Kimble [Kimball] Bent An Unusual European Who Deserted The British Army And Joined The Hau Hau #25
Some of the Maoris proposed that the bodies of the slain whites, the “Fish of Whiro,” should all be burned or buried.
But up leapt Timoti, the wildest of all the wild Waitotara tribe, the cannibal Nga-Rauru, a thin, savage-faced fellow, very dark of complexion, as active and agile as a wild cat.
He ran up and down in front of his slain enemies, turning from one side to the other, pukana-ing, only the whites of his eyes showing, and his tongue protruded in derision and defiance.
He flashed his tomahawk in the air, he yelled, “We must have one body, one body to cook in the hangi” [earth oven]
“Yes,” said another of the clan, “the customs of our fathers must be observed.
What is the use of killing so many pakehas if we cannot have one to eat?”
No man making an objection, several Hauhaus jumped up and ran to the heap of slain Constabulary men.
They selected a body and dragged it off to the cooking-place at the rear of the marae. “He is the fattest of the pakehas,” said the saturnine Timoti.
All eyes watched them, but no man said a word.
Bent, after a while, rose with some of his Hauhau companions, and walked over to the cooking-hangis, and watched the cooks at their horrible work.
They were roasting the white man's body on the great fire of hot stones, in a hollowed-out earth-oven.
“It was being cooked,” says Bent, “much as you would roast a piece of mutton, they turned it over and over until it was thoroughly done, and then they cut it up for the feast.”
When the cannibal meal was ready, it was brought on to the marae with much ceremony in flax baskets.
Potatoes had been steam-boiled in other hangis at the same time, and these were carried to the assembly-ground, to be eaten with the man meat.
Bent saw the flesh of the soldier eaten.
The man-eaters, he says, all belonged to the Waitotara tribe.
Ten of them consumed the pakeha or as much of him as was borne to the marae, the rest of the people did not share in the feast.
Titokowaru himself would not eat human flesh, because of his tapu.
“I noticed,” says the pakeha-Maori, “Timoti and Big Kereopa, each with a basket before them, enjoying the meal of human flesh.
Timoti grabbed up his portion of meat from his basket, and ate it just as if he were eating a piece of bread.”
Then Titokowaru rose and, crying in a loud voice, ordered the people to burn the rest of the corpses so that they should not defile the marae.
The bundles of clothing from the dead lay on the marae.
The Maoris gave Bent three pairs of soldiers' trousers, four shirts, and some boots.
“I tell you I was pleased,” says the old pakeha-Maori, who had no inconvenient scruples on the subject of dead men's clothes, “for a long time I had been wearing only Maori-made garments of flax.”
A great pile of wood was collected, heaped up six or seven feet high, and in the evening, as darkness fell, the bodies of the pakehas were placed on this funeral pyre and cremated.
The people squatted round, as they had sat at a similar ceremony in the “Bird's Beak” pa, and watched the flames devour their fallen foemen.
By the light of the great fire roaring away there on the marae, Titokowaru taki'd [strutted] up and down, addressing his followers, and bounding and parading to and fro, his sacred feather-plumed taiaha in his hand.
He recited incantations, and chanted songs, and exhorted the Hauhaus, bidding them be of good heart and fight to the bitter end.
Then Titokowaru turned to the body of the slain warrior Te Waka-tapa-ruru, lying on a blanket on the marae, with gun and tomahawk by his side.
Gazing upon the silent, tattooed features of the dead toa, his comrade in many a wild foray and forest battle, he cried the old farewells to those whose spirits have passed to the Reinga, and he chanted this lament.
“Ki konei ra, e Waka e,
Ka wehe koe i au.
Ka riro i a koe
I nuku-maniapoto,
E ngakinga mate,
Aue, e Waka e”
(“There thou liest, O Waka
Parted from me for ever.
Thou'rt born away to the fields of night,
In revenge for other deaths.
Alas, O Waka”)
And the wild korero [song] went on.
Tangi songs were chanted, and there were speeches of savage, boastful jubilation made, ” great swelling words.”
But from a lone little thatched hut on one side of the crowded parade ground came a long-sustained crying sound, a sobbing heart-breaking dirge, rising and falling like a Highland coronach, a keening for the dead.
Te Hau-karewa made lamentation for her slain warrior.
On the edge of the great forest, some miles to the south of the Waitotara River, was the site of the olden Maori village, Tauranga-ika.
In front fern and grasslands stretched away to the sand-dunes of the sea-coast, with here and there a small shallow lake, in the rear was the dense and roadless bush, a perfect and safe retreat for the Hauhaus in the event of defeat.
The country hereabouts was dotted with the white man's farmsteads, but the whites had been driven off before Titokowaru's victorious army, leaving their homes, the labour of many years, to go up in smoke, and their sheep and cattle to feed the Hauhau bands.
Wanganui town was only a day's march away, and Titokowaru's council of chiefs, eager to follow up their victory at Moturoa, proposed to assault the town and massacre every soul in it.
