Old New Zealand: A Tale of the Good Old Times / And a History of the War in the North against the Chief Heke, in the Year 1845

by Frederick Edward Maning

A wrestling match. — Beef against melons. — The victor gains a loss. — "Our chief." — His speech. — His status in the tribe. — Death of "Melons." — Rumours of peace and war. — Getting the Pa in fighting order. — My friend the "relation eater." — Expectation and preparation. — Arrival of doubtful friends. — Sham fight. — The "taki." — The war dance. — Another example of Maori hospitality. — Crocodile's tears. — Loose notions about heads. — Tears of blood. — Brotherly love. — Capital felony. — Peace.

Something between a cheer, a scream, and a roar, greet our arrival on the sand. An English voice salutes me with "Well, you served that fellow out." One half of my coat hangs from my right elbow, the other from my left; a small shred of the collar is still around my neck. My hat, alas! my hat is gone. I am surrounded by a dense mob of natives, laughing, shouting, and gesticulating in the most grotesque manner. Three Englishmen are also in the crowd—they seem greatly amused at something, and offer repeated welcomes. At this moment up comes my salt-water acquaintance, elbowing his way through the crowd; there is a strange serio-comic expression of anger in his face; he stoops, makes horrid grimaces, quivering at the same time his left hand and arm about in a most extraordinary manner, and striking the thick part of his left arm with the palm of his right hand. "Hu!" says he, "hu! hu!" "What can he mean?" said I. "He is challenging you to wrestle," cried one of the Englishmen; "he wants utu." "What is utu?" said I. "Payment." "I won't pay him." "Oh, that's not it, he wants to take it out of you wrestling." "Oh, I see; here's at him; pull off my coat and boots; I'll wrestle him; his foot is in his own country, and his name is—what?" "Sir, his name in English means 'An eater of melons;' he is a good wrestler; you must mind." "Water-melons, I suppose; beef against melons for ever, hurrah! here's at him." Here the natives began to run between us to separate us, but seeing that I was in the humour to "have it out," and that neither self or friend were actually out of temper, and no doubt expecting to see the pakeha floored, they stood to one side and made a ring. A wrestler soon recognises another, and my friend soon gave me some hints that showed me I had some work before me. I was a youngster in those days, all bone and sinew, full of animal spirits, and as tough as leather. A couple of desperate main strength efforts soon convinced us both that science or endurance must decide the contest. My antagonist was a strapping fellow of about five-and-twenty, tremendously strong, and much heavier than me. I, however, in those days actually could not be fatigued; I did not know the sensation, and could run from morning till night. I therefore trusted to wearing him out, and avoiding his ta and wiri. All this time the mob were shouting encouragement to one or other of us. Such a row never was seen. I soon perceived I had a "party." "Well done, pakeha!" "Now for it, Melons!" "At him again!" "Take care, the pakeha is a taniwha; the pakeha is a tino tangata!" "Hooray!" (from the British element). "The Pakeha is down!" "No he isn't!" (from English side). Here I saw my friend's knees beginning to tremble. I made a great effort, administered my favourite remedy, and there lay the "Eater of melons" prone upon the sand. I stood a victor; and like many other conquerors, a very great loser. There I stood, minus hat, coat, and pistols, wet and mauled, and transformed very considerably for the worse since I left the ship. When my antagonist fell, the natives gave a great shout of triumph, and congratulated me in their own way with the greatest goodwill. I could see I had got their good opinion, though I scarcely could understand how. After sitting on the sand some time my friend arose, and with a very graceful movement, and a smile of good nature on his dusky countenance, he held out his hand and said in English, "How do you do?"

I was much pleased at this; the natives had given me fair play, and my antagonist, though defeated both by sea and land, offered me his hand, and welcomed me to the shore with his whole stock of English—"How do you do?"

