CHAPTER XII.
This is, we believe, the most complete account, and, at the same time, the one most to be depended on, which has yet been given to the public, of a New Zealand battle. None of the other persons who have described to us the manners of these savages have seen them engaged with each other, except in a sham fight; although Nicholas, on one occasion, was very near being afforded an opportunity of witnessing a real combat. That gentleman and Marsden, however, have given us some very interesting details respecting the preliminaries to an actual engagement. They describe the debates which generally take place in the war-council of a tribe or district previous to any declaration of hostilities; and those conferences between the two opposing parties in which, even after they have met on the intended field of action, the matter of dispute is often made the subject of a war of argument and eloquence, and sometimes, it would seem, is even settled without any resort to more destructive weapons.
When Marsden visited the neighbourhood of the Shukehanga, in 1819, he found a quarrel just about to commence between two of the principal chiefs, whose lands lay contiguous, and who were also, it appeared, nearly related, in consequence of the pigs of the one having got into the sweet potato grounds of the other, who had retaliated by shooting several of them. The chief whose pigs had committed the trespass, and whom Marsden was now visiting, was an old man, apparently eighty years of age, named Warremaddoo,[[CF]] who had now resigned the supreme authority to his son Matanghee;[[CG]] yet this affair rekindled all the ancient enthusiasm of the venerable warrior. The other chief was called Moodewhy.[[CH]] The morning debate, at which several chiefs spoke with great force and dignity, had been suddenly interrupted; but it was resumed in the evening, when Marsden was again present.
On this occasion, old Warremaddoo threw off his mat, took his spear, and began to address his tribe and the chiefs. He made strong appeals to them against the injustice and ingratitude of Moodeewhy's conduct towards them, recited many injuries which he and his tribe had suffered from Moodeewhy for a long period, mentioned instances of his bad conduct at the time that his father's bones were removed from the Ahoodu Pa to their family vault, stated acts of kindness which he had shown to Moodeewhy at different times, and said that he had twice saved his tribe from total ruin. In the present instance, Moodeewhy had killed three of his hogs. Every time he mentioned his loss, the recollection seemed to nerve afresh his aged sinews: he shook his hoary beard, stamped with indignant rage, and poised his quivering spear.
He exhorted his tribe to be bold and courageous; and declared that he would head them in the morning against the enemy, and, rather than he would submit, he would be killed and eaten. All that they wanted was firmness and courage; he knew well the enemies they had to meet, their hearts did not lie deep; and, if they were resolutely opposed, they would yield.
His oration continued nearly an hour, and all listened to him with great attention.
This dispute, however, partly through Marsden's intercession, who offered to give each of the indignant leaders an adze if they would make peace, was at last amicably adjusted; and the two, as the natives expressed it, "were made both alike inside."
But Marsden was a good deal surprised on observing old Warremaddoo, immediately after he had rubbed noses with Moodeewhy in token of reconcilement, begin, with his slaves, to burn and destroy the fence of the enclosure in which they were assembled, belonging to Moodeewhy, who, however, took no notice of the destruction of his property thus going on before his face. Upon inquiry, he was told that this was done in satisfaction for a fence of the old man's which Moodeewhy had destroyed in the first instance, and the breaking down of which had, in fact, given rise to the trespass.
A New Zealander would hold himself to be guilty of a breach of the first principles of honour if he ever made up a quarrel without having exacted full compensation for what he might conceive to be his wrongs.
The battle which Nicholas expected to witness was to be fought between the tribe of an old chief named Henou,[[CI]] and that of another, named Wiveah,[[CJ]] who had seduced his wife. The two parties met in adjoining enclosures, and Nicholas took his station on the roof of a neighbouring hut to observe their proceedings. The conference was commenced by an old warrior on Henou's side, who, rising, amid the universal silence of both camps, addressed himself to Wiveah and his followers.
Nicholas describes the venerable orator as walking, or rather running, up and down a paling, which formed one side of the enclosure in which he was, uttering his words in a tone of violent resentment, and occasionally shaking his head and brandishing his spear. He was answered in a mild and conciliating manner by two of Wiveah's followers.
To them another warrior of Henou's party replied, in what Nicholas calls a masterly style of native eloquence. In easy dignity of manner he greatly excelled the other orators. "He spoke," says the author, "for a considerable time; and I could not behold, without admiration, the graceful elegance of his deportment, and the appropriate accordance of his action. Holding his pattoo-pattoo[[CK]] in his hand he walked up and down along the margin of the river with a firm and manly step."
