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

O youth, of sinewy force,
O men of martial strength,
Behold the sign of power!
In my hand I hold the scalp,
Of the Kawau Tatakiha.

And often in the night the watch-cry of the pa was heard, and this was the cry of the pa—"Come on! come on! soldiers, for revenge, come on! Stiff lie your dead by the fence of my pa—come on, come on!" And also a great shouting and screaming was heard, which the soldiers thought was the cry of one of their men being tortured; but the noise was the voice of a priest who was then possessed of a spirit. But, nevertheless, the body of one soldier was burned that night, for as the people were mending the fence by torchlight there was a dead soldier lying near, and they put a torch of kauri resin on the body to light their work, which burnt the body very much, and caused the report to be spread afterwards, when the body was found by the soldiers, that the man had been tortured; but this was not true, for the man was dead before the fire was thrown on the body.

During the night a report arose amongst the Maori of Walker's camp—I don't know how or from what cause—that the soldiers were about to decamp under cover of darkness, and that the chief of the soldiers had proposed to shoot all his wounded men to prevent them falling alive into the hands of the enemy. When we heard this we got into a state of commotion and great alarm, and did not know what to do. I ran off to a hut where an old pakeha friend of mine slept, and having aroused him, I told him what I had heard, and asked him if such things ever had been done by his countrymen, and also what he thought would be best for us to do. My friend said nothing for some time, but lit his pipe and smoked a little, and at last he said, "Such a thing has never yet been done by English soldiers, and be assured will not be done to-night; but, nevertheless, go you to all your relations and those who will listen to your words, and make them watch with their arms in their hands till daylight. I will do the same with my friends, for, perhaps, the soldiers might go to-night to take away the wounded to the Waimate and then return: who knows? And in the morning, perhaps, the enemy may think they are gone away entirely, and may come out of the pa; so, in that case, you and I will elevate our names by fighting them ourselves, without the soldiers." So I and my pakeha friend watched all night with the people, until the sun rose. But the soldiers did not go away that night, so I suppose the report was false, but it alarmed us much at the time, and some of us were very near running away that night.[40]

When the morning came, a party went to bring away the bodies of the dead. The people of the pa had drawn them to a distance from the fence, and left them to be taken away, so they were taken and buried near the camp; and when this was done, the soldiers began to fire on the pa, and the war began again. But the body of the soldier chief who had been killed was not given up, for much of the flesh had been cut off. This was done by the advice of the tohunga, so that the soldiers having been dried for food they might lose their mana (prestige, good fortune), and be in consequence less feared.

And the scalp had been taken from the head of Philpots to be used by the tohunga in divination to discover the event of the war. This was not done from revenge or ill-will to him, but because, as he was a toa and a chief, his scalp was more desirable for this purpose than that of an ordinary person.

So the foliage of the battle-field was taken to the Atua Wera that he might perform the usual ceremonies, and cause the people to be fortunate in the war.[41]

When the people in the pa saw that, although the soldiers had lost so many men, they were not dismayed, and seeing also that the inner fence was beginning to give way before the fire of the big gun, they made up their minds to leave the pa in the night, so that the soldiers should not have an opportunity to revenge themselves. So in the night they all left, and went to Kaikohe, without it having been perceived that they were gone.

However, before they had been gone very long, Walker's people began to suspect what had taken place, for the dogs in the deserted pa were howling, and the watch-cry was no longer heard. So a man called Tamahue entered it cautiously, and found it deserted. He crept on softly, and in entering a house he put his hand on a woman who had been left behind asleep, so he kept quiet to see if the sleeping person would awake; and he began to believe that the people had not left the pa, and was about to kill the sleeping person for utu for himself, for he did not expect to escape alive, there being so many pits and trenches which he could not see in the dark. He, however, thought it would be best first to examine the other houses. This he did, and perceived that the place was deserted, for all the other houses were empty. The only weapon Tamahue had was a tomahawk, for he had lost his left arm at a great battle at Hokianga some years before, and was therefore unable to use a gun. So he returned to the sleeping person, and jumped upon her, and raised his hand to strike, for he did not know it was a woman who was sleeping there, but thought it was a warrior. But though he had but one arm he did not call to his brother, who was close outside the pa, for he intended to strike the first blow in the inside of this fortress himself. You must know that we Maori think this a great thing, even though the blow be struck only against a post or a stone. But Tamahue being naked, as all good warriors should be when on a dangerous adventure, his bare knees pressed against the breast of the sleeping person, and then he perceived it was a woman, so he struck his tomahawk into the ground only, and having taken her prisoner, he called his brother, and they returned to the camp, and gave information that the pa was deserted.

Then all at once there arose a great confusion. All the Maori and most of the soldiers ran off to the pa in the dark, and they tumbled by tens into the pits and trenches, which were in the inside of the place. The soldiers ran about searching for plunder, and quarrelling with the Maori for ducks and geese. There was a great noise, every one shouting at once, and as much uproar as if the place had been taken by storm; and so this was how Ohaeawae was taken.

In the morning the soldiers dug up the dead of the enemy, nine in number, being in search of the body of the soldier chief who had been killed in the attack. They found the body and also that of the soldier which had been burned; and besides the nine bodies of the enemy's men which the soldiers dug up, there was also found the body of a woman lying in the pa, which made ten the people of the pa had lost.