the causes that led us to fight against you. Governors have written, premiers have written, generals have written histories of the war. Missionaries have written. Some of them have told the whole truth, others have when it suited them. Rusden has written, ugh! such a book; but, alas! the majority of the writers have lied and cheated. Before I commence my history of the fighting, as witnessed by me, for our history, will you consent to publish it when it is sent to you? I shall only speak the truth. What I have witnessed I will speak of as that I have seen, and what I have been told as that I have heard. My book will be better than the books of those pakehas who have written solely from what they have been told or read of.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER II.

Our history – Captain Cook – The arrival of the missionaries.

I WILL commence with, I will say, one hundred years ago. Many years ago (it may be one hundred years or more, for Maoris do not remember dates or time,) a people who called themselves missionaries came to our shores and distributed themselves all over our country. Until the arrival of these persons we had, on the whole, lived a happy life. In the spring we cultivated our yam and kumera fields; we searched and obtained the substantial fern root that was to us, when pinched by failure of our crops, a never-failing source of food. There it grew, and at all seasons of the year, but especially in the spring and summer months, it was eaten by us. The fern root of these days is not what it once was, as the pigs brought here by the pakehas have almost entirely destroyed the good kinds by their eternal rooting. With bundles of this dried root our people who resided far inland used to come in the season to their recognised fishing places on the coast, and there live on fresh fish, dried fish, and the fern root they had packed down with them, until it was time to return and weed their kumera beds, and snare the rats, who at this time began to burrow in the kumera hillocks in search of the young and sweet roots. It was a necessity with us to snare those little animals, as otherwise they would have destroyed our plantations.

It is generally believed, though it is an error of the pakehas, that we principally lived on fern root; but we only used it in conjunction with other food, except when we were hard pressed. We ate these rats; they were game to us in their season. They were totally unlike the large pakeha rats who live on offal and sewerage. Our rat was fat, tender, and sweet, living only on nutritious roots. He was to us an article of food – a delicacy – what the pheasant and hare is to the pakeha; only we ate ours when it was pure and sweet; they eat theirs when it is decomposed by long keeping and stinks like a dead hawk. But yet they express disgust at us because we steep maize and potatoes in fresh running water to make them soft. What a blind and self-conceited race the pakehas are! I have known many Europeans, the late Sir Donald McLean, Parris, and other pakehas, eat our steeped maize; ay! and enjoy it greedily; but I have never known a Maori attempt to eat a putrid pheasant or a decayed hare. Well, as I was saying, we lived merrily. We had our moaris – long slender spars we used to swing from by ropes attached to the top of it. It was firmly fixed in the ground on the grassy and

mossy banks of our rivers and streams. Many ropes were fastened to the head of it, and our men, women, and little ones used to swing off the ground and, when over the cool river, let go the rope and be plunged into the water. It was great fun. This way of taking our bath lasted all the summer months. Then we had kiwi and weka hunting, pigeon and kaka (parrot) snaring and spearing, eel spearing, and fish spearing by torchlight on the sandy and muddy flats of our rivers. There was no dearth of sport for ourselves and our young ones.

At the fall of the leaf, and in the winter, we lived on the harvest we had gathered in the summer and autumn. We had our games, too. The kaihotaka (humming top) was a great amusement to all, and the different tones sounded by these tops as they flew off the ground and bounded in the air from the lash of the muka (dressed flax) whips, sounded like the string of a harp when one of them is struck singly. We had the haka, too, and the dance. We loved music – not the discordant scraping sound of the fiddle I have heard played in a public house, danced to by intoxicated pakehas, who at one time, it was thought by us, were so maddened by its horrible noise that they tried to drown its scrapings by shouting and gesticulating. We know better now what it all meant. Not the crashing sound of drums and brass bands, or the bugle. No, such was not our music. Our music was what even our oldest warriors and priests used to listen to with pleasure. The flocks of little birds who welcomed the rising and sang the setting sun to rest, mingling their liquid notes with the distant hum of the waterfall and the rippling of the water of our mountain stream, as it raced rapidly on to the sea over the pebbles. Such was our music; but our bird bands have now gone for ever. Nothing softens the crashing sound made by the water as it is hurled over the precipice, and the murmuring of the brooks creates a desolate feeling in our hearts. When I think and muse over these shadows of the past my soul grows dark; then my heart begins to throb and my right arm to tingle, and I exclaim, "Oh! had not my sinews been cut by the pakeha? Oh! why did he ever come to disturb us in our happy country? Why did not our ancestors foresee our ruin, and slay all who first touched our shores? Why did not our sacred Tanewha warn us? Too late! alas, too late! We cannot kill them now." Although, when we found them out, we had a try for it, as in the course of our history I will tell.

Let us return to our missionary. When those people came here first we were very much surprised at their appearance and bearing. We had seen Captain Cook and his sailors. They were a cheerful and merry tribe – good-natured, very affectionate (especially to our women), and gave us a quantity of useful things without asking for payment, such as hooks, axes, iron hoops, etc. We liked this tribe very much. But this new tribe, the missionary, puzzled and vexed us. The majority of them were very solemn, and had a gloominess about them as if all their relations had been eaten and they were powerless to get their revenge. We asked our priests, "Are they

spirits?" Some replied they were good spirits, others that they were bad spirits, others again that they were a mixture of good and bad. "Say you so?" said a chief named Poata. "Well, then, let them be killed. We are quite good enough, and want no more evil." A "hui" (gathering) took place to discuss this view of the question, but I believe the meeting broke up without doing anything definite in council. That meeting years ago did then what the pakeha meetings of Parliament do now. They met, they talked, they ate, and drank – though they did not get tipsy – and did nothing; but after it was over the women of the people had to work extra hard to replace the quantity of food that had been wasted. A great many meetings took place in different parts of our country, and it was generally settled that the missionary tribe should be allowed – though tolerated would be a better word – to try and persuade those who were willing to listen to their incantations or prayers. Our country was a free country, and everyone did as he liked, so long as nothing was done injurious to the welfare, prestige, or mana of the tribe. Mark that. But a few missionaries were killed, and that some of them were eaten is true. You will say that this was wrong, but I say it was right and only just in many instances. Listen! Some of our chiefs, bold, brave men, were somewhat of short temper, and though good-natured enough and keen for a joke, would on no account stand undue familiarity. They had a high-spirited, though very affectionate, race to lead – not control, mind – or guide, and to have put up with insult without avenging it according to its nature would have been fatal to a chief occupying a leading position; and not only so, but injurious to the tribe, as it would render it contemptible to its neighbours. Taking this into consideration, will any reasonable person be astonished at the following action taken by my greatgrandfather Kahu, as fine an old warrior as ever led men to battle. One day, as he was returning from a whapuku fishing excursion, in which some visitors, Ngapuhi chiefs and their favourite wives had accompanied him by invitation, he was met by a missionary on the beautiful surf-beaten beach of Tatahi, and as the men of the tribe dragged the large red canoe, fish and all, ashore, this person thus addressed my great-grandfather: "You are a wicked, bad man. You have not listened to my teachings; you have broken the Sabbath commandment by going over to fish. My God is angry. You and your people will all go to hell, and be burnt with fire for ever and ever, just like your wicked forefathers, who knew not Jehovah. Repent, or be lost!" All eyes were turned from this man's face, and became fixed on my great-grandfather, who had been threatened by this missionary that he would be burnt with the fire that was now burning up his ancestors, male and female; that he was to be cooked with fire, and never to be done. Not a doubt existed – could have existed – in the hearts of the tribe as to what the result would be. No harm had been done to this stranger of a stranger tribe. He had asked for, and obtained, a piece of land in our tribal district to build upon; houses had

been built for him and his gods; yams, kumeras, fish, crayfish, shellfish, eels, pigeons, kakas, and rats, each in its season, had been largely heaped up for him, as he said it was good to give to him and his god; and then, without any provocation at all, he had cursed my great grandfather! True, this man would be killed, and his flesh would be cooked with fire and sent to the neighbouring tribe, who would, of course, hear of this awful cursing. Each tribe would have its tana muru (robbing party), who would come and ravage the settlement, dig up and trample our kumera and yam plantations; blood would flow from wounds received and given, and perhaps it might be necessary to have someone killed to wipe away the disgrace of this cursing. My great-grandfather's mats and kiwi mats would all go, as they would be brought from their places of safe keeping and exposed to view. These robbing parties it would never do to allow to return empty-handed, for my great-grandfather was a powerful chief, and the tribe would feel insulted if they and their chief were not well robbed, as otherwise it would appear as if their mana (prestige) was so small that it was not worth taking notice of.

So far so right; but otherwise it would be a great loss to the whole tribe, and the man who was the cause of all this coming trouble was one we had befriended. Yes, it evidently was about as nasty a piece of kohuru (unprovoked maliciousness) as ever we have been told of or dreamt of. "Lay hold of him," cried my great-grandfather; "take him out of his kotiroa (long coat) and other clothes." This was done more quickly than a boiled kumera is taken out of its skin. "Remove his head and place it on to the short pole in front of our big house; stick it upright, and cook the rest of his body in a priest's sacred oven." This order was quickly obeyed, and in less time than it takes to remove the feathers from a fat pigeon the man of incantations was in an oven, and prevented from creating further mischief. He had done quite enough as it was. Some of him we ate, but the most part of him was cut up into many portions and sent away to the tribes far and near, to show and to prove that my great-grandfather was not a chief to be insulted with impunity, or a man to allow his ancestors to be cursed for nought. Every day for a whole moon after this tauas came upon us, robbing us first and then condoling with my great-grandfather, and showing their respect for him to such a degree that when the tauas left off coming we had not a kumera left, nor had my greatgrandfather a flax or kiwi mat in his house.

A few other missionaries were, by distant tribes, killed at once by the tribes they had taken up their abode with, as they said, "Who could tell when a fit of cursing might seize them and cause the same trouble to fall on them as has fallen on us?" Some of these missionaries were afterwards eaten out of curiosity to see what they tasted like, but they were not approved of, as I have heard tell. The rest of the missionaries met when things had cooled down a bit, and told us through some of our slaves, who had been baptised and made catechists of, that a letter was being

written to King George (George the Fourth), who would send war parties in big ships, and batter us. We believed this, as it was natural and right that the English king chief would want payment for the death of one of his wizards, and we felt uneasy, though why he should have sent that style of men to our shores to curse us we could not tell. On the receipt of this news, two lines of action were recommended to us by our chief men. The first was to kill all the missionaries, and cook the lot; then they could not make personal complaints against us when the ship of King George came. We decided, however, not to molest them further, and to await the current of events.

Then King George's ships never came to get utu (payment) for the missionaries who had been killed; and we afterwards found out, from other Europeans, that King George had never heard anything about us. By this time many of our inferior men had joined their churches and ways of praying; and other ships brought fresh tribes to our shores. You must know that the missionaries had names for our people. Those who were baptised, and said they believed all they were told, were called missionaries. Those who would not be baptised were called by them Teweras (devils) – a nice name for us, don't you think? But, when these other people came, these wizards of priests said they were devils too, just as we were called devils; and we were glad to hear it. Anyway, we would be even with them now, and give a welcome to the new tribe called the Pakeha Devil Tribe.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER III.

Devil Pakehas.

BEFORE I go into the matter of the new tribe of pakeha rewera (devil pakehas), I must relate to you a new code of laws laid down for us to follow by this wizard tribe of missionaries lest, by neglecting them, we incurred the anger of the new gods, whose powers were being made known to our people. The Ten Commandments we had already been made acquainted with, and, on the whole, we thought them good. But we were much puzzled about the new laws made for our tribe and people. We were not to spin humming-tops on Sunday, or peel kumeras or potatoes. They were to be peeled on Saturday evening, or we must boil them in their skins. We were not to gather firewood on a Sunday, or fish, or bathe, or go into the woods to get tawharas (fruit), or catch eels; and if any traveller came to our village on Saturday evening, he was to be asked if he meant to continue his journey on the morrow, and, if so, he or they would not be permitted to rest there, but would have to move on, as it would be desecrating the Sabbath.

I remember hearing that, one season, a native of our village, who had been created a teacher of the new religion, broke our law with a betrothed maiden, and then took shelter with his chief wizard missionary. The tribe resolved at length to ask for him, fully expecting that, as he had broken their own commandments about taking other people's goods, to say nothing about his having broken our laws, too, that no difficulty would present itself. But this wizard missionary would not give the transgressor up to be punished and spoke to us of a woman who had sinned, and who was going to be stoned to death for the offence, but who was pardoned without payment. That settled the question, and they dragged the Maori who had committed the wrong to the clear place in the middle of the village, where he was speared through and through by the chief to whom the young woman had been betrothed. But had this Maori teacher of new incantations been a chief, or a brave man, he would have known how to meet his antagonists, and have warded off the blows aimed at him; then the tribe very likely would have interfered to save him. As it was, all the kaiaka tanga (science) was on one side, and he fell ignominiously, as a woman falls, without defence worth calling such. As the man who now lay dead from the spear wounds was of our tribe, we prepared to place him in the fork of the puriri tree in our waihi tapu (sacred place), but the missionary begged us to let him have the body, saying he would bury it in a hole he would dig for it,

that at last our chief consented. "It will be something new to gaze upon," said he; so a hole was dug in the ground, then the dead man was put in a long box, which was nailed down to prevent him getting out, as we thought; then the missionary put the box in the hole, first of all writing a direction, as we supposed, on it, and then covered him up, after performing an incantation, and told us all he had gone to heaven.

Well, we welcomed the first devil tribe, and each chief and head of a hapu (family) exerted himself to obtain a pakeha; wives were given to them to induce them to settle down and live with us, and be "our pakehas." It is true that some of them, as we look back now, were rough, and we found that some of them had, from motives of policy, left their own tribe without saying "hekona" (good-bye); but it was no use writing other people's names on bits of paper in our country, as nothing could be got by it, and there was nothing worth stealing they could carry away. We think they were good men, the most of them; they worked hard, and their wives bare them lots of children for our tribe, and they treated their wives well, as a rule. Only one man, a whaler, beat his wife on one occasion for nothing. But when her relations heard of this they belaboured him so soundly with the butts of their spears that he was ill for some time. His wife afterwards told us that he had been drinking some waipiro (stinking water). We afterwards found out what this waipiro was, but did not drink it for many years. It has since proved to be our greatest curse, but we drink it whenever we can get it. These pakehas of ours laughed at the missionary wizards and would not attend their incantations. Nevertheless, on the whole, we preferred our devil pakehas to the missionaries. Thus we lived on until other pakehas came, who were an improvement on the former ones, as we thought, and who brought their pakeha wives and children with them.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER IV.

A terrible crime – Arrival of a Governor – Treaty of Waitangi – -War in the North – How we were taught repudiation – Causes that led us to war – Land purchase and spoliation.

NOTHING stands still, and guns were brought to us as an article of trade. Iron hoops had been discarded for tomahawks. A flint musket was a valuable article, but a double-barrel flint gun was a weapon to be turned over and over again to be admired; and pistols with a large bore were precious, indeed, and showed to us that the pakeha knew how to get rid of his foes by a sudden surprise, when it became necessary.

To prove the value that we placed in muskets about the year 1830, I will relate the following story, and will tell it as it was told to me, but I can vouch for its truth. There lived on the Hokianga River two men who were sawyers. Both were pakehas belonging to chiefs. They had several muskets and some pistols, and each had a native wife. A slave man had been given them by the chief, who had great authority. He had, with his people, consented to be baptised, and his name went home to the Wesleyan Mission Society. The chief was a good man, though his temper was somewhat gusty and uncertain. He seized a double-barrelled gun and shot a man one day at the Bay of Islands, because he got the better of him in some argument. Well, one day, as these sawyers were heaving a log on to the saw-pit, something gave way, and the log fell on one of the men, hurting his leg badly. The other, with his wife, went down the river to get assistance, leaving his mate and the slave. The injured man during the absence of his mate, had proof that his domestic arrangements were all going wrong, and that the slave had been making a fool of him. On his companion's return, he told him; but his wife had eloped with the slave. Recovering from his hurt, the sawyer and his mate went to the chief to see about getting back his wife and to have revenge on the slave. The result of the conference was that the chief promised to punish the slave, provided that his pakehas gave him one musket afterwards, and one pistol as payment in advance. This bargain was agreed to. The slave and the woman had gone to the Ahu Ahu, a settlement not far from Ohaeawai, to seek protection. The chief, accompanied by his friend Hehi, went in search of them, and found them in the above-named village. With fair and oily words the chief induced the slave to return with them to Hokianga, telling

him never to mind the pakehas, as no notice would be taken of their complaint. Nearing the entrance of the bush that divides the country in this locality, they halted to roast some potatoes in the ashes of a fire they made. After partaking of these, the chief said to the slave, "Go on," and the slave said, "Lead on." The chief rose to go, the slave following him, carrying the bundles, Hehi bringing up the rear. Suddenly Hehi brought down his weapon on the man's head. The blow was not sufficient to stun him, and he sprang upon the chief, who had turned round to face him, and as they clutched each other both rolled on the ground. Hehi now despatched the slave, the chief holding him tight. They cut his head off, and pitched his body into the fork of a tree, and came on to where the sawyers lived. It was night when they got to the house (a wooden one). The pakehas arose and began to get them some food. "I have come for my musket, and I want one too for Hehi," said the chief. "Not till you have revenged us for the wrong the slave did us," replied one of the men. The chief, who had been sitting on the floor of the house, now arose and, letting the head roll off his lap, said in a stern voice, "There is your head; give me muskets." And they were given. I don't know if this account was sent home to the society of the wizards, but if it wasn't it ought to have been.

