In a clearing hewn and burnt from the heart of the woods were the cultivation grounds. Here all the able-bodied men of the fort were set to work, turning up the rich black soil and planting potatoes, kumara, and taro. Planting over, the lengthening days were spent in hunting wild pigs, and in gathering wild honey, which was plentiful in hollow trees in the forests; or in strolling, pipe in mouth, about the pa; playing draughts (kaimu) on the marae in Maori fashion; singing songs and narrating old stories and legends. Night and morning there were long Hauhau prayers, led by the priest of the pa, old Tukino, who was one of Te Ua's apostles.
Life in this bush-fort presented to the lonely pakeha a picture of barbaric simplicity. Few of the people had European clothing; the men's working garb was just a rough flax mat hanging from the waist to the knees. They lived on the wild foods of the forest until their crops were ready for digging; snared kaka (parrots) and the sweet-tongued korimako, or bell-birds; tui, or parson-birds, and the swarming wood-pigeons, and shot or speared the pigs that abounded in the dense woods. They lived to a large extent, too, on aruhe, or fern-root, which they dug up in the open patches of fern-land; and in the bush they gathered the berries of the hinau-tree, steeped them in water to rid them of their astringency, dried them in the sun, and then pounded them into cakes, which made a sustaining if not very palatable food. Another food-staple was kaanga-pirau, or maize steeped in water until if was quite decayed. "The smell of this Indian corn," says Bent, with an emphasis begotten of unpleasant memories, "was enough to kill a dog. Nevertheless, I had to eat it, and in time I got used to it."
"I had at this time," continues the deserter, recounting his wild days in Otapawa, "no boots, no trousers, no shirt—just Maori flax mats to cover me, and a mat and blanket for my bed. I had managed to procure some needles and thread, together with paper and pencil (I kept up a sort of diary now and then), and one or two other little things which I kept in a kit, thinking that, though I had nothing to sew with the needles and thread, and very little to do with the other belongings, they might come in useful before very long. One of my greatest troubles was the want of salt; as for bread, I had not tasted any for many months."
[CHAPTER VI]
THE STORMING OF OTAPAWA
British forces attack the stockade—The bayonet charge—Flight of the Hauhaus—Through the forest by torchlight—Doctoring the wounded—The Tangi by the river.
Summer was on the forest. The beautiful midsummer of Maori Land, with its soft airs and brilliant sunshine, its blaze of crimson blossom on the grand old rata-trees, and its showering of scented, white, peach-like flowers on the thickets of ribbon-wood. Birds flooded the outskirts of the bush with song; the early morning chantings and pipings and chimings of the tui and the korimako made a feast of melody to which the brown forest men were in no way deaf, for they delighted as much as any pakeha in the sights and sounds of the free, wild places, and the call of the creatures of the bush. "Te Waha-o-Tané," literally "The Voice of the Tree-God"—the Song of Nature—they called these morning concerts of the birds; it was their poetic expression in the classic tongue of old Polynesia for the sounds that betokened the daily awakening to light and life of the deep and solemn forests of Tane-Mahuta. Pigeons, ku-ku-ing to each other, with blue necks and white breasts gleaming in the sun, went sweeping across the clearing on softly winnowing wings, and flapped from tree to tree and shrub to shrub in search of the tenderest leaves, for it was not yet the season of the choicest bush fruits, the big blue tawa berry, the sweet yellow koroi, and the aromatic miro.
Life went easily in the pa when the early harvesting was over. There was little to do but eat and sleep and lie about in the sun, or join in the daily prayers and the procession round the Niu pole, where the brightly coloured war-flags hung. [1] There was abundance of food in the camp—potatoes, maize, potted birds, pork, and dried fish sent as presents from the coast tribes. Early morning, and again in the warm, golden evenings, long, straight columns of pale blue smoke arose from the cooking-ovens of the village, and mingled with the thin vapours that crept about the tree-tops; then little clouds of steam curled up as the women, with lively chatter, uncovered the hangis and arranged the well-cooked food in little round flax baskets, which they presently carried off, women and girls in a double line, keeping time with a merry old dance-song—the lilt of the "tuku-kai" the "food-bringing"—as they marched on to the green marae and laid the steaming meal before their lounging lords.