FOOTNOTES:
[45] Typha angustifolia.
[46] Some remained undistributed, tapu for ever.
[47] In the case of chiefs of great fame, the remains were twice or thrice exposed to the veneration of the tribe before the final sepulture, which might then be delayed longer than is stated above.
GRIM-VISAGED WAR
Animated, for all one knows, by mere lust of strife, the men of Waikato on the west soon after their arrival in New Zealand marched across the North Island to Maketu on the Bay of Plenty, and burned the Arawa canoe.
From this outrage arose a war, the end of which was not until generations later, and from which, as a forest conflagration from a spark, arose other wars between tribe and tribe, until from end to end of Te Ika A Maui men were in arms against one another.
Peace there was, but more often war; and by the time Captain Cook visited the Islands the village was deserted and the pa predominant. Later, peace again prevailed; then wars again; and, as the quarrel with the Pakeha developed, strife filled the land till matters were adjusted at the end of the long struggle between Maori and colonist.
The conditions under which the Maori lived furnished them with plenty of excuses to appeal to arms. There was always that burning question of animal food, and no more flagrant outrage could be perpetrated by one tribe than to poach upon the hunting or fishing-grounds of another.
A man might insult one of another tribe by rude word or inconsiderate deed, and the aggrieved party might wipe out the injury by means of utu—payment or revenge—which was more or less the lex talionis of the Romans. But the individual usually carried his wrongs to his chief, when the matter became a tribal affair and, unless compensation were quickly forthcoming, war resulted between the disputants. Thus, what originated in a petty difference between two hot-headed fellows, might, and often did, result in a quarrel which brought hundreds—perhaps thousands—into the field.
The Maori were a military race in which every able-bodied man became a warrior because he possessed an arm strong enough to strike. To lack courage to deliver the blow was to expose himself to the pointing finger of scorn. The man who shirked his military duties could not escape exposure. His face betrayed him. If that were bare of designs, he had small chance to establish his claim to be a man of valour, and smaller still to live in honour among his fellows.
Few were courageous enough to be cowards in a race so uniformly brave. Few, however much they might prefer peace, ventured to skulk at home when the war-gong clattered and the huge trumpet brayed its summons. The man who remained deaf to the call to arms incurred the contempt of his fellow-men, and knew that the meanest slave would not change places with him. A solitary life, an unlamented death, his lonely passage to Reinga "unwept, unhonoured, and unsung"—such was the lot of the Maori who dared to be a coward.
The Maori fought with frightful ferocity when once the battle was joined, but went to work leisurely enough over the preliminaries, occupying the time with councils, dances, orations and embassies from one set of contestants to the other.
The council was presided over by the principal chief, or by the paramount chief when a tribe's interests were involved. If age or physical infirmity prevented him from leading in the day of battle, his place would be filled by one of the "fighting chiefs," men of little use in the Maori "War Office," but terrible in the field.
The council over, the tohunga was sought and requested to ascertain whether success would attend the arms of the inquirers. As this was a very important function, the rules of Maori etiquette were rigidly observed in dress and demeanour.
The high chief was splendidly arrayed. His fine, Roman face, scarred with records of his daring, was set and stern; his dark hair, combed and oiled, supported a coronet of huia plumes, and from the lobe of each ear dangled a gleaming tooth of the tiger-shark. Around his loins he wore the customary katika, or kilt, while a vest of closely woven flax covered as with mail the upper part of his body.
A collar of sharks' teeth, or of the teeth of slain foes, encircled the massive column of his neck, and from the former was suspended his household heitiki,[48] which lay like a locket upon his broad chest. In his hand he held a long spear, elaborately carved, like the rest of his wooden weapons, and from his right wrist dangled his favourite mere, or war-club, of purest greenstone. Upon his shoulders, fastened so as to leave the right arm free, he wore the kaitaka, the valuable robe of flax already referred to.
But no matter how sumptuously garbed before the fight began, every particle of clothing was usually discarded at the moment of onset, and the Maori rushed into the fray naked and unashamed.
The war-dance usually followed a favourable augury, and was heralded by a terrific commotion, which drew every inhabitant of the village to the marae, in the midst of which a cleared space was occupied by a hundred or more lusty warriors.
Stripped to the skin, their brown, muscular bodies gleaming, their scarred faces aglow with excitement, the warriors stand in two long lines awaiting the signal. Suddenly the long-drawn wail of a tetere[49] sounds, and a hush falls upon the crowd. A moment, and with a wild yell a magnificent savage rushes from the rear of the column to the front, brandishing his spear and hideously contorting his face. For a short minute he leaps and capers at the head of the column; then, abruptly coming to rest, sings in a rich bass the first words of the war-song.
Another short pause and the warriors behind him leap from the ground with a pealing shout, flourish their weapons and set off at the double round the court, while from their open throats comes the roaring chorus of the chant.