Nearly all the new arrivals bought land from us. Some of these pakehas paid fair prices; others obtained a right to thousands and thousands of acres for very little. Missionary Williams, Davis, and a score of others, bought land – Captain McDonnell, R.N., Judge Maning, Russell, St. Aubin, Busby, and others. But, be what they gave little or much, we were quite satisfied with it at the time, and knew what we were doing. Then the New Zealand Company bought land, and settlers continued to arrive.

At last a Governor arrived. This was in the year 1840. The Governor's name was Hobson. A paper called the Treaty of Waitangi was signed by a few chiefs, who had only a right to sign for themselves, and not for the New Zealand Maoris as a whole. But it is doubtful, in spite of what has been said and written, if these old Maori chiefs really understood the true meaning of what they did sign. I don't believe they did. It was all great rubbish and nonsense.

After a time new laws were made. Ngapuhi, objecting to these laws, and seeing, with a troubled spirit, our independence slipping from us, cut down the flagstaff – the emblem of the Queen's authority over these islands at the Bay – and had a fight, which ended in the defeat of the Queen's troops, and the sacking of Kororareka town. The red-coat tribe were driven away; but the sailor tribe of Her Majesty's ship Hazard, commanded by Captain Robinson (or Robertson), fought like braves and Robinson slew several of our men in a hand-to-hand fight at the corner of the church, on Kororareka beach, and

the marks of his cutlass are to be seen on the posts of the churchyard there to this day. After this victory of ours we erected a pa at Okaihau. The soldier tribe came to attack it, and boasted that they would eat their breakfast inside it. Tamati Waka Nene, Wiremu Repa, and Te Taonui, of the Popoto tribe, attempted to dissuade the English commander from attacking the pa in front, and said, "Let us go to the rear, where there are no rifle-pits, and only a slight fence." But he would not listen to them, such was his self-conceit. And then the bugle sounded, and this red-coated tribe came on like a pack of fowls when grain is thrown to them. Oh, what a brave but foolish tribe!

Hone Heke was in the pa with 250 men. Kawiti lay in ambush outside, in some scrub, with twice seventy warriors, all clothed in the pillage of the Bay of Islands town. "Wait till you see the eye of the enemy!" cried the chiefs. "Wait, be brave! Wait, be ready! Now, give them their breakfasts! Haere mai! Haere mai! Bang! Fire! Ha! ha! ha!" And fifty men lay dead and wounded before the pa, not twenty feet from the palisading. Then they fell back. At this time, Kawiti charged with gun and tomahawk. Alas! this was a fatal mistake. A bugle sounded, when the enemy, now reinforced by a number of men who had not joined in the assault on our pa, faced about, and came at our people with a rush, grinding their teeth, with their bayonets fixed on their muskets. And then it was all over. Down went Kawiti's choicest warriors. The ground was strewn with them. Kawiti lost half his men in that charge. We never tried that move again. Once was quite enough. On the return of the troops to camp, we afterwards heard that Tamati Waka Nene was so enraged at the useless sacrifice of men that he tore from a Maori whare a long stick, and hit the commander of the Queen's forces a blow on the head with it.

We left the pa that night, and built another at Ohaeawai. The soldier and sailor tribes drew up big guns from the Bay of Islands to batter it down. But all the posts of our pa were of puriri; they fired plenty of balls at us, but they did not knock down our pa. Then they rushed it, but we drove them back with a killing fire, and they retreated, leaving their dead and dying, whom we tomahawked. We left that night, after Pene Tawi had lit a kauri gum fire on the breast of a wounded soldier – the only instance of torture resorted to in that war.

Then we went to Ruapekapeka (Bat's hole) Pa. Here we intended to take a stand, and give the Queen's troops a good thrashing and drive them into the sea. We had constant intercourse with the missionaries at this time, and no settler pakeha was touched by us. Not one hoof did we deprive them of. As our allies passed through pakeha settlements they bade them "Good day," and came on. The reason for this was threefold, as I will explain. First of all we had invited these pakehas to come and dwell amongst us, and we thought they all belonged to different tribes, like ourselves. We understood there was English Church, Wesleyan, and Catholic

(the wizard missionary tribe of three hapus=families). Jews had not then arrived. They are a clever people. We are of this race. These families hated each other, it is true; but then it is natural for families to disagree, though of one tribe. Then came the tribe of inferior pakehas, called "rerewas" (devil pakehas), because they would not attend to what the wizard tribes taught. Then came the superior pakeha – "rangitira," gentleman tribe – and the children of these old pakehas are respected to this day. Then the red-coat tribe, and then the sailor (Captain Cook) tribe. Ah! these last were a fine lot of men – worth ever so much more than the red-coat tribe. Afterwards we found out, but not so very long ago, that all these people and tribes really comprise one tribe. It was very puzzling to us, and is now. The third reason was, we feared to do any wrong to our friends lest payment be demanded of us, and taken, if we did not give it. This was a very good reason.

How we came to lose the Ruapekapeka Pa will seem to you very absurd now. But it was the innocent fault of the missionaries. I feel sure if they had known of our doings they would have warned us. We never did them the injustice to think that they behaved treacherously to us in this war.

We generally understood (for we had been taught by the pakeha) that the seventh day being Sunday was set aside as a day of rest, as was stated in the Ten Commandments; and in the enemy's camp the missionaries had, they informed us, performed divine service, and prayed with and for the army of the Queen. Well, one Sunday we all went out of the pa to have prayers too – to pray for ourselves – and only a few of the devil ones remained inside. No thought had crossed our minds of misfortune, when all of a sudden the army of the pakeha were inside and outside our pa. We fought, but it was of no use. We were beaten, and lost heavily, and our stronghold was captured by the soldiers.

This was the last fight worth recording, and shortly afterwards peace was made and all were friends again, only that the Queen's flagstaff was not attempted to be re-erected until many years afterwards. We would not have that. No heartburnings were felt, because no land was confiscated.

It was after this war with Hone Heke that the pakeha passed a law to prevent Europeans selling us guns and ammunition. Perhaps this was a wise act on their part. But I could tell you of pakeha traders and whalers who paid little or no attention to it. They used to get out double-barrelled guns in cases, hidden in bales of blankets, and plenty of powder and shot. A score of guns and a hundredweight of powder was as much as one could get secretly from our friends the traders at one time; but we often got a ton or so of powder from the American whalers when on the eve of starting home to their own country. The ships used to lay off and on the coasts from Coromandel up to the Bay of Plenty and Poverty Bay. Plenty of tobacco, too, we got in that way.

The Northern natives were not so well off as the East Coast-tribes. I remember some of those Ngapuhi chiefs, anxious to be allowed to purchase openly, sailed from Hokianga to Auckland to see the Government. For a chief to make that voyage in the days I speak of (thirty and more years ago) was a great event. Well, they at last got to Auckland, after great expense and trouble, and had an interview with the Government, related their errand, spoke of their past and present loyalty to the Queen of England, and hoped that permission would be given to them to buy powder and shot. After some talk they were informed that this permission was allowed them, and they returned highly elated with the success of their mission. Fancy their disgust, and how they were laughed at when, on going to the traders to purchase ammunition, they were informed that though permission was accorded them to buy the prohibition had not been taken off against selling! They had been put off with this in Auckland, and sold in a rascally manner. Nice treatment for men who helped the pakeha in his time of need with men and guns.

Letters were now received by us, and communications were sent to the chiefs in the different districts to the effect that a commission would be appointed to inquire into the various land transactions between the pakeha and the Maori. So that if we liked (for so we read it, and our racecan quickly take a hint) to repudiate our bargains, we could do so. This commission sat. We claimed back all our land we had formerly sold to the pakehas, and got most of it. We felt ashamed after this to visit our pakehas for some time, but a great many of them went away and never came back any more. But the Government said we might do this unjust thing, and rob them. So it was not us who really were to blame. When the Maori people declared war against the Government years afterwards (a war that has cost millions of money to prevent us regaining the lands they had for the most part robbed us of), we had a vivid remembrance of who taught us repudiation in the first instance. Nothing, as I have before said, stands still, and some things travel in circles. If anyone starts a wrong, it will come back to him again, and we all get punished in turn for our robberies. The Government bought, with a strong hand, our fair tracts of land for from one penny up to fivepence an acre; but they had far better have purchased it in an honourable way – ay, and given us twenty pounds an acre – than have fought with us for it.

I will try as well as I can to explain the later reason we had for going to war. First of all, we thought it would be easy to vanquish and kill the pakehas. We looked upon them as merely a large number of thistles, easily cut down and rooted up; and, after we had endured much wrong, the thought of an easy victory was very fascinating to our nature. But the chief, the very chief reason of our commencing to fight – the reason that had attracted so many tribes, and attached them to the King movement – was the unjust manner in which our land was being torn from us. There were no Native Land Courts in those days to even make a

semblance of doing justice; but one man was appointed the land purchase officer for the Government. I am only a native, and am not able to go into all the pakeha policy of those dark, black days, which ought to have been bright days for us.

At last these land purchases brought trouble at the Waitara; but if Cooper, who was subordinate to the chief officer of the Government, had been left to manage native affairs in Taranaki, no war would have arisen there; and if Searancke had been left alone in his district, no trouble would have arisen in the Waikato. But these subordinate gentlemen were shifted about, and their decisions altered and amended by their chief, who made the Government believe that the future welfare of the country rested solely upon him – as if the welfare of a country depended upon one man! What fools the pakehas are! Well, as I said, the land purchase policy caused a disturbance at the Waitara. The rightful owners refused to sell, but the tribes which had no claim sold, and the land was taken possession of in the name of the Queen. This time the rightful owners took up arms to defend their rights. The tribe rallied up. And this is how the war commenced; but it had been smouldering a long time before it burst into the flame that has scorched our country and has taken so much blood to extinguish.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER V.

Organising the King movement – A man buried alive – War in Taranaki – Imperial proclamation – War in Waikato – Orakau Pa.

OUR one great motive in organising this political movement was to unite the Maori race and bring them together as one people. Many of our wisest chiefs foretold failure in this. They urged that the tribal independence was too strong. There were tribal jealousies and ancient feuds to overcome. To entirely do away with these latter was impossible. And then, who would be chosen to rule over us all as the King Chief?

There were two great tribes in this country before whom all other tribes must give way. The first was Ngapuhi, who as a whole comprise, roughly speaking, all the tribes north of Auckland – very powerful tribes, several thousands strong in their day. The hapus were usually about two hundred to five hundred strong. The Rarawa tribal boundary extended to the North Cape and to the mouth of the Hokianga River; the warlike tribe of Ngatiwhatua, at Kaipara, Riverhead, and Hauraki. Then, who could withstand the Ngapuhi from Hokianga, where even the great Hongi Hika met his death trying to conquer the river, and Ngapuhi of the Tokirau, Bay of Islands? Did not Hongi Hika, on his return from England, dressed in the armour King George had given him, lead all these warriors to battle, and slay from the Auckland hills – those rich volcanic kumera grounds – right away to the barren lands of Ngaiterangi, at Tauranga, proceeding on to the Arawa country, swooping on to Ahuriri, Hawke's Bay, where they slew the Ngatikatiungunu, and made them fly like dust before a gale? Then putting to one side a slight repulse, fearfully avenged on the confines of Waikato, returned to their own districts along the coast from Auckland, in their huge sea-going kauri war canoes. Such a fleet was never seen before, nor ever will be again, laden with spoil – the captive women of many a hapu, and the flesh of their enemies.

Waikato knew too well, for the bones of many of their warriors whitened the soil of Ngapuhi, the geographical strength of their country. To get there nothing could be easier; but to get back again across the narrow strip of land was another question altogether. Then the Ngapuhi were better armed, and had learned much that the Waikatos and other tribes had not had the chance to learn. Under these circumstances there was small chance that Ngapuhi would consent to recognise a Waikato King. However, a deputation of diplomatic chiefs, wizards, tohungas (no missionaries), and

warriors, known and trusted for their wisdom, and whose words and speech could be made as enticing as the fat pigeons fed on the "miro" berry are to a hungry man, was sent to sound and to tempt the Ngapuhi. Ngapuhi met the Waikato heralds on the Hokianga river, at Opara, and with haughty patience listened to all that the Waikato deputation had to say. It is related that all the fat of the tuis and the pigeons in the "miro" season was as naught to compare with the oiliness of the Waikato speeches. If only the Ngapuhi would consent to be the backbone, the sinew and mana of the Waikato King.

"Your speech," replied Ngapuhi, "is as a sperm whale for fatness; but you can return, and take back our reply. If we ever elect to join our tribes under one head, we have the race of Hongi Hika to fall back upon, and Matiria shall be our queen; but we choose to live as we are, and under the Queen of England, and at peace with our friends the pakehas. All the pakehas are ours." We knew what this meant, and that Ngapuhi perceived that we intended to go to war, and wished to intimate to us that old battlefields could be fought on again. It was enough; and we turned our attention south, and Waikato drew all the southern tribes into the meshes of her net, excepting the Arawa; but even some of the hapus of the Arawa were induced to join when it came to fighting in their locality, and at Tauranga, when half of Ngatipikiao came over to assist us at the Gate Pa, at Tauranga. But our wish was to confine the war to the neighbourhood of Waikato. At length the Taranaki, Mokau, and the brave Ngatiruanui tribes joined, and so did Ngatiraukawa; but the Lower Wanganuis and Ngatiapa were undecided for a time, and swayed to and fro like a tall tree in the wind, but the friendship for the pakeha prevailed. The confidence these tribes had in Sir George Grey in the old war of 1845 remained firm, and though he was absent from the colony his words and advice remained with them. Then there was Dr. Featherston, Sir William Fitzherbert, and other old pakeha friends, who had proved themselves to be "rangitiras" (gentlemen). And no doubt all this, combined with tribal dislike to old enemies, turned the scale, and they elected to abide by the Queen of England, whom they had never seen. We looked upon these people as "lick plates" of the pakehas and cookies. But what cared Hori Kingi, Mawae, Kawana Paipai, and Mete Kingi. They laughed at us, and said "taihoa" (wait).

Strange as it may seem, no one at this time appears to have warned the Government that the King movement meant war; that it was a plot to kill all the pakehas and drive them into the sea, and recover our land that they had stolen from us through their agents. During this time we were allowed to purchase arms and ammunition, the prohibition having been taken off, and we laid in a heavy stock of powder and guns.

We cast our eyes back, and saw nothing but cheating and taking advantage of us. Even in small things it was the same. The large P-weight belonging to the steelyard that would weigh up to 500lbs.,

was used by dishonest traders to weigh our wheat with the small steelyards that weighed up to 250lbs., but when anything was sold to us by weight the p's were reversed. It was the same system, and our innocence in the dark ways of the pakeha, and our credulity and ready forgiveness of injuries were utilised to our disadvantage. We had noticed also that the Government were not brave enough, nor had not confidence in themselves to carry out the laws that they made. The cry was, "We are afraid to send policemen here, lest," as they urged, "they be cooked and eaten."

