CHAPTER XII. THE KOTAHA: A WEAPON OF OLD MAORIDOM.
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CHAPTER XII.
THE KOTAHA: A WEAPON OF OLD MAORIDOM.
Over twenty years ago I placed a kotaha and several darts (or kopere) in the Auckland Museum.
The kotaha, or staff, is a stout piece of manuka about an inch and a-quarter thick and about four feet long, the lower eend tapering and carved with a hole, to which is attached a stout bit of flax cord, terminating in a round, flattish knot; the upper end usually was carved to resemble a human hand. The kopere, three feet six inches to four feet, is made of the hardest wood heavily barbed, so that withdrawing it from a wound would be impossible; the end is a very sharp point, hardened in the fire. When used, the dart is stuck loosely in the earth at an angle and direction calculated to strike the object aimed at. The thong is then wrapped round the dart once, just below a small ridge, so that when propelled, the string frees itself in its forward flight.
The Ngatiwhakaue, of Ohinemutu, Rotorua, were famous for their skill in using this primitive weapon, and on one historic occasion, while attacking Puhirua pa over a hundred years ago, one of the warriors, Te Umanui by name, hurled his weapon with so true an aim as to transfix a chief in the pa through the heart. The spot where Umanui threw it from was pointed out to me; it is a small eminence some eighty yards inland of the pa.
This weapon was also made on a much heavier scale, and when handled by two persons clusters of darts up to nine in number were thrown at a time. In such cases they were very effective on open land when used against a matua, or solid body of men, charging, as the enemy could not parry the darts effectually, and the solid front would be broken. Of course the
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angle of elevation was adjusted to the estimated distance. When discharged at an angle of 45 degrees by two stalwarts, the kopere travelled an astonishing distance.
Some writer recently declared that the Maoris never used spears. This is quite a mistake, though they never acquired the marvellous precision of the Australian blacks. One kind, the tao, was sometimes forty feet long, and frequently had a whalebone point. It was used in the trenches, and thrust out through the outer palisade, or pekerangi. The huata was a shorter kind much used in close fighting, and also thrown as occasion offered. I have seen a naked Don Juan forced to stand up against an infuriated husband, assisted by a brother or henchman, perhaps, and having only a short stick or whalebone mere in one hand and a clout made from an old flax garment in the other, to parry the vengeful shaft hurled by no gentle hand at ten or fifteen paces. It was a veritable ordeal by battle.
The grand old Maori friends of my youth were wont to practise all such warlike games for my edification, but I was an indifferent pupil, and a worse recorder of what I so often witnessed.