Twice they circle the marae; then, forming once more in column, with, or without, the soloist for fugleman, they dance in perfect time, but with furious energy, gesticulating, rolling their eyes and protruding their tongues, while the ground trembles under the heavy tread of so many strong men.
At last, with a shout so horrible and menacing that the hearts of the watchers beat faster as they hear it, the dance comes to an end as abruptly as it began, and on all sides are heard prophecies of success, since no one among the dancers has fallen under the exhausting strain.
For some time after the opposing forces had come within striking distance of one another, jeers and insults were freely exchanged. The chiefs on either side would harangue their men; but rarely were the initial speeches so inflammatory, the early gibes so stinging as to precipitate the conflict. It was almost a point of etiquette to measure the stabbing power of that unruly member, the tongue, before proceeding to test the keenness of spear-point, the smashing capacity of club.
But the tongue was put to another use; for, while eyes were rolled and faces contorted in hideous grimaces, Arero, The Little, was poked farther and farther out of the mouth with telescopic power of elongation, till it rested almost upon the broad, scarred chest below its proper frontier, the lips. The visage of a Maori at such a moment was indescribably hideous, and would probably have scared away the enemy, had it not been that their faces were equally appalling.
Arero, the tongue, having played its part in facial distortion, was now drawn back into its proper territory and again put to its legitimate use, abuse of the enemy. Once more the wordy war raged, till some taunt too savage, some sneer too biting, some gesture too insulting, brought the long preliminaries to a sudden, dreadful close, and the men of war with startling swiftness broke ranks, and with howls of fury clashed together in mortal combat.
For a few moments all other sounds were drowned by the rattle of spear-shafts and the crash and crack of stone axes and clubs, mingled with a ferocious roaring; but a yell of triumph soon rang high above the din, "Ki au te Mataika! Mataika! Mataika!"[50] The combatants for a single instant held back, while hundreds of envious eyes glared towards the spot whence came the cry. The next, as a huge warrior, seizing his opponent's hair with his left hand, dragged back the head and with one shrewd blow clubbed out the brains, the roar of battle swelled again, and the fight raged with redoubled fury.
"Vae victis!" growled the old Roman, and these brown men with the stern, Roman faces made good the sinister words. A defeat meant not a rout, but a slaughter of those who fled and were overtaken, a massacre of those who lay wounded, awaiting the death-stroke with a composure not less superb than that of the stricken gladiators in Rome's arena.
The lives of the wounded were too often taken to the accompaniment of shocking barbarities and, when the breath was out of their bodies, their heads were hacked off and borne away in triumph, to grin from spiked palisades at the foe who refused to respect them even in death.
The victors were careful to decapitate their own dead, whose heads were carried home with every mark of respect and handed over to the nearest relatives of the deceased. It was no disgrace to be slain in battle; but if your head were not returned to the bosom of your family, then your own, and with it the family mana, or honour, was gone.
Were a man forced to flee, it was considered an act of the greatest friendship if he delayed to decapitate a dead or wounded comrade, so that, though the latter's body might be rent in pieces, and very likely swallowed, his head might suffer no dishonour, and the family mana be saved.
The heads thus rescued were subjected to prolonged exposure to air and steam and smoke, after which they underwent treatment at the hands of experts. The final result was that the head retained a wonderfully lifelike appearance, the moko marks remaining plainly visible. The heads were set up in places of honour, with that ceremony which these paladins of the South Seas invariably observed, to be handed down from generation to generation along with stirring tales of the valorous warriors upon whose shoulders they had once sat.
We are learning that our brown hero was by no means faultless. He was not above insulting his vanquished foe, and saw no reason why he should not do a brave and helpless man to death with revolting tortures. The extinction of life did not satisfy him; he must mutilate the bodies of the slain and spurn the dishonoured corpse.
Surely his appetite for revenge must now be glutted; his ingenuity can suggest nothing more in the way of utu; his passion-inflamed mind devise no further stroke of insolent hate.
Alas! The violent climax is yet to be reached; the abysmal depth of degradation to be plumbed; the savage nature to be laid bare in all its hideousness.
The pity of it! This man, so strong, so brave, so keen of intelligence; this man with brain so clever and hand so deft that he can fashion that wonderful thing, a war-canoe, with nought but tools wrenched from the unwilling earth; this man who is a loving husband, a fond father; who in future years is destined to take his place beside the white invader of his dominion; this man can sink to the level of the beast, which, having slain, must fall to and eat. Lower, indeed, he descends; for the brute kills that it may satisfy its hunger, but the Maori that he may inflict the crowning dishonour upon his dead foe and upon the children of the slain.