I have said that the Government were afraid to carry out their own laws. I could give many instances of this, but I will content myself by relating one. It was about the year 1857 or 1858 that an old man fell sick at a village on the Wairoa river, in Hawke's Bay. It happened to be planting season; and though the sick man was a chief the tribe could not delay their planting, so they left one of their number to look after him until he died. His death was daily expected, but he lingered on. The native deputed to look after him was angry because this old man would not die, and he thought he would be too late to put in his own corn and potatoes. "You ought to die, as you are keeping me here doing nothing," said the man to the sick person, who would reply, "Perhaps I may die to-morrow." But the morrow came, and still he was there. At last the man got a spade, an old blanket, and a prayer-book. He put these into a canoe, and then carried the old man and placed him in it, jumped in himself, and pulled down the river for a short distance to a sandy point, got out and dug a hole, placed the old man in it, read the burial service over him, and covered him up alive! He then returned to the village, and from there went up to the plantation, where his tribe were. He told them that he had buried the sick man. "When did he die? Why did you not tell us, so that we could have a 'tangi' (cry) over him?" he was asked; but all they could get was that he had read the burial service over him. At last they got at the truth of this dreadful murder. The head men of the tribe, Paora Rerepu and others, sent to the Magistrate at Napier to send up policemen and take the native who had committed this crime, but no notice was taken of the information or request. The natives, therefore, held a meeting, but were puzzled to know what to do. At last a young chief got up and said he would end the difficulty. The murderer was placed with his back against a cabbage tree. The young chief then loaded his double-barrelled gun, and took his position about one hundred yards distant. "I am," he called out, "going to fire two shots at the murderer. If I hit him, there is an end of the matter; if I don't hit him, he shall go free." And he fired at him, and the bullet went clean through his brain, and he fell dead, and was there and then buried. It was apparent to all that it was the Government who were afraid to act.

The big fighting began in Taranaki about land some time in the year 1860. We commenced by killing some men and children. All the Kingites were involved. To seek payment for this, a force,

composed of soldiers and settler-soldiers, marched up from Taranaki to attack us at Waireka. Soon after the fighting commenced the soldiers went away, leaving the settler-soldiers to stem the attack. We now hurried on, and the fight grew hotter and hotter. I must tell the truth in our history. Well, these men beat us; but still we might have had better fortune had it not been for the unexpected arrival of some man-of-war sailors, who attacked us from another quarter. They rushed at our pa and climbed over the palisading, regardless of the storm of bullets we sent at them. We lost heavily in this remarkable fight, but we killed many of the enemy.

The war grew, and all the settlers were driven into town. We tomahawked many a pakeha. The soldiers now sent away, by force, the settlers' wives and children to Nelson. When we heard of this we said, "The town will be abandoned soon," as we had no doubt all the men were going to march away in a body, when they had sent away their women and children. But one never can calculate what pakehas will do, except that if we laid an ambuscade they would be certain to walk into the midst of it. Sentries were now placed round the town, and settlers were forbidden by the troops to go and save their houses from being burnt, and their stock from being killed and driven away. It was very considerate of the troops for us. To prove that the alarm caused by us was very great, I will give you one or two of the proclamations issued at this time.

PROCLAMATION.

Dated 20th April, i860, signed by Colonel C. E. Gold, commanding the forces, New Zealand.

"The inhabitants will in future be required to have a candle or lamp at their front windows, ready to light in case of alarm, and are desired to secure their doors and lower windows. The police to see to this."

PROCLAMATION.

"The Major-General hereby gives notice that it is imperatively necessary that all persons should come within the lines of entrenchment at nightfall; and that, in the event of alarm, all women and children repair at once to Marsland Hill. It is also requested that lights are then put in windows of all houses.

By command. R. CAREY,

Lieut.-Colonel, Deputy Adjutant-General,

Headquarters, New Plymouth,

October 16, 1860."

"Many complaints having been made to the Major-General that Europeans are in the habit of intriguing with the wives and daughters of the friendly

Maoris in the pa in the neighbourhood of the town, which not only creates ill-feeling, but is not unlikely to lead to the murder of the person so offending and the withdrawal of these Maoris and their families from their allegiance all Europeans are cautioned against the continuance of such practices, which, if persevered in, will oblige the Major-General to issue orders that no European, excepting the medical attendants and others specially sanctioned, shall enter into any of the pas. And, on the other hand, that no Maori, male or female, shall pass the barrier into town without a pass from Mr. Parris, Assistant Native Commissioner.

By command. R. CAREY,

Lieut.-Colonel, Deputy Adjutant-General.

Headquarters, New Plymouth,

November 23, 1860."

Brown, Atkinson, Stapp, and others fought us bravely at Waireka, and had it not been for Atkinson and his toas (braves), who prevented us from killing more of the 57th Regiment when we killed Lloyd and his men and cut off their heads, we would not have been beaten back. At Puketekauri, too, when the 40th Regiment were defeated, their loss in killed and wounded would have been much heavier than it was had it not been that the settlers saved them. We got a fine lot of rifles and ammunition that day. We understand that the Queen of England instituted an Order for any act of "conspicuous bravery." The Order is called the "Victoria Cross." There is no order for "conspicuous caution" yet instituted. However, in a fight a soldier was hit by us badly, and could not get away with the other wounded. He would have been tomahawked by us, but a man – an ordinary pakeha – named Antonio, at a fearful risk of his life, rushed to the rescue, and getting the wounded soldier upon his back, carried him away to a place of safety. This, we all said, was a brave act. Listen to the result. Antonio, after he had got the man out of danger, gave him up to an officer of the Imperials, who was recommended by his Colonel, and afterwards received the Victoria Cross. Antonio got no reward until the New Zealand Cross was instituted, when he received one for his brave act in 1864.

Seeing the state of things that existed, we sacked and burned homestead after homestead, for we knew, or thought we knew, that Atkinson and Stapp with their men had been sent away to Nelson lest they should sally forth and molest us in our work of destruction. After some weeks had passed (but not until we had destroyed the whole of the settled district) General Pratt, the English General, arrived with his tribe of soldiers. "Now," we said, "we will have some fighting." For so we thought.

Soon after this we erected a pa, as we were tired of burning houses and waylaying and tomahawking people. We determined to await the attack of the troops. Day after day passed on, but all remained perfectly quiet, and our European clothing began to get shabby and rotten. At last the General commenced a sap. A big roller was made, and the friendly natives under Parris, the Civil Commissioner – Now, I am pledged to tell the facts. Well, then,

these friendly natives under the Civil Commissioner were our good friends. When the Civil Commissioner told them what was going to be done they let us know all about it, though the Civil Commissioner did not know that all he told them was conveyed to us. Then we assisted the troops to make their sap and bridge over the bad places approaching to our pa. Yes, I believe that without our valuable assistance they could not have done even what they did. I daresay you who read this will think that I am joking; but listen. Fascines were required of green manuka brushwood in large quantities. Now, this manuka grew upon our land, for we had driven the pakeha from it, and by right of conquest it had become ours; but, as the troops did not like to fetch it themselves, they asked the friendly natives to get it for them. These natives did not wish to take our brushwood without our permission; but it was no use to us, so we had an understanding in the following manner. We cut the brushwood, and tied it up into the different sized bundles that General Pratt and his army required, and we really did try hard to please them, lest they should take their custom elsewhere, and send to Auckland or Nelson for what they required, as they did for their fuel. After we had stacked the fascines, the friendly natives came and fetched them away, first paying us the cash they had obtained from the commissariat. We were well paid for our labour. We returned a portion of this money to them to purchase clothing for ourselves and our wives and children, and the next time they came to get more fascines, they brought us blankets, shirts, and trousers for us, and underclothing for our wives, and little clothes for our children; so the sap progressed steadily, and did nobody any harm; and when, after a time, it came too near, we left that pa and built another one.

I think it was soon after this that the fighting commenced near Auckland, and war parties, from Rangiriri and other strong places of ours, sallied forth to kill anyone and everyone they came upon. The first people we killed were at a place called Burt's Farm. It was occupied by a farmer, his wife, and children. Our war party came upon the little children, whom they found playing in the woods near the house, and tomahawked them. We then killed the others. One of the men, however, I fancy, got away. We were very successful, and killed a good many children and people by surprising them. We thought the pakehas were very foolish in not sending their families to safe places.

We now assembled in force at Koheroa, and made strong rifle-pits. A new general (General Cameron), who had fought with the Russians at the Crimea, came to fight us with his tribe of soldiers. This general was a different man to General Pratt. He did not sap up to our position here at the Koheroa line of rifle-pits, but with his tribe of soldiers, charged up and into our earthworks, so that it was doubtful at one time who would win, our enemies fought so well. But now this general came up in person and encouraged his men – just as our chiefs encouraged our men – and

so they charged us, with strange yells, and alas! we were beaten, and lost heavily. We retired in disorder, leaving our dead and wounded. Some of them were bayonetted; but this is right in war, for what is the use of fighting unless you kill your man when you have got him down? To do otherwise would be to waste all your efforts to get him into a position so as to be able to kill him properly, and the pakehas who blame us and their own people for this are very foolish, and write nonsense merely because they don't know what fighting is. We knew that there were some settlers living at the Mauku, so we sent a large party from Rangiriri to tomahawk them. As we were on our way there, we came across a Magistrate (Armitage), who had been appointed by Fox (now made a big rangatira) to spy upon us. So we killed him, as a warning to others, and then continued on our way. On our arrival at the houses of the settlers, we found they had left; but the garrison stationed at the Mauku Church Redoubt came out to attack us, and a battle took place on some cleared land, which resulted in their defeat. We killed a good many of them, and chased the remainder back to the redoubt. We laid those of their dead we could find in a row, after well tomahawking the bodies, stuck up a stick and placed the courier-bag we found on one of the officers on the top of it, and went back with our dead and wounded to Rangiriri. Our chiefs were very angry at the loss of men we had sustained, as they termed it a useless fight, though we had come off victorious.

After the fight at Koheroa, we entrenched ourselves strongly at Rangiriri and Meremere, having had to retreat from Whangamarino. The main body of the enemy were at Queen's Redoubt, and now we harassed their convoys as they used to pass between Queen's Redoubt and other parts, and cut off stragglers, whom we tomahawked. One day we caught two soldiers going up from Queen's Redoubt to Pokeno. We caught them, and chopped them up. After this the enemy were more careful how they strolled about looking at our country.

To keep the enemy from getting to the rear of our people at the Thames, and at the rear of Meremere and Rangiriri, we commenced to build a strong pa at Paparata, and to dig a line of rifle-pits near a bush. This position was about twelve miles from Queen's Redoubt and about five from Pickard's Redoubt, where they had an Armstrong gun that overlooked Meremere on the Waikato. This gun was a great nuisance to us, and we laid an ambuscade for Pickard, but it was unsuccessful. General Cameron sent two officers to spy us out at Paparata. These men came in the night and hid themselves, and returned the next night. Had it not been a very wet day we would certainly have found them. As it was, we discovered where they had been the morning after they left, and found a compass and a box of preserved fish and some empty tins. This made us feel uneasy, as we did not know what information they might carry to the General or the Governor, and it was partly in consequence of this that we decided to abandon this place. One

of these officers was Von Tempsky, the other was McDonnell. You will hear more about these two men anon.

Rangiriri and Meremere were now attacked. This was a dreadful battle, and the loss on both sides was very severe. The flower of Waikato fell here. Our rifle-pits were carried by a series of charges, but were not taken until the red blood flowed like water. Then the soldiers tried to storm our redoubt, but were repeatedly repulsed, and each time with great loss. Many of us escaped by swimming the Waikato river, and going by the lake in rear; but those inside the redoubt could not get away so easily; so they at last, after having done all that brave men could do, hung out a flag of truce and surrendered. "Shall we be all killed in payment for the loss sustained by the enemy?" we asked one another; but we were well treated, and our wounded were well looked after by their doctors. And then some of us thought that perhaps that if this class of men had been the first to arrive in this country we might all have lived in peace. But, alas! that could never have been, for our doom was pronounced on the distant day when Captain Cook first came to New Zealand. From that day our fate was sealed, and we know now that in a few short years we will have to follow the moa and our ancestors to oblivion. To oblivion? No; to a better and happier world, where there are no bad pakehas to trouble and perplex us, and when the natural ignorance of the Maori and the unnatural ignorance of the pakeha will be enlightened.

After Rangiriri fell overtures were sent to us for peace. But while these negotiations were being talked over, and before anything was settled, a large body of troops was slipped past us and took possession of Ngaruawhia, at the junction of the Waikato and Waipa rivers. This movement was carried out so suddenly that we only saw the advantage that had been taken of us after it was too late to try and prevent it. It was a smart trick. This we attributed to the Governor. Others said it was the General's doing. But whoever was to blame for this, there were the troops in possession, and when we sent to tell them that it was not fair, and that they were to return, they refused to budge. So we determined to fight it out – as, by the way, we all along had made up our minds to do – but we wanted to gain more time after our defeat, and engage the enemy in talk. Large parties of soldiers were sent up the Waipa river to different parts, and up the Waikato, and the troops spread over the country like a stream that had overflowed its banks in a flood. Many skirmishes took place, in most of which we were beaten, but we made up our loss for this by laying ambushes and by firing on the steamers from the banks of the river as they passed up and down. This kind of warfare suited us. Soldiers always walked right into our traps, they are so stupid. We shot and tomahawked scores of men in this way during the war, but we could not, as a rule, contend successfully against them in the open ground; but then they were always better armed and provided than we were.

We now erected two strong pas at Paterangi and Pikopiko, to

bar the advance of the Queen's troops on Te Awamutu, Rangiaowhia, and Kihikihi, the heart and lungs of Waikato. General Cameron now began to concentrate his men at Te Rore, and big guns were brought up, and huge mortars, and we saw that a tremendous battle would soon take place, for we had more than one thousand men in these pas, all of them warriors and eager for a fight – the greatest number ever concentrated together at one time against the enemy in the Waikato or at any other place in our country. Our pas were double palisaded and rifle-pitted. The pits were deep and roofed over with logs eighteen inches through. These again were covered with bundles of tightly-bound fern, and a thick layer of earth was shovelled over the whole and tramped smooth. Only small holes were left for the men to fire through. Each of our pas was flanked, and the strength of one part was made equal to the other. Our rear was protected by a swamp, and the only approach was up a gentle slope from the position taken up by the enemy. A good dray road extended from the rear of one of the pas to our farms at Rangiaowhia, Te Awamutu, and Kihikihi, from where we were kept supplied with provisions. Having made our fortifications complete, our young men amused themselves by firing at the steamers, and this at last became so serious to our foes that they had to get iron sheets to protect their men with. But still we made our bullets whistle about their heads. We kept a good watch for an attack to be made, for we felt certain of beating them off with ease. About this period the Governor arrived at Te Rore, and told the General to attack us, but the General would not obey the Governor. How it would have been I cannot tell, but we felt certain of defeating him if an attack had been made. However, nothing of this kind was attempted. One or two men used to take pot shots at us with their rifles, but nothing more.

Traitors, however, were at work. A half-caste, for a few shillings, betrayed us, and offered to show the general a way round our pas, so that he could get to the back country and cut off our supplies, rendering our positions useless. We knew nothing of this until one day a mounted man rode into our camp covered with dust and foam, and astounded us all with the information that Te Awamutu, Rangiaowhia, and Kihikihi were in the hands of the enemy, and that severe loss had been inflicted upon us at the village of Rangiaowhia, and that a number of people had been burnt in a house there; also that a number of prisoners had been captured. On receipt of this news we put on our belts and at once evacuated our pas, and fell back inland of Te Awamutu, where we found the troops had encamped. We wept bitterly over our dead in the burnt and once beautiful village of Rangiaowhia, and prepared to dislodge the enemy from the position they had taken up at Te Awamutu mission station. It was on a Sunday morning the troops attacked Rangiaowhia, and on the following day we advanced from there to give them battle. We attacked them in three columns, and drove in their

pickets. Then the troops poured out of their camps and came at us. A short conflict took place. They drove us at the point of the bayonet to some distance, to a swamp. Here we rallied and had another fight; but two bodies of cavalry, one on each side of the troops on foot, charged us, and one party of cavalry came upon us in a corn field. Then we had a bad time of it, and our men were cut down with the sword right and left. Our other wing and centre had been defeated. We were utterly routed with heavy loss. Our killed numbered twenty-five men, and we lost many in wounded and prisoners. Soon after this Tamihana Tarapipipi sent in messengers to the General. A correspondence ensued, but nothing came of it.

