Maori and Settler: A Story of The New Zealand War

by G. A. Henty

"I can hardly say that anything is exactly the matter, Mrs. Renshaw; but I had a batch of newspapers and letters from Wellington this morning, and they give rather stirring news. The Hau-Haus have come into collision with us again. You know that a fortnight since we had news that they had attacked a party of our men under Captain Lloyd and defeated them, and, contrary to all native traditions, had cut off the heads of the slain, among whom was Captain Lloyd himself. I was afraid that after this we should soon hear more of them, and my opinion has been completely justified. On the 1st of May two hundred of the Ngataiwa tribe, and three hundred other natives under Te Ua's prophet Hepanaia and Parengi-Kingi of Taranaki, attacked a strong fort on Sentry Hill, garrisoned by fifty men of the 52d Regiment under Major Short.

"The Ngataiwa took no part in the action, but the Hau-Haus charged with great bravery. The garrison, fortunately being warned by their yells of what was coming, received them with such a heavy fire that their leading ranks were swept away, and they fell back in confusion. They made a second charge, which was equally unsuccessful, and then fell back with a loss of fifty-two killed, among whom were both the Hau-Hau prophet and Parengi-Kingi.

"The other affair has taken place in the Wellington district. Matene, another of the Hau-Hau prophets, came down to Pipiriki, a tribe of the Wanganui. These people were bitterly hostile to us, as they had taken part in some of the former fighting, and their chief and thirty-six of his men were killed. The tribe at once accepted the new faith. Mr. Booth, the resident magistrate, who was greatly respected among them, went up to try to smooth matters down, but was seized, and would have been put to death if it had not been for the interference in his favour of a young chief named Hori Patene, who managed to get him and his wife and children safely down in a canoe to the town of Wanganui. The Hau-Haus prepared to move down the river to attack the town, and sent word to the Ngatihau branch of the tribe who lived down the river to join them. They and two other of the Wanganui tribes living on the lower part of the river refused to do so, and also refused to let them pass down the river, and sent a challenge for a regular battle to take place on the island of Moutoa in the river.

"The challenge was accepted. At dawn on the following morning our natives, three hundred and fifty strong, proceeded to the appointed ground. A hundred picked men crossed on to the island, and the rest remained on the banks as spectators. Of the hundred, fifty, divided into three parties each under a chief, formed the advance guard, while the other fifty remained in reserve at the end of the island two hundred yards away, and too far to be of much use in the event of the advance guard being defeated. The enemy's party were a hundred and thirty strong, and it is difficult to understand why a larger body was not sent over to the island to oppose them, especially as the belief in the invulnerability of the Hau-Haus was generally believed in, even by the natives opposed to them.

"It was a curious fight, quite in the manner of the traditional warfare between the various tribes before our arrival on the island. The lower tribesmen fought, not for the defence of the town, for they were not very friendly with the Europeans, having been strong supporters of the king party, but simply for the prestige of the tribe. No hostile war party had ever forced the river, and none ever should do so. The Hau-Haus came down the river in their canoes and landed without opposition. Then a party of the Wanganui advance guard fired. Although the Hau-Haus were but thirty yards distant none of them fell, and their return volley killed the chiefs of two out of the three sections of the advance guard and many others.

"Disheartened by the loss of their chiefs, the two sections gave way, shouting that the Hau-Haus were invulnerable. The third section, well led by their chief, held their ground, but were driven slowly back by the overwhelming force of the enemy. The battle appeared to be lost, when Tamehana, the sub-chief of one of the flying sections, after vainly trying to rally his men, arrived on the ground, and, refusing to obey the order to take cover from the Hau-Haus' fire, dashed at the enemy and killed two of them with his double-barrelled gun. The last of the three leaders was at this moment shot dead. Nearly all his men were more or less severely wounded, but as the Hau-Haus rushed forward they fired a volley into them at close quarters, killing several. But they still came on, when Tamehana again rushed at them. Seizing the spear of a dead man he drove it into the heart of a Hau-Hau. Catching up the gun and tomahawk of the fallen man, he drove the latter so deeply into the head of another foe that in wrenching it out the handle was broken. Finding that the gun was unloaded, he dashed it in the face of his foes, and snatching up another he was about to fire, when a bullet struck him in the arm. Nevertheless he fired and killed his man, but the next moment was brought to the ground by a bullet that shattered his knee.

"At this moment Hainoma, who commanded the reserve, came up with them, with the fugitives whom he had succeeded in rallying. They fired a volley, and then charged down upon the Hau-Haus with their tomahawks. After a desperate fight the enemy were driven in confusion to the upper end of the island, where they rushed into the water and attempted to swim to the right bank. The prophet was recognized among the swimmers. One of the Wanganui plunged in after him, overtook him just as he reached the opposite bank, and in spite of the prophet uttering the magic words that should have paralysed his assailant, killed him with his tomahawk and swam back with the body to Hainoma."

"They seem to have been two serious affairs," Mr. Renshaw said; "but as the Hau-Haus were defeated in each we may hope that we have heard the last of them, for as both the prophets were killed the belief in the invulnerability of Te Ua's followers must be at an end."

"I wish I could think so," Mr. Mitford said; "but it is terribly hard to kill a superstition. Te Ua will of course say that the two prophets disobeyed his positive instructions and thus brought their fate upon themselves, and the incident may therefore rather strengthen than decrease his influence. The best part of the business in my mind is that some of the tribes have thrown in their lot on our side, or if not actually on our side at any rate against the Hau-Haus. After this we need hardly fear any general action of the natives against us. There are all sorts of obscure alliances between the tribes arising from marriages, or from their having fought on the same side in some far-back struggle. The result is that the tribes who have these alliances with the Wanganui will henceforth range themselves on the same side, or will at any rate hold aloof from this Pai Marire movement. This will also force other tribes, who might have been willing to join in a general movement, to stand neutral, and I think now, that although we may have a great deal of trouble with Te Ua's followers, we may regard any absolute danger to the European population of the island as past.

"There may, I fear, be isolated massacres, for the Hau-Haus, with their cutting off of heads and carrying them about, have introduced an entirely new and savage feature into Maori warfare. I was inclined to think the precautions you and Atherton are taking were rather superfluous, but after this I shall certainly adopt them myself. Everything is perfectly quiet here, but when we see how readily a whole tribe embrace the new religion as soon as a prophet arrives, and are ready at once to massacre a man who had long dwelt among them, and for whom they had always evinced the greatest respect and liking, it is impossible any longer to feel confident that the natives in this part of the country are to be relied upon as absolutely friendly and trustworthy.