This old-time village was fixed on by the Hauhau war-chief as the site of his new fighting pa, for he abandoned Papa-tihakehake soon after the repulse of the white forces at that strong stockade.
With the wariness of the Maori strategist, he avoided a second attack in any one entrenchment, and sooner than risk another, and possibly disastrous, engagement at Papa-tihakehake, he took the trouble to construct an even stronger fortification, a splendid example of native military engineering genius.
In the building of this new pa, Kimble Bent and his Hauhau comrades toiled early and late until it was completed.
It was of large size, fully defended with palisading, trenches, parapet, and rifle-pits.
It was between two and three chains in extreme length at the rear, with a somewhat narrower front.
The ground in front was bare of the forest, but carried high fern cover, on the flanks were burned clearings, dotted with blackened tree-stumps and cumbered with logs, then the forest, with some beautiful groves of mahoe on its outskirts.
Two rows of palisades, high and strong, were erected around the position, the posts, solid tree-trunks, were from six to twelve inches thick and ten to fifteen feet high, the rows were four feet apart.
The spaces between the larger stockade-posts were filled in with saplings set upright close together, and fastened by cross-rails and supplejack ties, these saplings did not rest in the ground, but hung a few inches above it, so that between them and the ground a space was left for the fire of the defending musketeers, who were enabled to pour volleys from their trenches inside the war-fence on any approaching enemy with perfect safety to themselves.
Behind the inner stockading was a parapet about six feet high and four feet wide, formed of the earth thrown out of the trenches.
The interior of the pa was pitted everywhere with trenches and covered ways so that in the event of an attack the defenders could literally take to the earth like rabbits, and live underground secure from rifle-fire, and even from artillery.
The place was a network of trenches with connecting passages, roofed over with timber, raupo, and toetoe reeds and earth.
To any assault that could be delivered by the Government forces then available, the fort was practically impregnable.
At one angle of the pa, the Hauhau garrison erected a roughly timbered watch-tower, about thirty-five feet in height.
This tower, or taumaihi, was a feature of the ancient pas of Maoridom, on its upper platform a sentinel was posted, day and night, to give warning of the approach of the enemy.
In front of the pa, outside the palisades, a tall flag-staff was set up, and on this staff the Hauhau war-flags were hoisted.
There were two gateways in the rear stockading, giving access to the bush.
In one end of the pa near the rear was a small tent occupied by Titokowaru.
Bent, the cartridge-maker, lived in a little rush-built whare towards the other end, near one of the gateways.
When the stockade was finished the Hauhaus constructed a tekoteko, a great marionette-like figure of a man, cut out of a pukatea-tree.
It was so placed that its head stood about fifteen feet above the ground, well above the front stockade, and it had loose-jointed arms, to which flax ropes were fastened, leading down to the trench below.
By manipulating these ropes the arms of the wooden warrior were made to move in the actions of the haka, just as if some painted Hauhau were dancing a dance of defiance on the fortress walls.
When the fort was finished the garrison gathered in their food supplies, saw to their arms, and for many weeks waited for the pakeha.
Hauhau scouts and small war-parties daily sallied out from the fort, seeking game in the shape of stray pakehas.
One of these savage man-hunters was a Ngati-Maniapoto man from the King Country, whose name was Pairama, and who had married a Nga-Rauru woman.
He used to go out by himself, looking for someone or something to kill.
Te Pairama returned to the stockade in huge jubilation one day, bearing as a trophy of his prowess on the trail a white man's leg
He had, says Bent, scouted down until he was close to Kai-iwi.
There he spied a white settler in a grass paddock, carrying a rifle.
Down he crouched at once, and stealthily stalked the pakeha.
Just as the unsuspecting settler came to the paddock gate, the Maori leapt out from behind the fence, with a furious snatch tore the rifle from the man's grasp, and shot him dead with it.
He cut off one of the pakeha's legs with his tomahawk, and brought it home as proof of his success on the war-path as proudly as any Indian ever flourished his take of scalps.
Up and down the marae of the pa he bounded, exhibiting the captured rifle and severed limb, yelling his warsong, and loudly boasting that he would that night cook the pakeha's leg and eat it all himself.
But the warrior's braggadocio received a sharp check from Titokowaru.
The war-chief disapproved of this sort of thing on the part of irresponsible young free-lances.
“No man must bring white man's flesh into this pa,” he said, “unless he is one of the Tekau-ma-rua, the war-party sent out by me.
Take that pakeha leg back again at once and place it alongside the body.”
And soon thereafter the disgusted scout, his ardour for “long-pig” so unexpectedly damped by Titoko's code of cannibal etiquette, was to be seen trudging back along the track to the pakeha farm, with sulky visage and reluctant gait, and a white foot and leg, raw, protruding from a flax basket strapped to his shoulders.
