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

Now, when this new fort of Heke's was finished, the spirit of the Ngakahi entered into the atua wera, who is the greatest tohunga in all the country of the Ngapuhi. So the Ngakahi spoke in the night to Heke and his people, by the mouth of the atua wera, "Be brave, and strong, and patient. Fear not the soldiers, they will not be able to take this fort—neither be you afraid of all those different kinds of big guns you have heard so much talk of. I will turn aside the shot, and they shall do you no harm; but this pa and its defenders must be made sacred (tapu). You must particularly observe all the sacred rites and customs of your ancestors; if you neglect this in the smallest particular, evil will befall you, and I also shall desert you. You who pray to the God of the missionaries, continue to do so, and in your praying see you make no mistakes. Fight and pray. Touch not the spoils of the slain, abstain from human flesh, lest the European God should be angry, and be careful not to offend the Maori gods. It is good to have more than one God to trust to. This war party must be strictly sacred. Be brave, be strong, be patient."[20]

So Heke waited there at his fort at Mawhe, near Taumata Tutu, for the coming of the soldiers; and before long they arrived at Walker's camp at Okaihau, which was but a short distance from where Heke was. When these soldiers arrived they were very much fatigued, and quite without provisions, and not at all fit to go to fight. They had been two nights on the road, one of which nights they lay out in the rain, and they had but a small quantity of ammunition. They had come by a long, bad road, up and down hill, though there was a good road open to them; and they were quite worn out, and not fit to fight at all. What could be the reason that the pakeha who knew the country did not tell the soldiers to come up the Keri Keri in boats, and then along the cart road to the turn-off to Okaihau? If they had done this, they could have brought big guns in the boats, and provisions, and put them in carts at the Keri Keri, and come along the cart road till they were not far from Walker's camp. If they had done this, the big guns would have knocked down the pa, for it was a very weak one, and it would have been taken, and the war would have ended; for it was because this very weak pa was not taken that the Maori kept on fighting, and caused so many men afterwards to be killed on both sides. Heke certainly had many friends amongst the Europeans, as why should he not?

But the soldiers had with them a light gun, called a rocket, and this gun had a great name: it was said that it would go into the pa, and twist and turn about in pursuit of the people until it had killed them every one. When we heard this we were sorry for Heke and his people, and were in great fear for ourselves lest it should turn round upon us also.

When the soldiers had rested one night at Okaihau, they prepared to attack Heke's pa; but early in the morning, when they were getting something to eat, we observed many of them eating standing up; this gave us a good deal of uneasiness, for it has an unlucky look to see warriors before going to battle eating their food standing. They should sit down and eat quietly, as if nothing was going to happen out of common; but, as I have said before, the soldiers are very inexperienced in these matters. When they had done eating, they formed to march to attack Heke. What a fine-looking people these soldiers are! Fine, tall, handsome people; they all look like chiefs; and their advance is like the advance of a flight of curlew in the air, so orderly and straight. And along with the soldiers came the sailors; they are of a different family, and not at all related to the soldiers,[21] but they are a brave people, and they came to seek revenge for the relations they had lost in the fight at Kororareka. They had different clothes from the soldiers, and short guns, and long heavy swords; they were a people who talked and laughed more than the soldiers, and they flourished their guns about as they advanced, and ate tobacco.

So the soldiers, sailors, and other Europeans advanced to the attack of Heke's pa, and with them came also Walker and his men; but before we had gone far, we observed the soldiers carrying on their shoulders certain things made of cloth and wood; these things were rolled up, and we did not know the use of them, so we asked what they were, and were told they were kauhoa on which to carry the dead or wounded! This was the worst of all; there were those soldiers going to battle, and actually carrying on their shoulders things to put themselves on when they were dead! So we began to say one to another, "Those soldiers walking there are all dead men. It only wants a few guns to be fired, and they will be all killed." So some of the chiefs told some of the chiefs of the soldiers what a dreadfully unlucky thing they were doing, but they all laughed, and said that they came there to fight, and that whenever people fought some one was sure to be killed or wounded, and that it was right to have something to carry them on. But our people said it was time enough to think of carrying a man when he could not stand, and that by what they were doing they were calling for death and destruction; and they tried hard to get the soldiers to throw away these things, but the soldiers would not listen to them. So we all said, "This is not a war party here marching on this plain, but a mate" (a funeral procession); so all the Maori left the soldiers, and went and sat on the top of the hill called Taumata Kakaramu, except about forty men, Walker's relations, who would not leave him. We felt sorry for the soldiers; but we said, "Let them fight their own battle to-day, and if they are successful we will help them in every other fight." But no one could believe they would be successful.

At last the soldiers and sailors got before Heke's pa; the main body of the soldiers remained opposite to it, at the side next to Walker's camp—the rest, about one hundred men, sailors and soldiers, went round by the shore of the lake, which was on the right of the pa, and so got behind it; and on that side there was but one slight fence, and no pekerangi.[22] The soldiers had told us in the morning that they would rush on both sides of the pa at once, and that it would be taken in a moment, and that then they would come home to breakfast.

So now the soldiers were in front of the pa, and also behind it; and on the right was the lake, and on the left was Walker with about forty men, and behind Walker there was a wood—he was between the wood and the pa.

Then the soldiers who had the rocket gun went a little to the left front of the pa, and set the gun upon its legs, and pointed it straight at the pa. Then all the people on the top of Taumata Kakaramu fixed their eyes on this gun. We watched it closely, and held our breath, and had great fear for the people in the pa—for they were, although against us, all Ngapuhi, the same iwi as ourselves, and many of them our near relations—and we never expected to see them more by reason of this gun, we had heard so much of it. At last, a great smoke was seen to issue from one end of the gun, and the rocket came out of the other. At first it did not go very fast, but it had not gone far before it began to flame, and roar, and dart straight towards the pa. It had a supernatural appearance, and rushed upon the pa like a falling star; but just as it was about to enter the pa it swerved from its course, touched the ground outside, and then rose and flew away over the pa, without doing any harm, and no one could tell where that first rocket went to, for it was the Ngakahi, the familiar spirit of the atua wera, who had blown upon it with his breath and turned it away, according to his word when he spoke by the mouth of the tohunga; for up to this time Heke and his people had kept strictly all the sacred customs, and infringed none of them. So the Ngakahi remained guarding them from all danger.

When we saw that the first rocket had gone by the pa and done no harm, we all gave a great sigh, and our minds were eased; a second rocket was fired, and a third, and so till they were all gone, but not one did any harm, for the Ngakahi had turned them all away—not one entered the pa.

Now, before the first rocket was fired, Heke came out of the front gate of the pa to watch the effect of the rocket, and he stood outside praying a Maori prayer, and holding with one hand to a post of the fence. Then the first rocket was fired; it came very near him, and passed away without doing any harm. Then another was fired, and missed also; so when Heke saw this, he cried out in a loud voice, "What prize can be won by such a gun?"[23] and this has become a saying amongst us from that day; for whenever we hear a man boasting of what he can do, we think of the rocket, and cry, "What prize can be won by such a gun?"