But the row is not half over yet. Here comes the chief in the ship's boat. The other is miles off with its one man crew still pulling no one knows, or at all cares, where. Some one has been off in a canoe and told the chief that "Melons" and the "New Pakeha" were fighting like mad on the beach. Here he comes, flourishing his mere ponamu. He is a tall, stout fellow, in the prime of life, black with tattooing, and splendidly dressed, according to the splendour of those days. He has on a very good blue jacket, no shirt or waistcoat, a pair of duck trousers, and a red sash round his waist; no hat or shoes, these being as yet things beyond a chief's ambition. The jacket was the only one in the tribe; and amongst the surrounding company I saw only one other pair of trousers, and it had a large hole at each knee, but this was not considered to detract at all from its value. The chief jumps ashore; he begins his oration, or rather to "blow up" all and sundry the tribe in general, and poor "Melons" in particular. He is really vexed, and wishes to appear to me more vexed than he really is. He runs, gesticulating and flourishing his mere, about ten steps in one direction, in the course of which ten steps he delivers a sentence; he then turns and runs back the same distance, giving vent to his wrath in another sentence, and so back and forward, forward and back, till he has exhausted the subject and tired his legs. The Englishmen were beside me and gave a running translation of what he said. "Pretty work this," he began, "good work; killing my pakeha; look at him! (Here a flourish in my direction with the mere.) I won't stand this; not at all! not at all! not at all! (The last sentence took three jumps, a step, and a turn-round, to keep correct time.) Who killed the pakeha? It was Melons. You are a nice man, are you not? (This with a sneer.) Killing my pakeha! (In a voice like thunder, and rushing savagely, mere in hand, at poor Melons, but turning exactly at the end of the ten steps and coming back again.) It will be heard of all over the country; we shall be called the 'pakeha killers;' I shall be sick with shame; the pakeha will run away, and take all his taonga along with him. What if you had killed him dead, or broken his bones? his relations would be coming across the sea for utu. (Great sensation, and I try to look as though I would say 'of course they would.') What did I build this pa close to the sea for?—was it not to trade with the pakehas?—and here you are killing the second that has come to stop with me. (Here poor Melons burst out crying like an infant.) Where is the hat?—where the koti roa?—where the shoes?—(Boots were shoes in those days.) The pakeha is robbed; he is murdered! (Here a howl from Melons, and I go over and sit down by him, clap him on the bare back, and shake his hand.) Look at that—the pakeha does not bear malice; I would kill you if he asked me; you are a bad people, killers of pakehas; be off with you, the whole of you, away!" This command was instantly obeyed by all the women, boys, and slaves. Melons also, being in disgrace, disappeared; but I observed that "the whole of you" did not seem to be understood as including the stout, able-bodied, tattooed part of the population, the strength of the tribe—the warriors, in fact, many of whom counted themselves to be very much about as good as the chief. They were his nearest relations, without whose support he could do nothing, and were entirely beyond his control.

I found afterwards that it was only during actual war that this chief was perfectly absolute, which arose from the confidence the tribe had in him, both as a general and a fighting man, and the obvious necessity that in war implicit obedience be given to one head. I have, however, observed in other tribes, that in war they would elect a chief for the occasion, a war chief, and have been surprised to see the obedience they gave him, even when his conduct was very open to criticism. I say with surprise, for the natives are so self-possessed, opinionated, and republican, that the chiefs have at ordinary times but little control over them, except in very rare cases, where the chief happens to possess a singular vigour of character, or some other unusual advantage, to enable him to keep them under.

I will mention here that my first antagonist, "The Eater of Melons," became a great friend of mine. He was my right-hand man and manager when I set up house on my own account, and did me many friendly services in the course of my acquaintance with him. He came to an unfortunate end some years later. The tribe were getting ready for a war expedition; poor Melons was filling cartridges from a fifty-pound barrel of gunpowder, pouring the gunpowder into the cartridges with his hand, and smoking his pipe at the time, as I have seen the natives doing fifty times since. A spark fell into the cask, and it is scarcely necessary to say that my poor friend was roasted alive in a second. I have known three other accidents of the same kind, from smoking whilst filling cartridges. In one of these accidents three lives were lost, and many injured; and I really do believe that the certainty of death will not prevent some of the natives from smoking for more than a given time. I have often seen infants refuse the mother's breast, and cry for the pipe till it was given them; and dying natives often ask for a pipe, and die smoking. I can clearly perceive that the young men of the present day are neither so tall, or stout, or strong as men of the same age were when I first came to the country; and I believe that this smoking from their infancy is one of the chief causes of this decrease in strength and stature.

I am landed at last, certainly; but I am tattered and wet, and in a most deplorable plight: so to make my story short, for I see, if I am too particular, I shall never come to the end of it, I returned to the ship, put myself to rights, and came on shore next day with all my taonga, to the great delight of the chief and tribe. My hospitable entertainer, Mr. ——, found room for my possessions in his store, and a room for myself in his house; and so now I am fairly housed we shall see what will come of it.