By day the scouting parties of the Hauhau “Twelve Apostles” scoured the country, by night the people gathered around the fires on the marae or in the big sleeping whares, and talked and sang and danced the hakas of which they never wearied.
Wild night-scenes those on the stockaded marae, with the crowds of blanketed or flax-cloaked men and women, their wild faces illumined by the leaping flames, squatting in great circles around the campfires, while more than half nude figures leaped and stamped and slapped their limbs and chests with resounding slaps, and expelled the air from their lungs in wolfish “Ooh's” and “Hau's” as they trod the assembly ground in all the fury of the war dance.
A warrior orator would rise, weapon in hand, and throwing off his blanket for freedom of action, go bounding along the marae in front of the assemblage, shouting short, sharp sentences as he taki'd [strutted] to and fro, his athletic figure untrammelled except for a waist-shawl or short dangling mat, fire in his movements, and ferocity in every gesture and in every cry, the embodiment of belligerent Maoridom in its savage prime.
Like defiant replying shouts from some hidden foe in the blackness of the forest that rose in a solid wall above the rear stockade came the clear echoes of the roaring haka choruses.
And so the wild night passed, until the campfires died down, and the tribespeople sought sleep in their packed whare punis [sleeping houses] and their rush-strewn burrows; and the melancholy “Kou-kou” of the “hundred-eyed” ruru, the bush-owl, was heard, as the bird-sentry of the night hours cried his watchword from the forest or a perch on some tall palisade post.
Yet not all eyes were closed in the pa, for the Hauhaus, grown wise by much hard experience, did not neglect the posting of sentries, and a sentinel watched from the platform in the angle-tower.
At intervals, he cried his watch-cry or raised his voice in a night-song that rose and fell in measured cadences like a tangi wail.
The first of the below posts has a list of the previous posts of Maori Myths and Legends
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/how-war-was-declared-between-tainui-and-arawa
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-curse-of-manaia-part-1
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-curse-of-manaia-part-2
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-legend-of-hatupatu-and-his-brothers
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/hatupatu-and-his-brothers-part-2
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-legend-of-the-emigration-of-turi-an-ancestor-of-wanganui
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-continuing-legend-of-turi
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/turi-seeks-patea
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-legend-of-manaia-and-why-he-emigrated-to-new-zealand
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-love-story-of-hine-moa-the-maiden-of-rotorua
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/how-te-kahureremoa-found-her-husband
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-magical-wooden-head
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-art-of-netting-learned-from-the-fairies
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/te-kanawa-s-adventure-with-a-troop-of-fairies
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-loves-of-takarangi-and-rau-mahora
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/puhihuia-s-elopement-with-te-ponga
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-story-of-te-huhuti
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/a-trilogy-of-wahine-toa-woman-heroes
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/a-modern-maori-story
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/hine-whaitiri
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/whaitere-the-enchanted-stingray
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/turehu-the-fairy-people
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/kawariki-and-the-shark-man
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/awarua-the-taniwha-of-porirua
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/hami-s-lot-a-modern-story
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-unseen-a-modern-haunting
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-death-leap-of-tikawe-a-story-of-the-lakes-country
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/paepipi-s-stranger
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/a-story-of-maori-gratitude
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/by-the-waters-of-rakaunui-1
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/by-the-waters-of-rakaunui-2
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/bt-the-waters-of-rakaunui-3
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/bt-the-waters-of-rakaunui-4
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/te-ake-s-revenge-1
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/te-ake-s-revenge-2
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/te-ake-s-revenge-3
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/te-ake-s-revenge-4
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/some-of-the-caves-in-the-centre-of-the-north-island
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-man-eating-dog-of-the-ngamoko-mountain
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/a-story-from-mokau-in-the-early-1800s
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/new-zealand-s-atlantis
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-cave-dwellers-of-rotorua
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/kawa-mountain-and-tarao-the-tunneller
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-legend-of-fragrant-leaf-s-rock
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/a-tale-from-the-waikato-river
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/uneuku-s-judgment
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/at-the-rising-of-kopu-venus
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/harehare-s-story-from-the-rangitaiki
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/another-way-of-passing-power-to-the-successor
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-cave-of-wairaka
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/a-tale-of-how-mount-tauhara-got-to-where-it-is-now
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/te-ana-o-tuno-hopu-s-cave
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/stories-of-an-enchanted-valley-near-rotorua
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/utu-a-maori-s-revenge
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/where-tangihia-sailed-away-to
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-curse-on-te-waru-s-new-house
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-fall-of-the-virgin-s-island
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-first-day-of-removing-the-tapu-on-te-waru-s-new-house
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/a-maori-detective-story
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-second-day-of-removing-the-tapu-on-te-waru-s-new-house
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-story-of-a-maori-heroine
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/a-tale-from-old-kawhia
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-stealing-of-an-atua-god
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/maungaroa-and-some-of-its-legends
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/the-mokia-tarapunga
https://steemit.com/history/@len.george/a-memory-of-maketu
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