The debate was carried on by other speakers for some time longer; but at last it appeared that conciliatory counsels had carried the day. The two parties satisfied themselves with a sham fight, Wiveah merely presenting the injured Henou with a quantity of potatoes.
The most singular part of the debate, however, was yet to come; for immediately after the sham fight, the old orator again rose, and, although vehement enough at the beginning of his harangue, became still more so as he proceeded, till at last he grew quite outrageous, and jumped about the field like a person out of his senses.
In the latter part of the debate, Wiveah and Henou themselves took up the discussion of the question, and seem, by the account given, to have handled it with more mildness and good temper than almost any of their less interested associates.
At the close of Wiveah's last address, however, "his three wives," says Nicholas, "now deemed it expedient to interpose their oratory, as confirming mediators between the parties, though there was no longer any enmity existing on either side. They spoke with great animation, and the warriors listened to their separate speeches in attentive silence. They assumed, I thought, a very determined tone, employing a great deal of impressive action, and looking towards the opposite chief with an asperity of countenance not warranted by the mild forbearance of his deportment. The expostulating harangues, as I should suppose they were, of these sturdy ladies completed the ceremonials of this singular conference; and the reconciliation being thus consummated, the parties now entertained no sentiments towards each other but those of reciprocal amity."
It would appear that the New Zealand women sometimes carry their martial propensities farther than they are stated to have done in the present case. Nicholas was once not a little surprised, while witnessing a sham fight, to observe Duaterra's wife, the Queen of Tippoonah,[[CL]] exerting himself, with most conspicuous courage, among the very thickest of the combatants.
Her majesty was dressed in a red gown and petticoat, which she had received as a present from Marsden, that reverend gentleman having been obliged himself, in the first instance, to assist in decorating her with these novel articles of attire; and, holding in her hand a large horse-pistol, always selected the most formidable hero she could find as her antagonist.
She was at last, however, fairly exhausted; and stood, at the conclusion of the exhibition, Nicholas tells us, panting for breath. "In this state," says he, "she was pleased to notice me with a distinguished mark of flattering condescension, by holding out her lips for me to kiss, an honour I could have very well dispensed with, but which, at the same time, I could not decline, without offering a slight to a person of such elevated consequence."
He saw, also, some other female warriors, who exposed themselves in the combat with great gallantry. Among them, Marsden tells us, was the widow of Tippahee, a woman apparently not much less than seventy years of age.
Cook also sometimes saw the women armed with spears.
The principal native war-instrument of the New Zealanders is the short thick club, which has been so often mentioned. This weapon they all constantly wear, either fastened in their girdle or held in the right hand and attached by a string to the wrist. It is in shape somewhat like a battledore, varying from ten to eighteen inches in length, including a short handle, and generally about four or five broad, thick in the middle, but worked down to a very sharp edge on both sides. It is most commonly formed of a species of green talc, which appears to be found only in the southern island, and with regard to which the New Zealanders have many superstitious notions. Some of them are made of a darker-coloured stone, susceptible of a high polish; some of whalebone; and Nicholas mentions one, which he saw in the possession of Tippoui, brother of the celebrated George of Wangarooa, and himself one of the leaders of the attack on the 'Boyd,' which, like that of Shungie, which Rutherford speaks of, was of iron, and also highly polished. It had been fabricated by the chief himself, with tools of the most imperfect description; and yet was, in Nicholas's opinion, as well-finished a piece of workmanship as could have been produced by any of our best mechanics. This instrument is employed in close combat, the head being generally the part aimed at; and one well-directed blow is quite enough to split the hardest skull. The name usually given to it, in the earlier accounts of New Zealand, is patoo-patoo. Anderson, in his general remarks on the people of Queen Charlotte Sound, says it is also called Emeeta. But its correct and distinctive name seems to be that by which Rutherford always designates it, the mery or mairy.
Long striking and thrusting weapons used by the Maoris
Savage tells us that when he took his friend, Moyhanger,[[CM]] to a shop in the Strand to purchase some tools, he was particularly struck with a common bill-hook, upon which he cast his eyes, as appearing to be a most admirable instrument of slaughter; and we find accordingly that since they have had so much intercourse with Europeans some of the New Zealand warriors have substituted the English bill-hook for their native battle-axe. Nicholas mentions one with which Duaterra was accustomed to arm himself.