I have now all New Zealand before me to caper about in; so I shall do as I like, and please myself. I shall keep to neither rule, rhyme, or reason, but just write what comes uppermost to my recollection of the good old days. Many matters which seemed odd enough to me at first, have long appeared such mere matters of course, that I am likely to pass them over without notice. I shall, however, give some of the more striking features of those delectable days, now, alas! passed and gone. Some short time after this, news came that a grand war expedition, which had been absent nearly two years at the South, had returned. This party were about a thousand strong, being composed of two parties of about five hundred men each, from two different tribes, who had joined their force for the purpose of the expedition. The tribe with which Mr. —— and myself were staying, had not sent any men on this war party; but, I suppose to keep their hands in, had attacked one of the two tribes who had, and who were, consequently, much weakened by the absence of so many of their best men. It, however, turned out that after a battle—the ferocity of which has seldom been equalled in any country but this—our friends were defeated with a dreadful loss, having inflicted almost as great on the enemy. Peace, however, had afterwards been formally made; but, nevertheless, the news of the return of this expedition was not heard without causing a sensation almost amounting to consternation. The war chief of the party who had been attacked by our friends during his absence, was now, with all his men, within an easy day's march. His road lay right through our village, and it was much to be doubted that he would keep the peace, being one of the most noted war chiefs of New Zealand, and he and his men returning from a successful expedition. All now was uproar and confusion; messengers were running like mad, in all directions, to call in stragglers; the women were carrying fuel and provisions into the pa or fortress of the tribe. This pa was a very well built and strong stockade, composed of three lines of strong fence and ditch, very ingeniously and artificially planned; and, indeed, as good a defence as well could be imagined against an enemy armed only with musketry.

All the men were now working like furies, putting this fort to rights, getting it into fighting order, mending the fences, clearing out the ditches, knocking down houses inside the place, clearing away brushwood and fern all around the outside within musket shot. I was in the thick of it, and worked all day lashing the fence; the fence being of course not nailed, but lashed with toro-toro, a kind of tough creeping plant, like a small rope, which was very strong and well adapted for the purpose. This lashing was about ten or twelve feet from the ground, and a stage had to be erected for the men to stand on. To accomplish this lashing or fastening of the fence well and with expedition required two men, one inside the fence and another outside; all the men therefore worked in pairs, passing the end of the toro-toro from one to the other through the fence of large upright stakes and round a cross piece which went all along the fence, by which means the whole was connected into one strong wall. I worked away like fury, just as if I had been born and bred a member of the community; and moreover, not being in those days very particularly famous for what is called prudence, I intended also, circumstances permitting, to fight like fury too, just for the fun of the thing. About a hundred men were employed in this part of the work new lashing the pa. My vis-à-vis in the operation was a respectable old warrior of great experience and approved valour, whose name being turned into English meant "The eater of his own relations." (Be careful not to read rations.) This was quite a different sort of diet from "melons," and he did not bear his name for nothing, as I could tell you if I had time, but I am half mad with haste lashing the pa. I will only say that my comrade was a most bloodthirsty, ferocious, athletic savage, and his character was depicted in every line of his tattooed face. About twenty men had been sent out to watch the approach of the dreaded visitors. The repairing of the stockade went on all one day and all one night by torchlight and by the light of huge fires lit in the inside. No one thought of sleep. Dogs barking, men shouting, children crying, women screaming, pigs squealing, muskets firing (to see if they were fit for active service and would go off), and above all the doleful tetere sounding. This was a huge wooden trumpet six feet long, which gave forth a groaning moaning sound, like the voice of a dying wild bull. Babel, with a dash of Pandemonium, will give a faint idea of the uproar.

All preparations having been at last made, and no further tidings of the enemy, as I may call them, I took a complete survey of the fort, my friend the "Relation Eater" being my companion and explaining to me the design of the whole. I learned something that day; and I, though pretty well "up" in the noble science of fortification, ancient and modern, was obliged to confess to myself that a savage who could neither read or write—who had never heard of Cohorn or Vauban—and who was moreover avowedly a gobbler up of his own relations, could teach me certain practical "dodges" in the defensive art quite well worth knowing.