[30]: The pihe is a funeral chant sung standing before the dead. It is a very curious composition, and of great antiquity, having been composed long before the natives came to this country. Part of the language is obsolete. It has allusions which point in a remarkable manner to the origin of the natives, and from whence they have come. They do not themselves understand these allusions, but they are clear enough to any person who has taken the trouble to trace the race from which they are derived through the Pacific Islands, far into north latitude, next into Asia, and to observe the gradual modifications of language and tradition occasioned by time and change of abode.
[31]: It is a native custom, when any chief of importance has been killed in fair fight, for his friends to form a party and enter even the enemy's country, should he have fallen there, and fire some volleys in his honour on the spot where he fell. This they call paura mamae—powder of pain or grief. They, of course, do it at the risk of being attacked, but the natives often allow the custom to be fulfilled without molesting the party, although a party of this kind always plunder and ravage all before them.
[32]: The natives estimate distances by fathoms and tens of fathoms. A kume is ten fathoms.
[33]: The priest had promised Heke that he should be himself personally invulnerable so long as the old superstitious war customs were observed, but which Heke had in this instance broken.
[34]: This whole scene between Heke and Te Atua Wera is described exactly as it occurred. I have heard it described by several eye-witnesses, one of whom was the Atua Wera himself, and they all gave the same account. The native priests proscribe many rules and observances to the people, and prophecy good fortune, provided none of these rules be broken, well knowing that some of them will to a certainty be broken by the careless and incorrigible Maori. In case of the failure of any of their predictions, they have the excuse that some sacred rule had been broken. In this particular instance the Atua Wera, seeing the battle going against Heke, took advantage of his having handled the bloody cartridge-box; the people having been forbidden to touch anything having the blood of the enemy on it, until certain ceremonies of purification had been performed after the battle, to render plunder or spoil lawfully tangible.
[35]: Heke had been for years a Christian, according to the Maori notion of Christianity, which was then, if not now, a mere jumble of superstition and native barbarism. Here Heke says, that because he prayed to the "fellow in heaven"—by which he means that at stated periods he had for some years made use of certain words which were supposed to gain the favour of "the European God"—that in consequence that God should favour him now if he was able. The word karakia which Heke made use of does not mean prayer as we understand that word. Karakia properly signifies a formula of words or incantation, which words are supposed to contain a power, and to have a positive effect on the spirit to whom they are addressed, totally irrespective of the conduct or actions, good or bad, of the person using them. The fact is that the Maori has, perhaps, the lowest religious character of any human being; his mental formation seems to have the minimum of religious tendency. The idea of a supreme being has never occurred to him, and the word which the missionaries use for God (Atua) means indifferently, a dead body, a sickness, a ghost, or a malevolent spirit. Maui, the Atua, who they say fished up the island from the sea, is supposed to have died long ago by some, and all agree that he no longer exists.
[36]: In the agitation caused by hearing that Heke had fallen, the Atua Wera called Heke by the name of Pokaia. This was the name of Heke's father, a celebrated cannibal warrior and desperate savage. His closing scene took place in the country of the Ngatiwhatua, where, having gone in a war expedition, he and his 300 men were killed and eaten, almost to a man, by the Ngatiwhatua, who in their turn were all but exterminated by Hongi Ika in revenge for Pokaia.
[37]: "Whai mai e te hoia, ki tetahi utu maua akato wharoro ana koe, kei Taumata tutu—whai mai! whai mai!"—The watch-cry.
[38]: Colonel Despard.
[39]: The pa at Ohaeawae was attacked against the advice of the friendly native chiefs, who well knew its strength, and the certain repulse to be expected. They called Colonel Despard anything but a soldier, and the term "foolish and inexperienced" is the mildest they applied to him.