Cannibalism, if not a respectable, is a very ancient practice, for Homer and Herodotus mention the anthropophagi; but it is impossible to say when it originated, and the why and wherefore of the horrid custom can be still less easily come at. Some have argued that it began in a craving for animal food; but these seem to have lost sight of the fact that there are in Africa cannibals who live in regions teeming with game, just as in the South Sea Islands there are cannibals who till modern times were forced to content themselves with an almost purely vegetable diet. If the same motive animated both of these in their adoption of the practice, that motive can obviously not have been a hankering after animal food.
Neither does the name throw any light upon the origin of the custom; for the word "cannibal" is presumed to be a corruption of "Caribal," that is, "pertaining to the Caribs," a West Indian tribe of man-eaters, discovered by Columbus in 1493.
The Malays, or some of them, were cannibals, and the Maori offshoots of that race indulged in the habit in those far-off days before they adventured to New Zealand. Their traditions shew that they had abandoned the practice before, and that they did not resume it for several generations after their emigration. Even then they were cannibals side by side with the fact that they were warriors and, in the beginning at least, consumed their species less from appetite than from a desire to humiliate the kindred of the vanquished.
The Zulus, who used to eat but little meat, were accustomed when in view of war to gorge themselves with the flesh of beeves. Then, intoxicated, as it were, with the unaccustomed nitrogenous food, they swung into battle, careless of disaster or death. The Maori, on the other hand, after days of preparation, during which their rule of life was ascetic, urged on the battle fever by rhetoric and oratory of a very high order. They showed so far only their intellectual side; when once the fight was over, cramming themselves with loathsome food, they sank below the level of the ravening brute.
It must be granted, then, that the Maori did not wholly abstain from human flesh. Against this—save for some notable exceptions—they were not habitually cannibals when at peace. After the shock of war they swallowed portions of their dead foes, as much to incorporate the others' courage with their own as from any radical hankering after the ghastly dish. Let it go at that.
There is at length a lull in the strife. The stronger are weary of dealing blows, the weaker faint with taking them. The time is come when both may rest awhile, if only to husband their strength, so that some day they may fight again. After all, one cannot be for ever upon the war-path. The fern-root is maturing, the kumara are ripening in the fields, the eels fattening in the creeks. Home-voices are calling, and fierce men of war grow sick with longing for sight of wife and child. Yes; there has been enough of war. Let peace prevail; if not for ever, at least until rage, cool now, has had time to blaze up once more; until arms, stiff and sore with hammering skulls and splitting hearts, again renew their strength. Yes, peace is good. Let us have peace.
So a herald went forth, bearing a leafy bough, a sign that his mission was Hohou i te rongo—to make peace. Takawaenga, or "go-betweens," had been busily engaged over the matter for some days past, and the herald's very presence proved that the result of his visit was a foregone conclusion.
Still, the Maori must always be dramatic, so the herald was met with great respect and ceremony, and his argument seriously considered with much show of dissent. Then, when the orator had listened with becoming patience to numerous speakers on the other side, and exhausted every trick of voice and gesture on his own, all opposition suddenly collapsed, and peace was concluded amid general rejoicing.
Not many captives were taken in war as a general rule; but, if a man's life were spared, he became a slave. Save that such a man lost all social status, and was set to tasks to which he had been unaccustomed, his lot was not necessarily very hard. He might, perhaps, be exchanged for some captive taken by his own tribe; but, having once become a slave, he usually preferred to remain one; for he was treated with rough kindness and consideration. Curiously enough, if he returned to his own tribe, he was invariably slighted because of the experience it had been his misfortune to undergo.
Peace ratified, preparations were made for returning home and, as they had left their village with ceremony, so the victors marched into it again with all the pomp and circumstance of war.
Some few paces in front of the column a single Maori banged lustily with a heavy stick upon a very small drum, while immediately in his rear another evoked a succession of jerky notes from a flute formed from a human thigh-bone. Next in order marched a grim company, who bore aloft upon rough-hewn pikes the severed heads of foemen. Close behind this grisly vanguard stalked, with heads erect and dignified bearing, the "Fighting Chiefs," their stern, Roman faces heavily scored with records of their valour, and after them strode the Captain-general, "pride in his port, defiance in his eye," a very "lord of human-kind" as he "passed by." Behind the great leader swaggered the warriors, marching not in step, but with a firm tread and swinging gait, impressive enough. Last of all, laden with spoil, or carrying the arms of their masters, the tutua and slaves brought up the rear.
As the army came within sight of the village, the men broke into a roaring chorus anent the land of their birth, that dearly loved land which they fondly prophesied would be theirs till the end of time.
The battle-scarred veteran who has led them in so many victorious campaigns turns at the sound, and with a single proud gesture indicates the village. It is enough. The buglers blow discordant blasts, the garrison yell shrilly, and with a thunderous roar of triumph the impatient warriors surge forward, breast the slope and charge furiously into the marae. They have returned victorious; they are once more at peace—and at home.
Note.—The Maori science of defensive warfare in their pa is dealt with in Part III.
Victors in the fight