On the same evening of this battle, as a party of our scouts were in ambush at a bush on one side of the cornfield where our dead warriors lay about, we noticed two mounted men, one without arms and the other apparently a cavalry officer, ride up, quietly dismount and fasten up their horses, and proceed to investigate the bodies of our dead. We could not understand their conduct, for they were far away from the troops. They then separated, and went looking all over the field, meeting again. At last the one not in uniform called out in a loud ringing voice, "E hoa ma ko au tenei ko Pihopa haere no mai, ko au tenei Ko Pihopa Herewini." (Friends, this is I, the Bishop. Come to me in safety. This is I, the Bishop Selwyn.) "Ha," we said, "it is Bishop Selwyn with a soldier officer come to gaze on our dead. Let us call them to us, and then tomahawk them." Some of us were afraid to kill the Bishop, others were for letting a volley fly at him. He and his companion were not more than two hundred yards distant, but while we were making up our minds as to what we should do they proceeded to untie their horses. The Bishop called out once more, and then the two got into their saddles; and now we sent a volley of fifty guns at them, but they rode rapidly away, apparently uninjured. 1

We now made other pas, and the fighting went on. Kihikihi was occupied, and troops were located in redoubts all over the country.

The last big fight we had in the Waikato was at Orakau. Here again we lost heavily, but if the most wonderful blunders had not been made not one man of us had escaped, and this fight would have annihilated us. As it was we put our women and children and wounded in the centre, and surrounded them with our band of warriors. Watching our time, all of a sudden we marched out of the pa in a dense column right over the heads of a small portion of the Regiment (I think it was the 40th) guarding this outlet. This movement, as we had calculated, took everyone by surprise, and we got clean away from the whole of the troops in array against us. Still our loss was heavy, but we had taken our mana (prestige) safe with us. The General had

offered terms if we would surrender, but Rewi, the chief in command, replied "Never! We will fight for ever and for ever." This was because of our lands. We thought after the defeat at Orakau, and seeing our fine country and pastures in the occupation of our foes, that indeed our affairs seemed hopeless. We could not afford to lose any more of our men. There were none to fill up the gaps made in our ranks. This was not the case with the pakeha. If he blundered, as he nearly always did, and lost men, ten replaced every one he had lost. Nevertheless we fought on, lest we should become worse than slaves. Far better, we thought, to die in battle than lose the heritage that had descended to us from our ancestors.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VI.

Hauhau religion – War on the West Coast, Wanganui district.

IT was about the year 1863 or 1864 that a revelation was made of what we thought to be the real God. We had been told of so many different religions, and at different times, that each one was right and the other was wrong, that we were puzzled. So at last a man called Te Ua determined to search the foundation stone of all these creeds, and extract a religion for himself and the race. He did so, and the result was this new religion, which was named "Hau," and his disciples were called Hauhaus. We worshipped before a pole placed firmly in the ground, and rigged as a top-mast of a ship.

It had been manifested to us that we were the ten lost tribes of Israel. We chanted our prayers in an unknown tongue, as we marched and danced round, trusting, with all faith, that, sooner or later, we would be able to comprehend the meaning of the apparent gibberish we gave utterance to. A spike nail was driven into the pole or Niu, about three feet from the ground, upon which we used to hang the head of one of our enemies we had killed. "Paimariri" was our watchword, and "Riki" was our god of war, and the spirit of Joshua was our guiding general. It was a very nice, cheerful sort of religion. Te Ua, our prophet, caused the Lord Worsley steamer to come on shore near the White Cliffs, by his prayers of Hau; but the spirit of the angel Gabriel forbade him to kill any of the passengers or crew.

Our form of prayer was a chant after the following: "God the Father, Hau; God, the Son, Hau, Hau; God the Holy Ghost, Hau, Hau, Hau. Attention, save us; Attention, instruct us; Attention, Jehovah, avenge us, Hau; Jehovah, stand at ease, Hau; fall out, Hau, Hau; Paimariri Hau, big rivers, long rivers, big mountains and seas, attention, Hau, Hau, Hau."

We were then sanctified by the Three in One. Each person now touched the head hanging on the spike nail in the Niu, as they revolved round the pole, and the prayers were over for that time. Then, if about to start on an expedition to seek the enemy, Joshua's spirit led us forth, and he who had told the moon and sun to stand still led us forth with power to smite the Gentile and our spirits assisted him.

The first Hauhau fight was near Mount Egmont, and was fought bravely by us. Here we killed Captain Lloyd and several men, and cut off their heads for our Nius. Some of our people that were faint-hearted got hit, and we lost two killed, who at once became orderlies for Joshua to help us. We now fought the battle

of Mutoa, about which such a fuss has been made. It was more a tribal faction fight than anything to do with the pakehas. The friendly natives were very clever indeed to twist that fight into the form they did.

The war in the Wanganui district commenced by our throwing down the challenge by killing several pakehas and slaying Mr. Hewitt at Kai Iwi. We called Mr. Hewitt out of his house one night when all was still. He came out with his man-servant to see who it was calling to him, and then we seized him and cut off his head for our Niu, but the servant escaped. This was our signal for fighting, and we now awaited the attack of the troops at our pa, the "Wereroa," which we had made exceedingly strong with double palisading, covered in rifle-pits and strong earthworks. There were three pas – one big centre, one and two smaller ones flanking the centre one.

One morning our scouts brought in the news that the pakeha taua (European force) was advancing to attack us in thousands. Our men at once assembled, and we planted an ambuscade in a karaka grove near to Nukumaru. Soon after the taua came in sight, kicking up the dust with their feet. But in place of coming to attack us, as we had made up our minds they would, they pitched camp near to some tall flax and toitoi, not far from where our ambush was concealed. The chief in charge, Hone Pihama, sent at once to the pa to inform the garrison. A conference was held on the spot, and it was decided to attack forthwith, which we did. We shot down the outlying picket and tomahawked several men. Then a general charge was made, and a small party rushed on the General's marquee, thinking to catch and kill him; but owing to some of our people (so it was said at the time) having disregarded the commands of our high priest, the attempt was not so successful as it ought to have been. The real victory, however, remained with us, as the General moved his army to the sea coast after this and never again attempted to fight us near the bush.

The next fight we had with this commander was between Papawhero, Patea, and Kakaramea. The army of the pakeha was on the line of march to somewhere, but just as they filed through the sand hills and drew near to a small swamp, they were attacked by the Pakakohe tribe, who, by the way, had sneered at the attack that the Ngarauru had made on the army of the pakeha before at Nukumaru. The Pakakohe, however, were defeated, and nearly annihilated. It was a brave but very foolish thing for their chiefs to lead these men (about one hundred) to attack in broad daylight about one thousand, who were wide awake and on the line of march, especially when they had over one hundred cavalry with them. The result ought to have been foreseen. The Pakakohe were horribly beaten, and lost sixty of their best men – cut down by the troopers – for nothing. It was like the charge we read of made at Balaclava – a brave but foolish affair.

A few more fights took place between Patea and Taranaki, but as General Cameron would not permit his troops to attack us near

the bush, where our pas were, no battles of any importance were fought. But we sent out parties to lay ambuscades daily, and succeeded in killing a few carters and military trainmen now and then. It kept our young fellows out of mischief, and in good humour and training to be ready to seize any chance that might present itself to inflict a severe blow on our enemies. Thus we instilled a fear of us, by constantly tomahawking and shooting down from ambushes.

About this time our friends, the Upper Wanganuis, sent us word that a European force, and some traitors of our race belonging to the Lower Wanganuis, had taken possession of Pipiriki. They were under the command of an officer (Major Brassey), who had made a name for himself in India. Queen's troops were also sent to Tauranga and Maketu, and the Arawas (the traitors!) were enrolled for service under Hay and McDonnell. Colonial troops were also sent to Poverty Bay, under Fraser, Biggs, and George.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VII.

Defeat of the English troops at Gate Pa (Tauranga) – Fight at Maketu – Battle of Motata – A spirit's warning unheeded – The result, defeat and heavy loss – Fighting at Tauranga – Te Kooti – Escape of prisoners from Kawau and the hulks – Capture of Wereroa Pa by His Excellency Sir George Grey, K.C.B., Governor of New Zealand, with a scratch corps of Colonials and Maoris.

THE Ngaitirangi, our allies, now induced half of Ngatipiako, a hapu of the Arawa tribe, to join them in an attempt to drive back the invaders of their district, now at Tauranga. Only a few paltry skirmishes had taken place as yet, and the Ngaitirangi had not yet tried their strength with the troops. That was to come, as will be seen. When the hapu of Ngatipiako and Ngaitirangi assembled we advanced to within a short distance of the camp and town at Tauranga, and dug a straight line of shallow rifle pits across a narrow strip of level land and stuck some tokorari (flax sticks) in the earth we had shovelled out of this ditch. Behind this we built a small square redoubt of sods, but made no loopholes or palisading, and well in rear of this we erected a flagstaff on the level and open ground. We had about five hundred men, and here we awaited the attack. We were about three miles from Tauranga Camp. There was no bush near, and we had to go to the river beach for firewood. After waiting a few days more then half our men left – owing to a difference of opinion amongst our leaders – and fell back to Te Ranga. Those that left urged that our position was not tenable, but weak and dangerous, and that when we were attacked the enemy would drive us into the mud flats that were on each side of our position, which the pakehas afterwards named the "Gate Pa." There had been an old stockyard here at one time, but all that was left of it was one of the gates, hence, I suppose, they called it the "Gate Pa," but it was no pa at all.

One morning we discovered that one regiment – a thousand strong it must have been – had got to our rear. We were on a narrow strip of land, with water on both sides of us, an enemy in our rear and an enemy in front. Our chiefs now took in our position, which was very similar to that of a snared rat or parrot, but we determined to make the best of it. The attack was about to commence from the front. We could see them dragging up their big guns to fire at our flax-sticks. It put us in mind of a man trying to tomahawk a mosquito or namu (sandfly). Our chiefs told us to keep low in the ditch, and not poke our heads

above the level, and let the enemy fire away at the redoubt and flagstaff. Perhaps they might continue firing till evening, when we might get an opportunity to slip away. This was good advice, so we followed it, and waited for results.

The uproar soon commenced, and we had a lively time of it; but we sat and smoked our pipes. The cannon roared, the big mortars banged away, and so did the little ones; the rifles cracked, and the shower of lead and iron and bursting shells rattled over our heads. Every now and then a report like thunder was heard loud above the din. This was the hundred-and-ten pounder Armstrong gun, making a big noise, and the shrieking of the shot as it flew along, here and there skimming up a long piece of grassy sod that covered us with dust, made us think it would be well to be out of reach. We picked up several of these projectiles some miles in rear of our position next day nearly two feet long. "Well, they kept up this furious fire, but it did us no harm. Not one of us had as yet been touched, and the day was getting on, and our courage began to improve.

We cannot make out, even to this day, how our enemy in rear escaped the fire of the tribes in front (the 43rd Regiment and Naval Brigade). Towards the evening the enemy in front came on with a rush and a cheer, and charged up to our ditch. We saw them coming, and passed the word along. When they were close upon us, we ran into the little redoubt behind us. We could get no further, for the enemy in our rear (the 68th Regiment) now advanced, firing volley after volley, intending them for us, but they passed on to their friends in front, who returned them with interest, thinking it came from us; but we had not fired at all. Then both sides retreated from each other, and then, and not till then, we rose and gave them the contents of our guns, and they fled in haste, leaving their dead and dying with us, some of them having been shot down by their own men.

We treated their wounded well, by the order of a Ngaitirangi chief, and gave Colonel Booth, of the 43rd, a resting place for his head, and placed a calabash of water near him to slake his thirst. We considered that the slaughter of these men was a judgment from heaven. We only lost three men, and one or two were slightly wounded; but the enemy lost about thirty killed, and their hospitals must have been filled with their wounded. We left the battlefield early the next morning. This victory for us was, I regret to say, the only set-off against other fights that ended in sad defeats for our race.

At this time the Bay of Plenty tribes, the Ngatiawa, Whakatohea, Ngatipukeko, and Ngatiporou – in all 800 strong – marched up the coast from Opotiki, Whakatane, Ohiwa, Matata, and other places to do battle with the Arawa and Europeans stationed at Maketu and Fort Colville. On we came, and nearly caught two officers, who were stupidly enough out shooting ducks at Waihi, but they escaped from our fire. Shortly afterwards we were engaged in a smart skirmish, in which we lost four men, but we

must have killed many of the 43rd Regiment. The next day a rifle-pit was taken possession of by a few men – twelve in all – and they kept up a sharp fire upon us all the day. These men were officered by McDonnell and his brother William. Only one man came to support them, and we tried to shoot him down as he advanced to the pit, but we could not hit him, although we concentrated the whole line of fire upon him as he came forward at a sling trot with his gun at the trail. He was a brave man, though a traitor to us. We afterwards learnt that he was Pohika Taranui, the fighting chief of Ngatipikiao, of the Arawa. There were hundreds of men on the cliff above the pit, but after a little firing in the early part of the morning they did not trouble us much. We could not make it out, but so it was. When the sun fell the men in the pit got up and ran away one by one, and our whole line of pits in the sandhills opened fire upon them, but they all got away alive. That night we crossed over, and took possession of the ground occupied by the enemy the day before. All this day and for a week afterwards there was daily fighting and skirmishing between us and the Arawa and the few men under Hay and McDonnell. The troops in Fort Colville did not trouble us much, but fired a few shots at our rifle-pits with a big gun. At last a man-of-war ship steamed up and shelled us from the sea; but none of us were hit, but albeit the shells and firing prevented the Arawa from following us up, and in that way served to cover our retreat, for which we were very thankful.

When we got as far as Otamarakau, on the beach, a little steamer (colonial gunboat Sandfly) that had been in chase of us fired a shell as we were rounding a cliff, which hit and killed four of us, making our losses in killed twenty-two men; but we had – must have – killed a great many of the Arawa – so our leaders said. Night fell, and we camped at the Matata, not thinking the Arawa were after us.

Strange to say, on the same day our people had defeated the troops with such slaughter at Gate Pa, we received a worse defeat at the hands of the Arawa and their pakeha leaders, for the next morning early they tell like a tremendous landslip upon us. We made a short stand, and then turned and fled. The ebb tide was at its swiftest in the Matata River, and those who escaped the bullets from the carbines of Hay's men, and the long-handled tomahawks of the cursed Arawa, tried to swim across the river, but many were swept out to sea over the bar, and were strewn along the coast afterwards – food for the seagulls and sharks. We lost about eighty men; only one prisoner was taken – a chief named Aporotanga. He was shot dead the next day by the wife of the head chief of the Arawa, old Winiata, who fought his last fight at the battle of Matata. This was only right, and proved her affection for her husband was sincere. Shortly after this battle, we all turned Hauhaus, and were called Kingites no more for a long time.

Soon after the defeat of the united tribes at the Matata, the Ngaitirangi and Pikiao, who had won the victory at the Gate Pa,

commenced to strengthen their position at Te Ranga. Rifle-pits were dug, and earthworks had commenced to be thrown up, when, one morning before daylight, one of our women, who had lost her husband at the Gate Pa fight, said that she had heard voices in the distance. We turned out and listened, but could hear nothing, and so rebuked her, telling her it was the distant noise of the surf on the beach. But she replied that the noise she had heard was the voices of a war party on the march to attack. We derided her, so that she got angry and left, taking her two sons with her. But we knew afterwards that it was the spirit of her husband which had made her hear the music as a warning to move off with his sons, for the enemy were soon upon us with a vengeance, and we had barely time to man our first line of rifle-pits when they charged up with fixed bayonets. We lost very heavily, and fled, leaving more than one hundred of our warriors to be buried in the pits they had made. This victory completely did for us on this coast, as the best men of Ngaitirangi and Pikiao were nearly all killed, and we paid dearly for our strange victory at Gate Pa.

A great deal of fighting was going on at Turanga, Poverty Bay. The European commanders were Biggs, Fraser, and George. Many pas were taken, and scores of our people were made prisoners. In fact, all the news that we got from that quarter was most disheartening. Of the prisoners made there some were sent to the hulk in Wellington, while Te Kooti was, with many others, sent to the Chatham Islands. Te Kooti was a nobody at this time, only rather notorious as a horse thief. He eventually became a great man, as I will relate in due course. The prisoners taken in the Waikato, Turanga, Rangiriri, and other places were sent to Auckland and placed on board a hulk there.

And now a curious thing happened. All the prisoners were removed from on board the hulk and sent to the Kawau, and these ridiculous pakehas thought that they would remain there quietly, while the mainland and liberty, a few miles off, were beckoning them to come over. So one calm evening they quietly rowed over in boats. They then borrowed a few spades and old guns, and quietly entrenched themselves on some ranges, much to the terror of the neighbouring settlers and of the Aucklanders.