Their only missile weapons, except stones, which they merely throw from the hand, are short spears, made of hard wood or whalebone, and pointed at one extremity. These they are very dexterous with, both in darting at a mark, and in receiving or turning aside with the blades of their battle-axes, which are the only shields they use, except the folds of their thick and flowing mats, which they raise on the left arm, and which are tough enough to impede the passage of a spear. They have other spears, however, varying from thirteen or fourteen to thirty feet in length, which they use as lances or bayonets. These, or rather the shorter sort, are also sometimes called by English writers patoos, or patoo-patoos. Lastly, they often carry an instrument somewhat like a sergeant's halbert, curiously carved, and adorned with bunches of parrot's feathers tied round the top of it.
The musket has now, however, in a great measure superseded these primitive weapons, although the New Zealanders are as yet far from being expert in the use of it.
By Rutherford's account, as we have just seen, they only fire off their guns once, and throw them away as soon as they have got fairly engaged, much as some of our own Highland regiments are said formerly to have been in the habit of doing.
Cruise, in like manner, states that they use their firelocks very awkwardly, lose an immense deal of time in looking for a rest and taking aim, and after all, seldom hit their object, unless close to it.
Muskets, however, are by far more prized and coveted by the New Zealander than any of the other commodities to which his intercourse with the civilized world has given him access. The ships that touch at the country always find it the readiest way of obtaining the supplies they want from the natives, to purchase them with arms or ammunition; and the missionaries, who have declined to traffic in these articles, have often scarcely been able to procure a single pig by the most tempting price they could offer in another shape. Although the arms which they have obtained in this way have generally been of the most trashy description, they have been sufficient to secure to the tribes that have been most plentifully provided with them a decided superiority over the rest; and the consequence has been that the people of the Bay of Islands, who have hitherto had most intercourse with European ships, have been of late years the terror of the whole country, and while they themselves have remained uninvaded, have repeatedly carried devastation into its remotest districts.
More recently, however, the River Thames, and the coasts to the south of it, have also been a good deal resorted to by vessels navigating those seas; and a great many muskets have in consequence also found their way into the hands of the inhabitants of that part of the island.
When Rutherford speaks of the two parties whom he saw engaged having had about two thousand stand of arms between them, it may be thought that his estimate is probably an exaggerated one; but it is completely borne out by other authorities. Thus, for example, Davis, one of the missionaries, writes, in 1827: "They have at this time many thousand stand of arms among them, both in the Bay and at the River Thames."
The method of fighting, which is described as being in use among the New Zealanders, in which, after the first onset, every man chooses his individual antagonist, and the field of battle presents merely the spectacle of a multitude of single combats, is the same which has, perhaps, everywhere prevailed, not only in the primitive wars of men, but up to a period of considerable refinement in the history of the military art.
The Greeks and Trojans, at the time of the siege of Troy, used both chariots and missiles; and yet it is evident from Homer that their battles and skirmishes usually resolved themselves in a great measure into a number of duels between heroes who seem to have sometimes paused by mutual consent to hold parley together, without at all minding the course of the general fight.
Exactly the same thing takes place in the battles of the American Indians, who are also possessed of bows and arrows. The New Zealanders have no weapons of this description, and, until their intercourse with Europeans had put muskets into their hands, were without any arms whatever by which one body could, by its combined strength, have made an impression upon another from a distance. Even the long spears which they sometimes used could evidently have been employed with effect only when each was directed with a particular aim. When two parties engaged, therefore, they necessarily always came to close combat, and every man singled out his adversary; a mode of fighting which was, besides, much more adapted to their tempers, and to the feelings of vehement animosity with which they came into the field, than any which would have kept them at a greater distance from each other.
The details of such personal conflicts amongst more refined nations always formed a principal ingredient in poetry and romance, from the times of Homer to those of Spenser. They are, indeed, always uninteresting and tiresome, although related with the highest descriptive power; and even in the splendid descriptions of Ariosto and Tasso there is something absolutely ludicrous in the minute representations of two champions in complete armour, hammering each other about with their maces like blacksmiths.
Still, the poets have clung to this love of individual prowess, wherever their subjects would admit of such descriptions; and, even to our own day, that habit which we derived from the times of chivalry, of describing personal bravery as the greatest of human virtues, is not altogether abandoned.
