One day a chief named Hanui and his travelling companion Heketewananga fell in with the old chief Korako seated in the hollow trunk of a tree, which he had converted into a temporary abode. Then said Hanui’s companion, “I will make water on the old man’s head, to degrade him (lit., that his growth may be stunted).” Hanui was displeased; for the old man was his cousin, being the son of the younger brother of his father Maramatutahi, that was the cause of his displeasure at the words of his companion. But that fellow Heketewananga persisted. He would not listen to the anger of Hanui, but climbed the tree in order to make water on the head of the old man. And when he had done so, he jeered at the old man. “Ho! ho! now then your growth is stunted because of my water; for your head has been made water on.”
With this Hanui and his companion went on their way. When they were gone Korako also went to seek his son. When he reached the bank of the river Waikato he saw some boys on the other side of the river at play near their Pa, and called to them, “Go and tell Wainganui to bring a canoe for me.” “We will bring a canoe,” said the boys. But the old man said “No. I don’t wish you to bring the canoe. Go and call Wainganui. He himself must bring the canoe.” So the boys went and told Wainganui, “Your father is calling you to go to [pg 97] him with a canoe.” “Why did not you go?” said Wainganui. “We offered to take the canoe to him,” said the boys, “but he was not willing. He said that you must take the canoe to him.” So Wainganui went in a canoe, and when he reached the other side of the river he called to his father to come down to him. But his father said, “Do you come up here to my side.” So Wainganui left the canoe and went to his father; for he knew that he had something important to say to him. Then seating himself by his father’s side he said “What means this that you have done?” The father said, “My son, I have been wronged by your uncle Hanui and by Heketewananga.” “What sort of wrong?” inquired the son. “My wrong,” said the old man—“my wrong. Heketewananga climbed on top of my house, and made water on my head—at the same time he jeered me, ‘Ho! ho! now then your growth is stunted.’ ” Then the son said to his father, “Ha! you were all but murdered by those men. Their act shall be avenged. Their heads shall soon be struck by my weapon.” Then turning in anger he went back to his canoe, and returned to the Pa.
Without delay he called together the whole tribe, and made known to them all that his father had told him. After the tribe had heard the wrong done to their old chief, they assembled at night to deliberate, and determined to go the next morning to kill those men. Then they retired to rest. At daybreak they arose and armed themselves, in number three hundred and forty, and set out for the Pa at Hanui.
The men within that Pa were more than six hundred. So when they saw the armed party coming to attack the [pg 98] Pa, the six hundred rushed out to fight, and a battle took place outside. The men of the Pa were driven back, and the conquerors entered it with them. Then while the men of the Pa were being struck down Wainganui shouted to Hanui, “Be quick, Hanui, climb on top of your house, you and your children and your wives.” So Hanui and his children and his wives climbed on the roof of their house. But most of the men of his tribe were killed, some only being left to be a Rahi, in which condition they now remain.
TAPUIKA.
It may happen that a tribe is driven off its lands by a conquering tribe, who may hold possession of the conquered lands for many years, but be, in their turn, driven off by the assistance of tribes allied to the original possessors of the land. It then becomes a question what right the allied tribes acquire in the recovered lands. A case of this sort came under my notice thus: I was instructed to purchase for the Government a piece of land of moderate size at Maketu to be occupied as a Mission station. As I had built a house on this land on a title of mere right of occupation, or as expressed in Maori, “Noho noa iho,” and had resided there for some time, I thought, naturally, that the persons, at whose invitation my house had been placed there, were the persons to whom the land belonged. An arrangement was therefore made with them for the purchase of the land required, and a price agreed on. One night shortly after I was awoke from sleep by a knocking at the door of my house. My visitors were a deputation from some of the tribe Tapuika who had a small Pa [pg 99] below my house by the river side, at some distance from the large Pa by the mouth of the river. Their business was to warn me not to complete the purchase of the land, the persons with whom I had contracted being, as they affirmed, only occupiers and not owners thereof; whereas their tribe Tapuika were the owners, and the mana of the land belonged to their chief Te Koata. They came by night because they did not wish their interference to be known publicly, as it would cause disputes. And it did cause dispute when their nocturnal visit and its object was made public the next morning. However a good result came of it, for it was agreed that the question of title should be referred to the decision of the chiefs of the whole Arawa tribes.
A general assembly of the tribes consequently met at Rotorua, when it was shown that the land I proposed to purchase came within the old boundaries of Tapuika. But several generations before the present the Pa at Maketu had been taken by the hostile tribe Ngatiawa, and the Arawa tribes, including Tapuika, had been driven from the sea-coast to Rotorua and elsewhere. When the flax trade with Sydney was in vigour, many of the Arawa natives had been permitted to return to scrape flax for sale to a trader named Tapsell who was stationed at Maketu; and at length the combined Arawa tribes expelled Ngatiawa, and recovered the lands of their forefathers. They then established themselves in force at Maketu, and some of them marked out by boundaries, and took possession of land originally belonging to Tapuika, for their own use. Tapuika did not offer any objection to this, but now said that the land so taken was merely given up for their occupation, and that the [pg 100] mana of their chief Te Koata over the land had never been given up.
The decision of the chiefs of the Arawa, to which Te Koata, who was present, assented, was that as Tapuika could not have recovered their lands if unassisted by other Arawa tribes, the land of Tapuika which had been taken possession of by the fighting men of the combined tribes now belonged to those men, or expressed in their own words, “kua riro i te toa,” had gone to the brave.
This decision was important, as it established a precedent of value in dealing with any lands similarly circumstanced elsewhere in New Zealand—a precedent being always a powerful argument with the Maori.