I will now relate how the Wereroa Pa passed away from our hands, and how our famous chief Tataraimaka was taken prisoner. General Cameron's army, or part of his tribe, was stationed at Nukumaru, in a large redoubt, and we watched their proceedings from our stronghold – the Wereroa Pa. We watched the roads too, and laid ambuscades for carters, orderlies, and in fact anyone and anything we could safely kill and capture. On the whole we were very successful. At one time we nearly caught Major Rookes, who commanded the Militia of Wanganui, Major Nixon, and Von Tempsky, who were out reconnoitring on the Okehu stream. We drove a volley into them, and had it not been for Major Nixon and Von Tempsky, who kept us back, we would have tomahawked them and got their horses. These two officers did not get the

Victoria Cross, because they did not belong to the Imperial troops, but a similar act was performed by a brave man, Colonel McNeil, a staff officer in the Waikato, who saved Vosper, a trooper in the Defence Force, when they were fired upon by an ambuscade. For this act he earned and obtained the Victoria Cross. Our bullets, it was considered by the Queen, I suppose, could only kill and wound Imperial and not colonial men. What superstitious people the pakehas are!

We now heard that the Wanganuis, who had been stationed at Pipiriki, were coming to attack us, having been excited thereto by McDonnell, who commanded them. Soon after the receipt of this news, a woman brought us a letter from Hori Kingi, Mawae, and Kawana Paipai, telling us to surrender the pa to them at once. A few of our people seemed inclined to listen to these chiefs, especially the Nga Rauru, who were related to them. After this we received a number of messages from McDonnell, who, with a mixed force, was now camped at Okehu. At length the Waitotara tribe, urged by their chief Pehimana and others, agreed to surrender this pa to the Wanganuis, and a day was fixed for the occasion. But one of McDonnell's officers rode to the Nukumaru camp, where he had some men, and told the officer there in command (Colonel Logan) what was going to happen. Colonel Logan at once thought he would get the pa surrendered to himself. So he collected his staff and, with the officer who had brought him the information, rode off to the Wereroa, and asked the natives to go out of the pa, and let him take it. But this did not please us, so we told him to return at once to his camp, or we would fire upon him, and we manned the works. So they rode back. They had not long been gone when the Wanganuis came in sight. But we refused to give up the pa now, as we thought they had been playing us a trick to get us to give it up to Colonel Logan. That night McDonnell came by himself right up to our pa, but as he arrived, a large party of our men went out of the principal gate, with torches, and were astonished at seeing this officer. We did not know what to think, but he at once told us who he was and what he had come for, and asked us to keep our word to the Wanganui chief and to him. The strange coolness of this proceeding staggered us exceedingly, and some of our older men said it would be the wisest thing to kill him at once; but we suspected an ambush. Our priests had told us to take food to our relations, the Wanganuis, and now desired us not to hurt McDonnell, but to escort him back, and take the food with us as a present, and Pehimana promised to visit the united camp in the morning. So we escorted McDonnell back to his camp, and left our presents of food there. But when the morning came we observed that Colonel Logan had moved up a lot of his troops from Nukumaru, between our pa and the camps of the Wanganuis, and intercepted Pehimana on his way there and again demanded that the pa should be surrendered to him and

not to the Wanganui chiefs. He turned round to McDonnell, before our envoys, and asked him, saying, "Why am I not in the Wereroa Pa?" to which he got the reply from McDonnell, "I cannot tell you. There stands the pa, you can go and take it." Colonel Logan then ordered Rookes, who commanded the Wanganui force, to return to Wanganui and not take the pa. At last this mixed force returned, but came back again after Colonel Logan had gone to Nukumaru. Rookes, McDonnell, Kawana Paipai, Tamati Puna, and Kemp were invited by us to the Perekamu village, below the Wereroa, in the valley behind it, and we again entertained the question of the surrender. But we feared what the Pakakohi would say, who lived at the Putahi, some distance off. If the consent of this tribe could have been gained, we would not have cared for what all the tribes of the Ngatiruanui might say or do, as we felt our hearts warm towards our relatives, the Wanganuis. So we proposed to McDonnell that, as he had risked coming to see us, he might as well go and talk it over with the Pakakohi tribe at the Putahi stronghold, and he at once said he would. We found horses for him, Tamati Puna, and Kemp, and off they started, Kawana Paipai and Rookes remaining in the Perekamu village. On McDonnell and the two chiefs who accompanied him reaching the flat below the Putahi Pa, they were met, as had been previously arranged, by a scout, who desired them to dismount, and leave their horses and saddles on the flat below, as they could not ride up the steep bush hill. They were told also that they must discharge their revolvers, and leave them with their saddles. They fired off their revolvers, but returned them to their waist belts, and then ascended the hill.

On their arrival at the pa they were met by the priests and taken round the niu, and they joined in our prayers, etc. After this they were left alone in a small house, while the tribe assembled to discuss matters. The result of the deliberations was that Tamati Puna and Kemp should be sent back to Perekamu in the morning, but that McDonnell should be killed for having come to ask for the pa, and who, as they were informed, had been the chief cause of getting this expedition up. In the evening we re-assembled in our big runanga house, and then sent for McDonnell and the two Wanganui chiefs. Our chief priest, Te One Kura, now stood up and told McDonnell he must at once unbuckle his sword and give it up. McDonnell said in reply that he would do no such thing, but asked for the Wereroa Pa, or he would take it, and spoke to us all as we had never been spoken to before. Much talking now took place, and Kimball Bent, a deserter from the 57th Regiment, pressed us hard to kill McDonnell at once, but our talk had not yet finished. Tamati Puna rose to speak in favour of his pakeha, saying, "You must kill Kemp and me first, if you have to kill McDonnell." Kemp afterwards said the same. This we thought was the speech of warriors and brave men. McDonnell drew his sword out of its sheath, loaded the revolvers, and then handed them

to his companions. We did not interrupt Kemp or Tamati. At last daylight began to dawn upon us. We had been talking the whole night long. Presently there was a loud cry, and then a volley of musketry. None of us knew what it could mean, and we all rushed outside with our arms, and met a body of the Tangahoe tribe, who lived at Manutahi, who had come to bring a prisoner (a 57th soldier) they had taken as a companion for Kimball Bent. On our return to the pa McDonnell, Kemp and Tamati had gone. We sent after them, but they had got their horses and galloped away.

After this the Governor, Sir George Grey, came up, and again the negotiations were re-opened for the surrender of the pa, but we refused. Aperahama te Maiparea, who is now alive and knows this, now invited Sir George Grey to come up to the pa, and he would give it to him. Sir George Grey rode up with several officers, General Waddy (we saw that he had one eye like our chief Titokowaru), Colonels Logan, Rookes, McDonnell, Dr. Buller, and other Europeans. This aggravated us, as we did not wish to see Waddy and Logan. We manned the pits of our pa, and would have ended the matter there and then had we not feared for the Maiparea, who was between the pits and the Governor of New Zealand. We saw him looking down our barrels, or we would have shot them all. After this the Governor sent McDonnell twice in one day to tell us to surrender; the second time, as he returned, he just missed a party who would have tomahawked him as he ascended the Wereroa hill from Perekamu village. He took another track that he had not taken before, and so escaped. We all thought this very strange luck, that boded bad for us.

1 Bishop Selwyn rode out in the evening after the fight accompanied and guided only by Sub Inspector McDonnell, of the Mounted Defence Force, to afford relief to a wounded Maori who had been cut down that day.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER VIII.

Taking the Wereroa pa – Capture of Opotiki – Murder of Volkner – Murder of the crew of the Kate – General Chute's campaign against us in 1866, aided and abetted by Dr. Featherston.

OUR Pipiriki allies now attacked Major Brassey, so as to cause our pa to be relieved, but this morning, after the news had reached us, Sir George Grey and a large force appeared in front of the Wereroa, while a detachment was marched secretly round our position, taking the bush for it. These last captured a large number of our warriors at Areiahi – fifty-five men and all their guns and ammunition. Rookes and McDonnell did this. We know now that these two officers had found out this road during their stay at Perekamu village. It was a great mistake not to have killed them when we had the chance, and Sir George Grey too, when we could have done so without any difficulty. The defenders of the Wereroa now abandoned their strongholds, and the Queen's troops – though nothing had been done by them to capture it – were now placed in possession, and the prisoners were sent to Wellington and placed on board of a hulk in the harbour. Our great Taranaki chief, Tataraimaka, was one of them. The prisoners soon got tired of living there, so they picked out the bow port-hole and swam ashore one rough and stormy night. A few got drowned, but the majority got away. We all laughed at this, and gave Tataraimaka – a sly old warrior – great credit for the way he had planned and effected their escape.

This is the true history of how the Wereroa Pa was captured by Sir George Grey. Rookes, McDonnell, and Mete Kingi were the officers. Mete Kingi was made a General, but none of us could make out why, as Rookes and McDonnell did the fighting and captured the prisoners, while Mete remained in camp.

Just before this time we discovered, or thought we had (it was all the same to us after we had made up our minds), that the Rev. Mr. Grace, who used to live at Taupo, and Rev. Mr. Volkner, of Opotiki, had been acting treacherously to us. So their death was resolved upon by Kereopa, who was then our high priest of Hauhauism, and the tribes of the Bay of Plenty met at Opotiki to decide how the sentence should be carried out. We had at this time boiled quantities of peaches, and, letting the juice ferment, we drank it, and it made us brave to act, and filled us with energy. Many of us held the opinion that Volkner was a good man. He was gentle and very kind to all. Many of those who were his own natives knew that he would not do anything underhand, or to our hurt. He had always recommended us not to join in the fighting,

and he had kept aloof from interfering in land questions. If all the other missionaries had followed his example, and had minded their own business, Volkner might not have been sacrificed. I always thought we made a great mistake in taking his life away from him, as he was not our enemy, being a German. But alas! so it was. Judgment was pronounced by Kereopa, and Volkner was hanged. When nearly dead Kereopa cut his head off, swallowed his eyes, and filled the communion cup of the church, which we had found, with his blood. The chief men and women of our people were then drawn up in two files inside the church, and the silver cup was passed round. Each person drank or wetted their lips with the contents, returning the cup to Kereopa, who drank what remained. The Rev. Mr. Grace had pleaded hard for Volkner's life, with many tears and to his own peril, but without avail. We intended to hang him too, but somehow we let him escape. Kereopa said it was a great mistake. We would have killed him, and in all probability cut his body to pieces.

After this we captured and shot a half-caste, Fulloon, a Government agent, in a vessel, the Kate. We killed all the crew, by direction of Horomona, a Hauhau prophet. Most of the leaders in Hauhauism distinguished themselves in this way, but when the pakehas caught them they always hanged them. But it was only one of our many methods of fighting our enemies. When a man goes to fight, he goes to kill, and it does not signify how he kills his enemy, so long as he does kill him. If he won't kill his enemy when he catches him, what is the use of going to fight? A man goes to fish for whapuku. Well, he catches a fish. What does he do with it? Does he let it go again? That would be a foolish thing! No, for if he did, he would be laughed at, and people would say he was mad. So he eats it. What else did he catch it for? And so with fighting. When you go to kill men, kill them, and don't make fools of yourselves.

The Government now prepared to take "utu" (payment) for the death (murder they called it) of Volkner; the Wanganuis were commanded by McDonnell. Major Atkinson was War Minister, and gave instructions to Brassey and Stapp, who commanded the expedition, to give us a bad time of it, and to hang and kill those who had taken part in Volkner's death. As I wish to tell the truth, I must confess that this was sensible of Major Atkinson. He meant fighting to be fighting; there was not to be any catching and letting go again, and that kind of nonsense. I wonder how long the war would have lasted if each side had acted in this way! We heard of all this from our friends, who were friends of civil commissioners, and prepared for the reception of the expedition. This punishing force sent to fight us arrived in the Bay of Plenty in their ships off the entrance to our river of Opotiki. We had a success against them at first, for our Hauhau priest, Kereopa, caused the little steamer to drift on shore near the bar, by his incantations to Joshua. All the pakehas on board the steamer got on shore, and

some of them made a small pa on the top of a hill for their protection, and another party of them took possession of one of our burying places. We intended to attack them in force, as all the other steamers had gone away, the wind was so great, but it came on to rain and it grew quite dark before we had settled our plan. The next morning we attacked them, but after firing a few shots in return they embarked in their vessel again. The heavy flood from the rain the night before drifted their vessel, though they had full steam up, right out towards the bar. They got aground broadside on, and we took possession of the sand-hills and rained bullets upon them, Kereopa encouraging us to the attack. Night again fell, but it rained and thundered, and the lightning was all round the vessel. The storm was raised by the incantations of Kereopa, who wanted us now to rush the vessel; but it was postponed till the following day. The next morning one of our people, who was suddenly inspired with the idea that he was gifted with supernatural powers, went up to where the vessel lay high and dry to sing the paimariri hymn to complete the destruction, when a rifle bullet laid him dead on the sands, and the enemy got possession of his body. This rather surprised us, as he had told everybody he was ball-proof. Next morning the steamers returned, and the whole of the enemy landed. We met them on the beach, but we could not stand before them. We fled, then rallied, and then broke again, their attack was so impetuous. Our villages and settlements were attacked, taken, and destroyed, and we lost a number of men. Our cattle were eaten, our kumeras were dug up by the Wanganui (who, I am sure, never ate such fine kumeras before). Our pigs – such fat ones! – and poultry went the same way. Then our horses were caught, appropriated, and used by the enemy to ride us down with and kill us. At the Kiorikino Pa we recognised our best horses in a charge that some of them, with men on their backs, made upon a number of us who had made a sally from three large pas on the hills to relieve the besieged in the Kiorikino Pa that Stapp and McDonnell had surrounded. They cut down a number of us, and then the pa was taken and many more of us were shot. We were now followed up to Ohiwa, where Raku Raku gave McDonnell and his men information as to the whereabouts of Kereopa and his disciples. From the intelligence thus obtained, the force was divided, and a simultaneous attack was made on two of our positions. Kereopa was not, however, caught, but some of our best men were killed. Only one man was wounded, and he was shot dead by the Wanganuis, by order of McDonnell. But the only thing this man had done was to assist in hanging Volkner. Then Smith, a civil commissioner too (most wonderful!), and Mair, of Orakau Pa celebrity, with the Arawa, had captured, after hard fighting at the Teko Pa, the men who had killed Fulloon. This was also called a murder, and the prisoners were brought to Opotiki to be hanged by Major Stapp; but they were, for some reason or other, with our great chief Mokomoko, sent to Auckland and put to death there.

War now commenced on the West Coast. General Cameron had gone home. He was tired of fighting, for we would not give in, because there were too many Pakeha-Maoris working for us, and because the land that had remained to us from the Government sharks had all been confiscated. "We will never give in now," we said. General Chute and Dr. Featherston sent to Opotiki for McDonnell, the Native Contingent, the Patea Rangers under Newland (all tried Taranaki warriors), and the fierce Wanganui Yeomanry Cavalry. These men arrived at Wanganui, and the following is the pakeha version of the arrival of the Native Contingent, which I would pass over as of no account, but for a circumstance that occurred afterwards, which proved how very selfish the pakehas are when Maori interests are concerned: – "Immediately the steamer cast anchor His Honour the Superintendent of Wellington, Walter Buller, Esq., R.M., Major Von Tempsky (Forest Rangers), and others went on board to welcome our native allies. Foremost to meet them was the undaunted British chief, Major McDonnell, the able leader of the contingent; next came Ensigns Gudgeon and Walker, the old veteran (general) Mete Kingi, Captains Kemp and Aperaniko, Adjutant Wirihana, and others. They were agreeably surprised to find their old friends, Dr. Featherston and Mr. Buller, ready to give them a right hearty welcome, and, after many congratulations, disembarked to meet their more intimate relations and friends. The Putiki natives have won the admiration of the European community for their unflinching loyalty, and will, I hear, after the withdrawal of the Imperial troops, form an important branch of the colonial force."

