It is very unfortunate that intolerance in religious matters has been fostered by those who ought to have made it their business to repress any such feeling. The consequence is, that the Protestant converts regard their Roman Catholic brethren as reveras, or devils, while the latter have allied themselves with their acknowledged heathen countrymen; and thus, under the pretence of religion, the customary feuds are kept up with perhaps even additional bitterness.
I have the pleasure of presenting to the reader, on the 820th page, a [portrait] of Hongi-Hongi, as he appeared in the year 1844, dressed in his full panoply of war costume. This, of course, would be doffed before he went into actual fight. In his ear is one of the green jade ornaments which have already been described, and in his right hand he bears his merai, the celebrated weapon with which he drove the slaves before him. He is represented as standing just inside the wall of his pah, a position which he insisted on taking up, and having his portrait drawn to send to the Queen of England. In fact, he was so decided on this point, that he refused to let Mr. Angas leave the pah until the portrait was completed. The portion of the pah which is shown in the [illustration] gives a good idea of this kind of fortification, the enormous posts with their circular tops being sunk deeply into the ground, and smaller posts placed between them; a horizontal pole is laid across them; and the whole is firmly lashed together, either with the ordinary phormium rope, or with the stem of the wild vine.
Warfare among the Maories, fierce and relentless as it may be in some particulars, is not devoid of a sort of chivalry which somewhat relieves it from its more ferocious aspect. There is, for example, a well-known code of military etiquette which is sometimes exhibited in a mode that to us seems rather ludicrous.
For example, the Waikatos and Taranaki tribes were at war as usual, and the Waikato were besieging a pah belonging to their enemies. The pah, however, was too strong for them; and moreover the defenders had contrived to get hold of several guns belonging to a vessel that had been wrecked on the shore, and had induced some Europeans to mount and work them, which they did with such success that the Waikatos were forced at last to abandon the siege.
But, in the very midst of the contest, a vessel appeared in the offing, and a truce was immediately concluded in order to allow both parties to trade. Accordingly, both the besiegers and besieged set off amicably to the vessel, and, having completed their bargains, returned to resume their hostilities. A very amusing scene then occurred. The Taranakis, who were the besieged party, had much the best of the trading, as they possessed a large quantity of dressed flax, or phormium, and exchanged it for a quantity of tobacco.
Now tobacco is one of the greatest luxuries that a New Zealander can possess; and unfortunately for the besieging Waikatos, they had no tobacco. They had, however, a plentiful supply of muskets, which they had taken in an attack upon another pah, while the besieged were very short of arms. So they struck up a trade, the Waikatos being so inordinately desirous of obtaining tobacco, that they gave in return fire-arms which were to be turned against themselves.
“The scene,” writes Mr. Angas, “as described by an eye-witness, must have been most ludicrous. The Waikato thrust his musket half-way through the palisades of the pah, retaining, however, a firm hold of his property until the intending purchaser from within thrust out in a similar manner the quantity of tobacco he was willing to give; neither party relinquishing his hold of the property about to change hands until he had secured a firm grasp of that offered by his adversary.”
The chief who led the Waikatos on this occasion was the celebrated Wiremu Nera, or William Taylor; the former name being the nearest approach that the Maories can make to the proper pronunciation. His Maori name was Te Awaitaia, and he was widely celebrated for his dauntless courage and his generalship in conducting or resisting an attack. Being closely allied with the famous chief Te Whero-Whero (or Potatau), he was engaged in nearly all the combats between the Waikatos and the Taranakis. On one of his warlike expeditions he took a pah containing nearly eighteen hundred inhabitants, and, of course, killed nearly all of them, and carried the survivors as slaves into the Waikato district.
Latterly, he embraced Christianity, and became as zealous in the cause of peace as he had been in that of war. When he became a Christian, Te Whero-Whero was so well aware of his value as a warrior, that he exclaimed to those who brought him the news, “I have lost my right arm!”
Although repulsed on this occasion by the three guns taken from the wrecked ship, the Waikatos were not discouraged, and made a second attack. The Taranakis, however, had seen too much of Waikato courage to risk a second siege, and so quietly made off, some two thousand in number, accompanied by the Europeans who had served the guns for them. The latter very rightly spiked the guns when they left the pah, so that when the Waikatos came again and took the pah, they found it deserted, and the guns useless to the captors.