The realities of modern warfare are, however, very unfavourable to such stimulating representations. The military discipline in use among the more cultivated nations of antiquity, for example the Persians, the Macedonians, the Grecian states, and above all, the Romans, undoubtedly did much to give to their armies the power of united masses, controllable by one will, and not liable to be broken down and rendered comparatively inefficient by the irregular movements of individuals. But it is the introduction of fire-arms which has, most of all, contributed to change the original character of war, and the elements of the strength of armies. Where it is merely one field of artillery opposed to another, and the efficient value of every man on either side lies principally in the musket which he carries on his shoulder, individual strength and courage become alike of little account. The result depends, it may be almost said, entirely on the skill of the commander, not on the exertions of those over whom he exercises nearly as absolute an authority as a chess-player does over his pieces.
If this new system has not diminished the destructiveness of war, it has, at least, very much abated the rancorous feelings with which it was originally carried on. It has converted it from a contest of fierce and vindictive passions into an exercise of science. We have still, doubtless, to lament that the game of blood occasions, whenever it is played, so terrible a waste of human life and happiness; but even the displacement of that brute force, and those other merely animal impulses, by which it used to be mainly directed, and the substitution of regulating principles of a comparatively intellectual and unimpassioned nature, may be considered as indicating, even here, a triumph of civilization.
It is impossible that the business of war can be so corrupting to those engaged in it when it is chiefly a contest of skill, as when it is wholly a contest of passion. Nor is it calculated in the one form to occupy the imagination of a people, as it will do in the other. The evil is therefore mitigated by the introduction of those arts which to many may appear aggravations of this curse of mankind.
Rutherford does not take any notice of the pas, or as they have been called, eppas, or hippahs,[[CN]] which are found in so many of the New Zealand villages. These are forts, or strongholds, always erected on an eminence, and intended for the protection of the tribe and its most valuable possessions, when reduced by their enemies to the last extremity. These ancient places of refuge have also been very much abandoned since the introduction of fire-arms; but formerly, they were regarded as of great importance.
Cook describes one which he visited on the East Coast, and which was placed on a high point of land projecting into the sea, as wholly inaccessible on the three sides on which it was enclosed by the water; while it was defended on the land side by a ditch of fourteen feet deep, having a bank raised behind it, which added about eight feet more to the glacis. Both banks of the ditch are also, in general, surmounted by palisades, about ten or twelve feet high, formed of strong stakes bound together with withies, and driven very deep into the ground. Within the innermost palisade is usually a stage, supported by posts, from which the besieged throw down darts and stones upon their assailants; and in addition to this, the interior space, which is generally of considerable extent, is sometimes divided into numerous petty eminences, each surrounded by its palisade, and communicating with each other by narrow lanes, admitting of being easily stopped up, in case of the enemy having effected his entrance within the general enclosure. The only road to the strong-hold is by a single narrow and steep passage.
Cruise describes a fort at Wangarooa as situated on an insulated rock, about three hundred feet high, and presenting the most imposing appearance. These elevated palings were a subject of much speculation to those on board of Cook's vessel, when that navigator first approached the coast of New Zealand. Some, he tells us, supposed them to be inclosures for sheep and oxen, while others maintained they were parks of deer.
The New Zealanders may, in some degree, be considered as a warlike people upon the sea. We have no distinct account of any maritime engagements between one tribe and another carried on in their vessels of war; but as these belong to the state, if it may be so termed—that is, as the war canoes are the property of a particular community inhabiting a village or district, as distinguished from the fishing-boats of individuals—it is probable that their hostile encounters may occasionally be carried on upon the element with which a nation of islanders are generally familiar.
Rutherford has given a minute description of a war-canoe, which accords with the representation of such a large vessel in the plates to Cook's "Voyages":—
"Their canoes are made of the largest sized pine-trees, which generally run from 40 to 50 feet long, and are hollowed out, and lengthened about eight feet at each end, and raised about two feet on each side.
"They are built with a figure head; the stern-post extending about ten feet above the stern of the canoe, which is handsomely carved, as well as the figure-head, and the whole body of the canoe. The sides are ornamented with pearl shell, which is let into the carved work, and above that is a row of feathers. On both sides, fore and aft, they have seats in the inside, so that two men can sit abreast. They pull about fifty paddles on each side, and many of them will carry two hundred people. When paddling, the chief stands up and cheers them with a song, to which they all join in chorus. These canoes roll heavy, and go at the rate of seven knots an hour. Their sails are made of straw mats in the shape of a lateen sail. They cook in their canoes, but always go on shore to eat. They are frequently known to go three or four hundred miles along the coast."
FOOTNOTES:
Probably Wharemata.
Matangi.
Muriwai.
Hinau.
Probably Waitea.
patu-patu.
Te Puna.
Moehanga.
The former word, "Pa," is correct.