Such was the reception by the Government of the Wanganuis under McDonnell. The following account by this officer will tell you how the Government treated these men for "their unflinching loyalty," and the encouragement they received at their hands. McDonnell's memo, to Dr. Featherston at the request of the latter: – "On the 29th December, 1866, the Native Contingent crossed from Putiki, the native settlement on the other side of the river Wanganui, where they camped ready for marching. The following day they fell in, but on the word 'quick march' they to a man grounded arms and remained standing. Kemp, their native captain, stepped forward and said, 'The men of the Native Contingent, not having received any pay for three months, refuse to march until paid. Many, perhaps, will get killed, as we are always placed in the front. This is as it should be, but we want our pay for the past before we enter on the future.' This I felt to be just, and could not blame them. I made a short speech, in which I acknowledged the unfairness of not having been paid, but I said that to speak of such matters on parade, and at the moment of marching, was hardly fair to me, or to General Chute, who was waiting for them at the Wereroa to advance on the enemy. I had, I told them, no Government money in my hands – I only wished I had – but that I had one hundred pounds I had saved up of my

own money in the possession of a friend who was going to invest it for me. That under the circumstances I would forego the investment and distribute the sum amongst them; it would purchase pipes and tobacco for the campaign, if no more, and that on their return to Wanganui they would receive their pay in a lump, and could enjoy themselves at their ease. 'But do not, I added, disgrace yourselves now.' I fetched the money (one hundred pounds) and placed it on the ground. 'There is all I have; you are welcome to it; pick it up, and in one hour's time parade again. But if any of you get drunk that man shall remain behind, and of course will not have the chance of capturing any horses.' There was a general rush forward and a scramble, but the money was equally divided, every man, I believe, got an equal proportion, and to the hour they were again on parade. If any of them were shaking on their legs, or had to lean against their comrades to shoulder their rifles I did not notice it – but they had brought very little tobacco. I afterwards got my money back in driblets, excepting about ten pounds. As a whole it was a dead loss to me." McDonnell sent in this account to the Government, and was told by an authority that some mark would be given to him for his services; but he informs me that he has not even got the ten pounds back, let alone the "mark!" Comment is superfluous. The contingent refused to march until they were paid. McDonnell went at five o'clock in the morning to His Honour Dr. Featherston, who was in bed in the Wanganui Hotel, and asked him for the pay due, or even £100 of it. Dr. Featherston begged him to get them to march without it as he had no money, and could not get any, and was at his wits' end what to do, as he had promised to join General Chute that day in company with the contingent. McDonnell said he could raise £100 of his own money, but if he happened to be shot in the coming campaign who would see it paid to his family? Dr. Featherston promised he would see to this, and McDonnell obtained the cash and gave it to them.

Well, in January, 1866, the whole army of this general took the field, and he and Dr. Featherston pitched their camp on the site of the famous Wereroa Pa. On the 3rd of January they all marched for Okotuku Pa, where the Ngarauru awaited them, eager for the fray. While the enemy were pitching their tents, we came out of the bush to do a little tomahawking; but McDonnell and Featherston, with the Native Contingent, attacked us, and drove us back into the bush, and before we could rally they had possessed themselves of our pa at the top of the hill. We afterwards heard that Dr. Featherston took the sacred dove at the top of our niu. By the time we had collected ourselves together in the bush, to endeavour to retake our position, the enemy had retired to their camp below on the level ground. We now set to work to fortify our position. We gathered all the firewood that lay in heaps about our plantations (our winter reserve), and stacked it up closely against the palisading of our pa, and then remained perfectly quiet, so that our enemy might think we had gone right away.

The next morning the army marched up the wooded hill, and presently stood in front of our pa, which was at the narrow end of the plateau. We kept quiet, as we wished the enemy to come quite close, when we would pour one volley into them and slip away. But two Europeans and one Maori, whom we had noticed the previous day, attempted to take the pa by themselves. We thought they were out of their mind. We let them come within twenty yards, and then fired a whole volley at them; but just at that instant they tumbled into an empty potato pit, and so saved their lives. [The three men here spoken of were Ensign Gudgeon, William McDonnell, and Winiata.] The troops now charged our pa, but we could only send them a straggling volley, as we had no time to reload properly; and then our palisades were scaled by the soldiers. We now slipped out of our pa at the rear, after losing a number of our men. Only one man of ours was taken prisoner, and we have heard he was afterwards shot.

Why need I relate the whole of the campaign of this victorious general and his army? The storming of Putahi Pa, the plan and approaches to which we found afterwards had been remembered by one of the pakehas who visited this stronghold at the time of the Wereroa Pa negotiations, and which information he now gave to General Chute and Dr. Featherston. We expect he got well rewarded for this intelligence, as he went nigh to lose his life in obtaining it; but we understand McDonnell was wounded in this engagement, and lamed for life. Then Otapawa was taken, the 57th Regiment being led by the brave Major Hazzard, whom we shot as he entered our works sword in hand, leading his warriors like a chief. The march round the mountain of Taranaki and the fight at Waikoukou followed. It is not a pleasant task to have to record how in less than five weeks we were all scattered to the winds, and all our pas and settlements utterly destroyed and burnt. This dreadful General and his men never slept, and did not fight in accordance with the laws of warfare laid down by civil commissioners for pakehas to follow. So we complained to one of the civil commissioners, who then went to have an interview with the General, who was then camped near Taiporohenui, after defeating us at Otapawa, and tried to reason with him. But we heard that the General spoke to this commissioner in such a way that he left in a hurry. When we were afterwards informed of this by Wiremu Hukarunui, a neutral, but our friend and intelligencer, we feared that a new state of things had succeeded to the old, and that commanding officers of armies were no longer to be under the control of civil commissioners and pakeha-Maoris. "If this is the case," said we, "our game is up." We could not stand that kind of thing.

We, to speak truly, looked upon Chute and his army as the best fighting force we ever had to oppose, or that had ever been in array against us. Bush or open it was all the same to them, and the 57th Regiment and 14th and 18th Royal Irish fought with the colonial troops, amongst whom were many old warriors of the

Hikitipiti (65th) like proper devil-pakehas. Many months elapsed after this campaign, but as no one came to take possession of the country, and as we were informed by our pakeha-Maori friends that the commissioners and the bishops had said that it was wrong to confiscate our lands, we took heart and returned to the district, and rebuilt and reinhabited our pas and settlements, forgot our past troubles and prepared to resist any attempts the pakeha might make to settle upon the country that General Chute and his men had conquered. But the remains of General Cameron's army tribe still occupied positions near the coast at Patea, Kakaramea, Manawapou, Tangahoe, Waingongoro, and in Taranaki. But these, we thought, would follow General Cameron when the ships came back that had sailed with him to England, for we are but a simple people in some things.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER IX.

Campaign under McDonnell – Pokaikai – Survey of district – Fight at Hairini – At Rotorua – Waikato defeated.

NOW I will give you an account of the fighting under McDonnell and his Bush Rangers and Wanganui Cavalry, and the means he took to steal our country by surveying it. It will be but a short account, as it is very painful to have to relate how we were duped and beaten by this man and his force.

First of all, McDonnell met some of us at the Kauwae, Wiremu Hukanui's place, and asked us to give in. This is an act of his that we thought weak and unworthy of a warrior. But, alas! how we were deceived in him. Colonel Haultain was the War Minister at the time, and the instructions he had given to McDonnell were, we heard, that he should get the district surveyed, and kill as many of us as he could if we objected, as, of course, Colonel Haultain, being an old warrior of vast experience, made sure that we would. Having heard all this and more from our pakeha-Maori friends, what business had this cunning man, McDonnell, to try and get us to make peace, so that he and his men might rob us with impunity?This is what we thought then, though we hoped at the same time that the civil commissioners would take care of our interests. Well, we pretended to McDonnell that we would think over what he had proposed, and that one of our principal chiefs, Ngahina by name, a Hauhau priest, should go to Wellington. But we arranged, in the meantime, to shoot McDonnell down, by a well planted ambuscade, the following morning, as he returned to Patea from the Waingongoro camp. This settled, we at once sent off a messenger to consult with the civil commissioner as to the future. Now, this commissioner, Parris, was a hundred miles away, at Taranaki. McDonnell left the next day for Patea. Our ambuscade, seventy strong, of Ahitana's people, divided into two parties, and planted themselves so that McDonnell should get between them on the banks of the Waihi stream. The trap was beautifully arranged for his death; nothing could have been better planned, and when McDonnell and his few friends, six altogether, including Carrington, the chief surveyor, rode up, we let them get just past the first ambush, and then poured a volley into them at thirty paces, calling out aloud to our Hauhau god "E Riki Kawea, E Riki Kawea!" to make the bullets go straight to their mark. Then the second ambush fired at them, crying out "O Joshua O Joshua!" but, though we sent volley after

volley after them as they wheeled and galloped back to Waingongoro, we missed them all. In revenge for this very natural attempt of ours to kill him, McDonnell sent a woman to spy out our pa, Pokaikai. We tore the woman's clothes, and sent her back. McDonnell then sent us a very curious letter of hidden meaning, like to our own Hauhau letters and sayings, which we write to this day when we wish to nonplus and puzzle the pakeha, and confuse them; like that saying of Te Whiti's, "the potato is cooked." McDonnell's letter told us he was coming to visit us. We received this note in the morning, and the following is a copy of the letter: –

"Camp, Manawapou, Tangahoe.

"TO THE ENEMY, –

"Salutations. – In a short time I will truly visit you. You will then see me. Why do you plot to kill me and my women? The kao (preserved kumara) is dried. Sleep, that the taha (calabash) be filled; that the journey be successful. There is a whale on the sea; spear him for the tribe. From your friend,

McDONNELL."

We said, "This man McDonnell is a fool to come and visit us; we will show this note of his to the commissioner, and ask him to tell us what it means." But it is true that it was ourselves who were bewildered by McDonnell, for in the grey dawn of the very next morning he kept his word and did visit us. Our pa, Pokaikai, was entered into pell mell, and after a short but fierce struggle and a few shots we had to fly out of it. The ground was hard with white frost, for it was in the cold weather of August. Many of us were shot down and killed, and all our women and children were taken prisoners; we had to fly naked. We lost our clothes, our weapons and ammunition; our pa and houses were burnt, except one house which they left to shelter a woman who had been wounded. We also lost McDonnell's letter, which he found in a meeting house, so that we could not show it to Parris, the commissioner, to whom we carried our sad, sad tale of complaints. Village after village and pa after pa were taken at all times of the day and night. When our scouts would tell us McDonnell was at Waitotara, fifty miles away, that hour he would drop upon us with his bands of trained men, Wanganui Troopers, and Ross's and Newland's Wanganui and Patea Rangers, who were all as bad as himself. They laid ambuscades for us, and thus we lost more men. It was not fighting according to pakeha rule, and again we complained to the civil commissioners. But we tomahawked away whenever we got the chance, and occasionally we killed some of his men.

Now we were told by the Commissioner, Parris, that a Royal Commission was coming to try McDonnell for not fighting by Commissioner rule, and in attacking us at Pokaikai and elsewhere. We all said "Kapai" (good), and prepared to assemble and give evidence against this commander and destroyer of our people. We pretended, too, that we wished to make peace,

and a truce was proclaimed for the purpose. The Royal Commission sat, but all the Civil Commissioner proved was that a woman had been accidentally hurt with the point of a bayonet at the attack on Pokaikai, by a man named Bezar, who did not belong to the force; that she had been well attended to afterwards, and that Bezar, who had accidentally hurt her, had taken her to himself with her consent and the consent of her tribe, for a wife; that she was now Mrs. Bezar, and that shortly she expected to present him with a son and heir. Now the Civil Commissioner had reported that this woman had been brutally murdered, by command of McDonnell. It is true we had told Parris all this, but we told him a good many things, and to our credit be it said, he believed them all. The Commission could not hang McDonnell, we regretted to find; so they acquitted him, and said he had done quite right. So they then departed to their homes, and the woman, Mrs. Bezar, went home with Mr. Bezar and bare him a son, and the Commissioner Parris got on his horse and went home too; and the Government wrote to McDonnell that the Commissioner, Parris, now said that he could not make peace with us, and that he could go on with the fighting. That very night McDonnell and his devil pakehas laid an ambuscade for us, but we laid one for them too, and, strange to say, we both picked on the same spot. The ambuscades met and fought, but we were beaten, and lost some men; but we wounded Captain Ross, the officer we afterwards killed at Turi-turi Mokai. We all attributed this, at the time, to anger on the part of McDonnell and his men for having been tried by us – the very men that he and his bands were paid to fight and destroy. Verily, O pakeha, you are a puzzle to us!

Our large fortified village of Pungarehu, a mile in the forest, was now attacked at daylight. We lost over thirty-five men, and many were wounded and taken prisoners, one of whom was put to death. Many other places were attacked, and we severely wounded McDonnell's brother William. McDonnell now erected a platform at Waihi forty feet high, and when the surveyors were sent to survey the banks of the Waingongoro river, where the scrub was high and good for our ambuscades, the prisoners were told off to do sentry-go on the top of this platform, and told to keep a good look-out for us and report if they saw any danger, but that if the survey party got fired into that they would be at once hanged. We knew McDonnell's men would obey him gladly, so we did not interfere any more with the surveyors, lest our relations should be hanged by McDonnell's men. Well, we were getting tired, and had all but given in, as our country was opened up and conquered again right away to Warea, and drivers used to trade in safety right away over our land to Taranaki, and no one molested them. The roads, too, were safe. We had discovered that McDonnell was a man of his word, and he had promised to leave us alone so long as we behaved ourselves. Our prisoners he released, and they returned to us by consent of Colonel Haultain, the War Minister.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER X.

Civil interference – Successful attack on Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu with old force – Defeat at same place – Death of Von Tempsky and others – More civil interference.

ABOUT this time Waikato sent an armed force of two hundred and fifty picked warriors to fight and get revenge on the Arawa tribes living at the Rotorua lakes. Waikato got the better of the Arawa on three occasions, and drove them to their pas at Rotorua; and began to plunder the country, and threaten to attack Tauranga, and had got the better of some troops who attacked them there. So McDonnell was taken away from the West Coast and sent to command his old Arawa tribes. He soon organised a band of that brave and loyal tribe to the Queen, but disloyal to their own country, and attacked us on the mountains above Lake Rotorua, at Hirini. Here a desperate fight took place. We stood firm for some time, but the Arawa scooped the brains out of one of us whom they had shot, and smeared their faces over with them, and then, urged by their native and pakeha chiefs, charged us. We could not stand this sight; we broke and fled, and were hotly pursued by the Arawas. We lost heavily, and did not pull up till we reached the head waters of the Thames.

Now, during McDonnell's absence from the Ngatiruanui country, the people of our race had been made uneasy from the action of a Government officer, who began to preach to us; and by this time McDonnell had returned from Rotorua. Things were ripe for disturbance. The name of this man was Booth, and he had once been a catechist. Some of our men stole horses. An attempt was made to capture the young chief who took them. One was caught by Booth, but he afterwards escaped; when, in return and revenge for the insult, we killed three men who were working in the bush. This led to revenge again, and to get payment McDonnell attacked us at the Ngutu-o-te-Manu, defeated us, and burnt our fortified village. We lost nine men in the attack. Our pa was burnt, including our large new place of worship.

After we had killed three pakehas in the bush, whom we knew afterwards were called Cahill, Squires, and Clark, we thought of trying to surprise the Turi-turi Mokai Redoubt, near Te Matangarara. The commander of this pa lived outside the earthwork in a small whare, near where the canteen was. We sent some of our people the evening before, under the pretence of selling some onions, to have a look at the defences, and to ascertain, if possible, if Ross, the captain, was going to sleep in the whare outside the

redoubt. Our spies returned, and reported that the ditch was in a bad state, and that Ross and the canteen man were each in the habit of sleeping in their own whares outside and that the planks over the ditches of the redoubt, serving as a bridge, had not been moved for some time. Early in the grey dawn we approached, crawling stealthily up, and had all but got into the ditch when a sentry challenged, and we heard the click of the lock of his rifle, and then he blazed away at us. The door of Ross's house now flew open, and Ross appeared with his sword and revolver. We fired at him, but he flew to the entrance of the redoubt, shooting one of us dead who had just crawled inside; and where a bloody fight took place, Ross cheering his men, some of whom leaped, half asleep, over the parapet of the redoubt into our hands. These we at once killed. Ross now fell in the entrance, and we dragged him into the ditch and cut out his heart, but the man who did this fell dead. We tried hard to get at the rest, but several men in one corner of the earthwork swept it clear, and we lost some of our warriors; but help was now on its way to the redoubt from Waihi camp, and we had barely time to collect our wounded and dead, leaving three in the ditch at the entrance of the redoubt that had been shot by Ross in the hand-to-hand conflict. Ah! he was a brave man. I think we killed six men, besides Ross and the canteen man. Our loss in killed was five we carried away, three we left in the ditch, and eight wounded. Had the captain been inside this redoubt our loss would have been heavier. The people living at Matangarara only knew of our intention to attack this position the evening before we attempted it, and detained an officer at their village (Northcroft, one of the bravest of the pakehas) who seemed desirous of going to Turi-turi Mokai to sleep there, as he was on his way to the Waihi camp. Tuwhakaruru was accused of bringing this about, but he did not know of our intention until after we had attempted it and failed.

During the absence of McDonnell at Rotorua, the Wanganuis came to visit us at our settlement at the Ngutu-o-te-Manu, and there we all made a compact of peace with each other – a tribal peace that had nothing to do with the Europeans or their Government. Few pakehas know of this; but there are some who do right well. After the successful attack on the Ngutu-o-te-Manu, McDonnell made another attack, and we defeated him with great loss at the same place, but the Wanganuis, as a whole, and many of his new men left him in the forest, and did not help the pakeha, but ran away to the stream of Waingongoro, and then remained in perfect safety till the column came out of the bush. The Europeans separated in the forest, and retreated with their wounded. We soon found, as the column commanded by McDonnell retreated, that he had not many men. Most of them had gone, all but Roberts and Livingstone and their band of warriors, who fought bravely, but who were cut off from McDonnell, who was encumbered with wounded; so we left Roberts and his men, after we had fought them, and followed

McDonnell's force, and pressed them in rear and on both flanks; but his brave band fought hard, and shouted to us to come nearer; and McDonnell called to us in Maori all the way, and taunted us; and thus we fought from noon till night, until they got out of the bush. Then they turned on us, and gave us a parting volley as we were in the act of dancing a war dance, that wounded some of us. We returned to our dead – a few – and to theirs – a great many – twenty. It was a good victory for us.

It is not true, however, that we tortured the wounded, but we tomahawked them. The bodies we collected together, and heaped them up upon two altars, Von Tempsky's body being placed on the top of one of them, and then we burnt them, and the smoke went up in a cloud to the sky. Then we crossed the Waingongoro River, and had a skirmish at Tangahoe, where we dug up the dead bodies of the men who had been buried, and cut off their limbs, and cooked them in a fire, and ate them, and made soup of them; and we burnt many houses.

McDonnell now wished to make prisoners or all the men from Tai Porohenui to Waitotara, as he thought the Pakakohe tribe would join Titokowaru; but the Resident Magistrate prevented this, and went to see the tribe at Hukatere. The Pakakohe, of course, were going to join, but wished for time, so they talked with their tongues, and the Resident Magistrate foolishly believed them; and on his return to Patea published the following notice, which amused us considerably: –

NOTICE.

"The undersigned chiefs of the Pakakohe tribe pledge themselves that they will give protection to all Europeans, men, and women, and children in their district, namely, from Waitotara to Mokoia Taurua, Warematangi, Te One Kura, Paraone, and Rangihaeata. JAMES BOOTH, R.M.

Patea, 10th 6 – 68."

Heiaha i Korero tia ae; which means "comment is needless."

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XI.

The fight at Moturoa – Gallant defence of Wereroa redoubt – Defence of Wanganui – Poverty Bay massacre – Moturoa pa – The comparative value of heads.

TITOKOWARU advanced and built a pa at Moturoa, at the edge of that bush. Here we were attacked by another man, Colonel Whitmore. This caused us to think we had perhaps killed McDonnell, as he was not present. Colonel Whitmore proved himself to be a good warrior and cautious. The officers and men under him made a gallant attack on our pa at Moturoa, but we defeated them with heavy loss. Whitmore and Roberts encouraged their men, but the defeat was complete, and we chased them away, right away in the open, nearly as far as the Wairoa, Roberts and Newland, with their hapu division, keeping us back. These men were those who had fought so well at the Ngutu-o-te-Manu. Our victory cost us only one man, who had left the pa to go and tomahawk a wounded pakeha, but he was shot dead in the act. This man was he who had killed Broughton, the interpreter to the troops, because he came to propose terms of peace to us inland at Kakaramea, about the year 1865. We did not torture the wounded, but we tomahawked them all and burnt their remains on the altar, as we had done before at Ngutu, and the sweet savour ascended to the heavens. The burnt bones were afterwards collected and buried at the Wairoa church by their own people. We laid twenty bodies on our altars, and got thirty-five stand of arms. Colonel Whitmore had fought at Poverty Bay, Wairoa, Hawke's Bay, and other places, but he had to learn that the tribes living south and east of us, of Ngatiruanui, were as puwha (sow thistle) when compared with our savage warriors.

Titokowaru, before the above victory, had determined to advance on Wanganui. This was resolved upon, and the expedition started; but, though the plan of attack was cut and ready, and three columns of two hundred each had got their orders, certain events had happened, and fresh councils prevailed. Te Oti Takarangi, of Kaiwhaike, sent us word that all the Wanganuis and the whole of the tribes from the Wanganui Heads to Otaki, had been roused at the intelligence of our advance that had been conveyed to the Putiki chiefs by McDonnell at midnight. He had been communicated with by Colonel Fraser, from Patea, and the tribes were now assembling to take the field under Colonel

McDonnell, Kemp, Kawana Paipai, and Te Hakeke; but he (Te Oti Takarangi) said that he would have to smother his feelings if his relative Mete Kingi and Wanganui were attacked, as he would have to stick by them. The next day, so very rapid had been this collecting together of men, our scouts brought us the information, as we were on the line of march to Waitotara, that McDonnell, with the contingent, and 500 warriors under Kemp, Paipai, and Haimoana Hiroti, was erecting a redoubt on the site of the old Wereroa Pa, and that they had been fired upon. After this we gave up the idea for some time, and this is the cause why we did not attack Wanganui that time; but we heard that the news of our approach had caused great alarm and consternation in the town.

Shortly after this the Wanganuis were removed from this redoubt to Patea by Colonel Whitmore, and it was garrisoned by a European force from Wanganui, officered by Powell, Broughton, Witchell, and others. We now made up our minds to attack them, take the redoubt, and tomahawk them all. We made sure of an easy success, when we would then march on and sack Wanganui, and have a fine time of it. We attacked, but though we fought for many hours, we were repulsed so often that we got sick of it, and Broughton enraged us by his taunts, asking us in Maori, after each repulse, to "try it again." At length we withdrew, for we were beaten, strange to say.

Soon after this the redoubt was abandoned, and many stores were destroyed in a hurry, and the canteen keeper was well nigh ruined. We were much surprised at this, but suspected a design; but, when we found that the place had really been left, and that the way had been left clear for us, we again made preparations for attacking the town of Wanganui, and crossed the Waitotara, being now reinforced by the Ngarauru tribe, led by Uru te Angina and other braves, and came on to Kai-Iwi stream, which we crossed; we plundered and burnt as we went. Nevertheless, flushed as we were by our successes, some of our warriors did not approve of pushing the pakehas to desperation. We thought they would defend their wives and children, and there were some good men in Wanganui; those, for instance, who had so well defended the Wereroa Redoubt when we attacked it, and, though we were six hundred strong, had beaten us off. We heard also that a body of the 18th Royal Irish, under Captains Dawson and Butts, had come from Wellington, and held the stockade at Pukenamu. We pondered over this, though why everything had been left clear for us to advance, as it were, with impunity, our leaders and priests could not make out. The cavalry, too, were in Wanganui, and our experience of these men, before whom the brave Pakakohe tribe went down, the time they attacked General Cameron on his line of march at Patea, had not been forgotten by us. We knew also that if we were successful of the rich spoil we would get, and that what had occurred at Taupo in the time of Te Wherowhero, who slew 250 persons after they had

been prisoners with his own hand, every now and then refreshing himself with a draught of blood, would have been surpassed by many who longed to make a great name for themselves, the slaughter would have been great. But if we proved to be unsuccessful – what then? How could we have retreated? And we met the scouts of the Wanganui army under Colonel McDonnell, his brother William, Wirihana Puna, Pini, and Haimona Hiroti at Kai Iwi, and exchanged shots with them from the bush; so that it was plain we could not surprise the town at night as we intended. Besides, to tell the truth, we were much divided in opinion, and our priests had dreams and some of them saw bad omens, and one bad omen in war time is very demoralising. I recount these things because some have doubted the intention of Titokowaru, Toi, Tito, Hauwhenua, Ihaka, Wharematangi, and others to sack and burn the town of Wanganui. But twice it was resolved to do this at our councils of war, and no mercy was to be shown to anyone. But the action taken each time saved that settlement; and of this there is no doubt at all, as the panic there was very great.

Colonel Whitmore was absent at this time. He had had to go to Poverty Bay to see after Te Kooti, who with his band of warriors, had escaped from the Chathams. This we heard of by a special messenger from Kaiwhaike. Te Kooti, we were told, had seized a big ship, an English man-of-war, though we doubted this seizing of a sailor's floating pa, and had landed at Poverty Bay. Te Kooti and Whitmore had previously had much fighting together, and Te Kooti, taking advantage of the absence of his experienced antagonist and brave warrior, made a sudden and well-directed attack on Poverty Bay, and in one night slew, without mercy, over forty Europeans – men, women, and children; and Te Kooti, to encourage his men to commit excesses on the women and girls, which they had no wish to do, himself set the example. Over fifty Maoris were slain, too, the same night by Te Kooti and his band. And this is what Whitmore left Wanganui to avenge. We considered this a great victory for Te Kooti, and it proved the stamp of man he was. He did perfectly right, in our opinion, in killing all these people, but we considered he was both wrong and foolish in treating the women as he did; and, although Bryce has pardoned him, there are some who will kill him yet, if a good chance occurs, for the acts he has committed, pardoned though he may be. This I hear from many pakehas, and they are right.

To sum up, Te Kooti, after this victory (termed by the pakeha as usual when we had a success, a massacre), entrenched himself at Ngatapa. This strong ancestral pa was stormed by the brave Whitmore and his men, assisted by the chief Major Ropata, of Nga te Porou, a terrible warrior. Over one hundred tattooed warriors bit the ground. Colonel Whitmore has earned, in our opinion, a decoration for bravery as a warrior for his personal conduct at Ngatapa. He then returned to Wanganui to renew the fighting with us, and after a few skirmishes and ambuscades we made a stand at Taurangika, where we built a strong palisaded

pa. One day a body of Kai-Iwi troopers attacked a party who were out looting, so we turned out to the rescue from our stockade and engaged them, keeping in the scrub and swampy ground. We drove them away and followed them up some distance. Another time a party of troopers rode up to our double-palisaded pa to try, as we thought, to ride it down. The majority of us were in the bush, but the guard of the Taurangaika Pa made a great noise, and shot one trooper – Maxwell – but his comrades bravely rescued his body. We laid ambuscades, and a party of Ngatiruanui laid an ambush for Wirihana Puna at Okehu stream one evening, but were just too late, as he rode by the beach to Wanganui. They nearly, however, succeeded in shooting McDonnell, whom they wounded in the leg. He fired at us, and then galloped back to the beach, and we retreated up the creek, as we had done before at the same place when we ambuscaded Rookes, Nixon and Von Tempsky. We had, the day before this, sent a large party to take messages to Kaiwhaiki, asking Te Oti Takarangi and his brave people to join us and help us to fight Whitmore, but he sent back word that it was too late to ask him now. Whitmore now attacked our pa with mortars, and shelled and blazed away, but they did us no harm. Seeing now that no good could result by remaining here any longer, we left one night, after first tying up a female dog and three puppies to keep up a noise. Whitmore entered the pa next day, and the puppies were taken and made pets of by his army. Whitmore, after finding we were gone, lost no time but followed us up, but we shot some of his men at the Karaka. We had several skirmishes after this, and ambuscaded and killed seven men who were stealing our peaches. But Whitmore pursued us and we retreated to the country of the Ngatimaru.

Had we been followed up here we would have turned again on the force with renewed vigour, as we took our mana with us. As it was they left us alone; we were tired, and wished for rest. I am pledged to tell the truth. Well, had the Waimate Plains been occupied then, all trouble would have ended; but, instead of settling the land that had been conquered, first by General Chute, secondly by McDonnell, and now again by Whitmore, the late Sir Donald McLean promised to give these lands back to us, after we knew they had been taken; and he paid one of us £60 a-year to keep guard at the crossings of the Waingongoro River, to keep pakeha cattle from straying on to OUR LAND! We got blamed for destroying the settlers' sheep and cattle on the Waitotara, as if we were going to let them graze quietly before our eyes, when our insides were yearning for the meat on their bones. We would have been fools, indeed. But thousands of our cattle had been killed by McDonnell and his men in the Patea district, and by the army of Colonel Whitmore.

Whitmore was made a great rangatira by England's Queen for his valour; but his officers made a mistake when they informed him that we lost heavily in these fights and skirmishes. Neither was it a right thing for the Governor to do, by the rule of the

Christians, to offer a reward for heads. We thought that the trade in our heads, formerly carried on between the Christian pakeha and the savage Maori at the Bay of Islands, called the "Preserved Head Trade," had come to an end in or about the year 1830, but it was recommenced by a Governor of New Zealand. If our heads are buried at one place and the bodies elsewhere, at the last day these bodies won't know where to find their heads, and the heads won't know where their bodies are, and the confusion will be great; and probably some bodies will have to suffer for the conceived wrong of heads that did not belong to them; but this is by no means an unusual thing to happen. We should not in any way have blamed Whitmore if these things had been done by his order; we should have served him the same if we had caught him, out of respect, as this is the custom of our race, and it is natural to wish for trophies; and even now we had much rather he had taken our heads to ornament the door of his pa with than bury them. But it was Sir George Bowen who offered £1000 for Titokowaru's head, not that Titokowaru felt annoyed at this, as it was only natural that having failed to remove his head from his shoulders by fair means that unfair means should be tried to obtain it; it was all fair in war. So Titokowaru offered in return half-a-crown – two shillings and sixpence – that being the amount of cash voted for his military expenditure, and which was kept tied up for security in an old shirt, for Sir George Bowen's head. No doubt each of these great rangatira warriors knew the value of each other's head. But it is strange that pakehas will call themselves Christians and preach Christ to us, and then offer rewards' for our heads; but pakehas are strange beings! Sir George Bowen put us in mind of Herodias, who wished for the head of John the Baptist. Only that Herodias was successful in obtaining what she wanted, because she knew how to set about it, and Sir George Bowen was not, because he didn't.

Now the remnant of the Pakakohe tribe surrendered to Major Noake. They felt no disgrace in doing this, for they gave in to a man who had proved himself a warrior at Balaclava, and were not deceived, but were sent to Otago. Another force, commanded too by this officer, went up the Waitotara river in canoes, and got past Piraunui village and near to Oruanga village, when they met a canoe pelting down with three young men in it. Uruti Angina, our chief, had, with his people, retired four miles past Oruanga. The pakehas fired on this canoe, but the men escaped, and returned quickly to their people. Uruti Angina, hearing that the pakehas had come so far up the river, took canoes with his men, and went to meet them, intending to cut them off overland at the bends of this tortuous river; but, fortunately for them, as not one would have returned to tell the tale, they had pulled back. We followed them up until we past Te Iringa village, but they had gone. So we returned. A few days after this we accepted terms sent to us through the Wanganui natives living at Hiruharama, and gave in for good. This was the Ngarauru tribe, who have never fought against the pakehas since.

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XII.

Taupo campaign under Colonel McDonnell – Defeat of Te Kooti at Tokano and at Porere – Escape of Te Kooti into the King Country – The end of the war.

TE KOOTI, the great warrior, who had so often defeated the Europeans, and the trading tribe of Ngati Kahungunu at the Wairoa, Mohaka, Wai Kari, and other places, had retired into the bush after his defeat at Ngatapa by Whitmore. He now went to Taupo with his followers, and there came upon a party of troopers at Opepe. These men did not recognise them, but mistook them for a party of friendly Arawas. Te Kooti seeing this, told his people to get between them and their arms. The troopers, fifteen in number, were thoroughly off their guard. Te Kooti now gave the signal, and they were all shot down but two or three, who managed to escape, and tomahawked. It was a great success for Te Kooti. Then he wrote a letter cleverly accusing the Arawa of the "massacre," and moved on to Tokano. This affair of Te Kooti was only second to his clever "massacre" of people at the Mohaka and Wairoa, where he killed over forty people. But neither of these affairs, in our opinion as Maoris, came up to the attack on Poverty Bay. That was a great success and victory. Te Kooti now surprised Te Heu Heu's settlement at Tokano, when he gave them the option of joining him against the Arawas and Europeans or being killed. There was no second course with Te Kooti, and the end of it was they all agreed to make common cause against the enemy.

About this time I joined Te Kooti with a few of the Whakamomonis. We all went to Waikato now and tried to induce the Waikato tribes to join, and thus pave the way to a rising in that district, and there repeat what had been so successful in Poverty Bay. But the Waikatos wished to find out first whether Te Kooti's atua (god) was as invincible as he had declared it was. Te Kooti replied, "Come with me, and see for yourselves," and Rewi, of the Ngatimaniapoto tribe, agreed to return to Tokano with him, when, if Te Kooti proved by his valour that his god was really as powerful as he had represented, he would assist him with all his power, and let him plan out a campaign for Waikato. So Rewi and a small following of tried men accompanied Te Kooti back to Taupo. On our arrival at Poutu, at the lake of Roto Aira, we caught and killed four scouts belonging to the Ngatituwaharitoa tribe, of whom Hare Tauteke was the chief. We shot them down the morning after we captured them. Te Kooti asked one of these men (who had fought well in the Waikato, at Rangiriri, and

Koheroa against the pakeha) if he would join him, and thus save his life. We all thought the reply a noble one, though it cost him his life: "If you had asked me to join you before you slew my comrades, I might have thought about it; but with those lying dead before me, I say that I will not join a tutua (common fellow) like you." Te Kooti had him immediately killed, to Rewi's disgust, and chopped up, and thrown, with the others, in a swamp, where McDonnell's force afterwards found them.

We were now informed that the Ngati Kahungunu, under Henare Tomoana, had arrived on the banks of the Taupo lake, at a village named Tauranga Taupo, distant from where we were at Tokano some fifteen miles. "Oh," said Te Kooti, "Henare Tomoana is it? Ugh! a fat Leicester wether. Ngati Kahungunu are the dust under my feet. Let us go and kill them." He was a great warrior was Te Kooti. Off we went, and Rewi with us to look on. As we got near the Ngati Kahungunu tribe rapidly began to throw up earthworks. They turned their horses loose, and those we had captured, so they could not gallop off, and had to fight, for Te Kooti never gave any quarter, and he hated Ngati Kahungunu.

By the next morning those fat people (I expect they had never worked so hard in their lives before) had erected a palisading, and we commenced to attack them. We sapped up to their defences from the sides and from the lake. In a few hours we would have them, and Rewi looked on approvingly, but they called out to us from the inside that McDonnell and Renata Kawepo, an old warrior, were close on our rear, and that Herrick with the cavalry and George with the Arawa tribe were coming up to their assistance in front from Runanga and from Tapuwaeharuru; and while we were turning this over in our minds we suddenly saw two mounted men on the rise of a hill in front. Thinking these to be the advanced guard of Herrick and the Arawa under George we at once raised the siege and retired on Tokano, taking all the Ngati Kahungunus' horses with us. These two mounted men afterwards turned out to be two orderlies from Runanga, and we would have had plenty of time to have killed all those fellows had we remained. As it was we got all their horses. The next day McDonnell arrived at Poutu, Lake Rotoaira. He rode up to Tokano with a few men, and we nearly caught him before he discovered who we were. He then rode away rapidly to Tauranga Taupo.

The next day Herrick and George arrived with the Arawa. They took possession of Tokano, and we fell back over the ranges to Papakai, intending to return and fight directly the weather moderated. We commenced the next fight by laying an ambush, commanded by Te Heu Heu, for McDonnell, as we found he was in the habit of riding from Poutu to Tokano, a distance of about twelve miles, sometimes with only one orderly; but on the day we had determined to attack Tokano we commenced firing, so that McDonnell could hear and ride in that direction. He soon made his appearance with twelve troopers after him. We waited till they came up hot with haste, and then fired a volley into them

from some timber and broken ground, but they dashed past none the worse, fired a few pistol shots at us, and joined the Arawa, who were now coming to the attack under George, who was cheering them on. Up the hill they came, Ngati Kahungunus' main body well in the rear as usual, as Te Kooti remarked. As our people fell the Arawa cut their heads off, and held them up for us to see. We broke and fled over the ranges back to Papakai, leaving our dead and wounded that McDonnell had killed as payment for the Poverty Bay massacre and the Opepe troopers.

The next fight was at the Porere on the Iwituaroa Range, near Tongariro; but Rewi told Te Kooti that he and his gods were imposters, and that he had no skill in battle, and returned to Waikato in a rage, having lost one man, who would go and fight at Tokano. The fight at the Porere was on the 4th of October, 1869. This was the last stand-up fight that occurred between the Europeans and our race. The battle lasted several hours, and we lost very heavily – more than forty killed and left on the field and in the pa, and many of us died from exposure and from wounds afterwards. The last charge – and many were made, for we fought hard – took the position. George, the commander of the Arawas, fell dead, shot by Te Kooti; and Winiata fell too, whose name had reached us for bravery. The Wanganui native contingent, under Major Kemp, now poured over the parapet of our earthwork in front; at the same time our pa was stormed from the rear by the Europeans and the traitor Arawas, under Major Scannell, commanding No. 2 division of the Armed Constabulary. A terrible revenge was now taken by the native contingent for the death of Winiata, and by the Europeans and the Arawa tribe for the loss they had sustained in the death of Captain George. No quarter was given by McDonnell and his officers; all went down before the bayonets and clubbed rifles. Nearly all our women were captured, and were shared between the Arawas and Wanganuis. These men fought well under Captain George and Major Kemp, who recaptured most of the horses we had taken from Henare's men. Te Kooti barely escaped with his life, but he got wounded in the hand, supposed to be by McDonnell. Lieutenant Northcroft was instrumental in saving Renata Kawepo's life, as one of our women had got him down and gouged out one of his eyes and tore his ears. But we were beaten, and the pakehas showed us no mercy. We were terribly hard put for want of provisions, but we got some potatoes from Tuhua. If our enemies had had provisions they could have annihilated us; but one time, as they were quite out of food and expecting the convoy to bring them kai (rations) from Napier, the convoy came, they rushed to meet it, but it only brought candles and soap. Candles and soap! Nice food for warriors to fight on. No wonder they all cursed and swore at the way they were treated. But we were delighted to hear about this and the rotten meat biscuits they had to eat or starve to death. They ate horses, ha! ha! ha! How we laughed in Waikato at

the idea of sending a convoy all the way from Napier to Tokano with candles and soap, to feed five hundred warriors fighting for the peace of the island! Funny pakehas!

After this there was another fight at Tapapa, when Te Kooti lost many men and all his pack-horses and pack-saddles in trying to surprise McDonnell early one morning at daybreak; but the force were standing to their arms and we were terribly sold. The Ngaraurus from Waitotara had joined McDonnell to help him against us. This fact so disgusted me that I slipped back to Waikato. Te Kooti now tried to effect his escape to the Uriwera country, and on his way to massacre the Arawa women and children who had congregated together for safety at Rotorua. McDonnell divined his intention, and dispatched Tawa, Captain Mair, with the Arawa warriors to prevent this being carried out. Tawa arrived just in time, neatly intercepted him, and slew many of his followers, shooting with his own rifle Te Kooti's best man, a half-caste. Te Kooti's force hardly could have escaped from the Arawa this time, but night fell, and so they got away. Te Kooti now wandered about, seeking rest but finding none, for Captain Mair was ever on his track. He was attacked several times, but at length effected his retreat to Waikato, where he humbly sought refuge with Rewi and the King.

We have had some great generals and captains, Te Wherowhero, of Taupo, who with his own hand tomahawked at one time over two hundred prisoners taken in war. I can't say whether this was before or after he had embraced Christianity. Then there was Hongi Hika, Kai Karu, and the other celebrated brave warriors; but the last war with the pakeha proved that the same spirit which had actuated our forefathers was still in existence, and brought to our help the splendid warrior leaders Kereopa, Titokowaru, Te Kooti, and others, of whom it can truly, to their praise, be said, that they were true descendants of Arohakore, who was "a man without fear." Poor Kereopa was betrayed in cold blood, and hanged at Napier. What a shame! But the brave warrior Te Kooti has not met with this treatment; thanks to his Tanewha, he has reached a haven of rest. This ends the fighting. Soon after this I became converted, and my present belief is in Te Whiti and Tohu, who are striving to redeem their people from destruction. We have been greatly injured by the pakehas, and thousands assembled to crush us at Parihaka, led by Mr. Bryce; but, to save their people, who were not allowed to fight with carnal weapons, Te Whiti and Tohu gave themselves up. No injury was done to these two good men, and shortly afterwards they were returned to us by Mr. Bryce; and we now await patiently the day when it shall please the god of Te Whiti and Tohu to cause the removal of all the pakehas, and the lands we have been plundered of will be returned to us, but without a renewal of bloodshed. How this is to be done none of us know, but we feel that it is sure and certain to come at last, for have not Te Whiti and Tohu said so?

CHAPTER XIII.

CHAPTER XIII.

Kowhai Ngutu Kaka's opinions on certain slanders – He vindicates his own race, and offers advice for the future.

SOME time since a pakeha who wishes us well, and whose warnings have ever been for our good, wrote a parable – a history of a pretended outbreak. The plot was that we were made to kill numbers of people, but the result told heavily upon us, and in a fight on the slopes of Mount Egmont we were all slain; only one man, the last of our race, was left to tell the tale, and then he died too. But even a better organised and real plan had been talked about amongst Titokowaru's people. It was nipped in the bud, however, by Te Whiti and Tohu. Afterwards, when this story was explained to us by those of our race who could read, with its melancholy ending, we appreciated the wisdom of our leaders in abstaining from any more war. We heard that this pakeha was much abused for this parable, as it was said that he was trying to teach us how to fight, as if, for one moment, we required any pakeha to teach us how to go to work. But we knew the tale had been written as a warning to us, and we knew who wrote it.

Another work, I believe the last published, relating the doings in this country, has been read and explained to me. I am not sufficiently acquainted with the disreputable portion of pakeha politics to judge the truth of the political part of it; but it seems to me to contain, in the spirit of its writings, a great deal of petty slander, and that ignorant kind of Christianity peculiar to the pakeha kuias (old women) of Exeter Hall. Therefore I can only form my estimate of the whole work by comparing those portions of it that relate to things and incidents I am personally acquainted with, and then judging how far the writer has confined himself to fact and truth. In the same way, when the writer of this book makes mention of officers and other gentlemen, whom I have first known as brave enemies and afterwards as sincere friends, I will not wrap up my speech in raurekau leaves, but say that this man Rusden is telling lies! – lies that possibly were told to him (unless he dreamt them); but he, not possessing the courage of justice, has not paused to investigate the truth before he wrote about the conduct of men in every way his superiors. I judge, therefore, of the value of his book, as to its being a truthful, reliable history of the past, from that portion of it which I am able to understand, and which I know to be false. But then I am only a New Zealand savage, and therefore am not well versed in the

doctrine of that kind of Christianity practised among the Christian race away from Christ and His glorious charity.

Now, if that scribbler thought to please us by slandering the pakeha chiefs who were leaders against us he has made a great mistake in our character. Rusden would, if we had happened to tomahawk one of his kith or kin (if he has any), have rubbed noses with us, told us we had acted quite right, and have pointed out where the others lived so that we might serve them the same. As a race we respect those who fought against us, hand-to-hand, but who always saved life where circumstances (in a European point of view) warranted their doing so. Customs differ; and we kill prisoners, such being our rule, as I have before explained in this our history.

After our defeat at Rangiriri, overtures of peace were proposed to us; but though we had lost our pa and many men we never sued to the pakeha for peace. To sue for peace is a confession of weakness – an acknowledgment that one is beaten. We invariably treated all these offers with contempt. Numbers of times the pakeha sent heralds of peace to us, proclaimed it (almost without our knowledge) in the Gazette, sent flags of truce to us to treat for peace, just as if they had experienced all the reverses and losses themselves that we had. Why could they not have waited until we made signals to that effect? This persistence irritated us more than our defeats had. We tore up their Gazettes, fired upon their flags of truce, and shot and tomahawked their messengers, both pakeha and Maori, yet they still persisted. We sustained defeats from the Queen's troops and from the colonial troops often; but we had our victories – "massacres" they mostly called them – and yet the soldiers gave us no credit for our cleverness! When they hastened to occupy any pa that we had evacuated, after they had failed with their appliances to take it from us, such as Wereroa, Rangiriri, Paterangi, Pikipiko, Gate Pa, and other places, they exclaimed, "Maoris never could have designed these works; some deserter of a sapper or engineer has shown them how to flank this angle, make this rifle-pit bomb proof," and so on. And this mythical deserter of a sapper, whose name was never heard, got the credit of designing our fortifications! The strange part of it was, that they could never make anything half so good for themselves. They built a redoubt on the other side of the Wanganui River on the hill, for the settlers to send their families to during Titokowaru's raid in 1868. It was never occupied; but the first wet day after it was finished all the sides tumbled in. It was the same in the Waikato and everywhere else, and then they laid the fault on the soil of the country. That they did not know how to conquer or manage any of our kuias (old women) would have known better. Then only look at the foolish sap carried on by them at Taranaki. Truly the empty vanity of the pakeha is great.

The pakeha can beat us in masses, but if the average single pakeha meets the average single Maori, each with his own

weapons, our man would, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, come off victorious, killing his antagonist each time, and I am ready to prove my words against any man of my age any time before competent judges. I don't speak of the billiard-playing, degraded Maori; I speak of warriors. How can ignorant men know how to pona, rapa, marangae, or piki a spear? And as for warding off a rallying whakaoho or a wero, it would be ridiculous to see them try it, because they have not been taught how. But nothing seems to come to them naturally. They have even to be taught how to row in one of their own boats and to speak their own language correctly. Then to see some of them attempt to paddle a canoe is simply ridiculous to contemplate. They are a strange people! We have been beaten because the pakeha outnumbered us in men. But we are not conquered or rubbed out, and not one of these pakehas can name the day when we, as a race, sued for peace. The most that can be said is that on such and such a date we left off fighting. Haka! wah! ha! ha! ha! We can still dance our war-dance! In what have the pakehas proved better than we, or intellectually our superior?

So, I say, let the pakeha cease to plunge about in his pride, praising himself alone. God will judge all men, Te Whiti and Tohu say, in due course of time, and each man will receive the due reward of his deeds, be they good or evil; but as for sanctimonious cant and hypocrisy, we don't want that rubbish to interpose between the races. Leave us alone, I say, to such meannesses, and in time we may learn to respect, if we cannot love, each other. Try, O pakeha gentlemen! those of you whose thoughts and "whose talk is not all of bullocks," and whose learning we acknowledge, to give us credit for a little common sense. We contribute largely towards paying the taxes, and we are, we know, much plundered. We wish, in our very natural struggle for existence, to have a real and not a sham voice in the way we are to be governed; and though we, as a race, are disappearing – such being the will of God – yet we still number over 46,000 people. Do you know the power of passive resistance? We do. You had better take a lesson how to overcome that, as you have hitherto failed to understand many things connected with New Zealand. Who broke the Treaty of Waitangi? Let the Europeans know the facts of the past, though that cannot be recalled, but let it be remembered in time to come, lest more trouble unhappily arise. Note the words of Wiremu Kingi, in his letter to the Governor, written in 1859, and quoted by Sir George Grey, in 1863. "It was settled so in consequence of your bad system of purchasing land. For we had lost numbers of our own people through this same land purchasing. Whenever the Government shall have laid down some equitable system of land purchase, and when calm is once more restored, then the tribes who are for selling will sell their lands under a properly registered system, etc." The Treaty of Waitangi, as far as any of us can be said to have understood it, was not broken by us, but by the

pakeha. By it our rights to all our lands, forests, fisheries, etc., etc., were guaranteed in every way, so long as it was our wish to retain the same in our possession; and, in 1859, Wirimu Kingi gave notice to the Governor that he would allow no land to be sold within forty miles north of the European boundary at Taranaki. Contrast these things with the system of land purchasing adopted, and then say truly, who broke the Treaty. But might is right, and right is right only when it suits might.

Now, you pakeha who may read this simple but truthful history, do not be surprised at the sentiments contained in it. I am aware that in many things you, the pakehas, will condemn us, and no loyal pakeha will or can say we were right in many things we have done. You will say to us, "You murdered innocent women and children purposely, though it is true some were killed by us unintentionally, and some of your women fought against us in the field with gun and tomahawk." This is true, I acknowledge, but it was our custom so to do, and I know that in relating the past we must each tell our history from this point of view, but at all events the results were the same to those killed. You, the English nation, have given your account of the battle of Waterloo and how you won it; the French nation have given their account of how they lost it. But in this point only do the two accounts agree. In all the rest they differ. And so it is here. You have written your side of the question many times, I have now written ours once. Kaati! Enough, till I write again, or until the god of Te Whiti or Tohu return to us all the lands you have robbed us of, and quietly but effectually remove you from amongst us.

KOWHAI NGUTU KAKA.

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