When the men were assembled on the parade ground, in their dancing costume of a scanty waist-mat, Titokowaru cried in a loud voice and prophesied, saying:
"Kaore e tu te ra, kaore e titaha te ra, ka tupono tatou kia to tatou whanaunga"—of which the meaning is, "The sun will not have reached its zenith, the sun will not have declined, before we have joined issue with our relatives"—the white soldiers.
"Then," says Tutangé, "we danced our haka with the fire of coming battle in our hearts, and we hardened our nerves for the fight. For we knew that Titoko was a true and powerful prophet (poropiti whai-mana, tino kaha), and we believed that that day would see blood shed again around Te Ngutu-o-te-Manu."
Tutangé Waionui, who was now to distinguish himself as a daring young warrior, was but a boy. He was not more than fifteen or sixteen years old, but was a strong, athletic youngster, full of fire and courage, and as agile as a monkey. He was of the momo rangatira, or "blue blood" of Taranaki, tracing a direct descent through a line of high chiefs and priests from Turi, the great sailor who navigated his long mat-winged canoe Aotea to the black iron-sand beach of Taranaki from the far-distant Hawaiki, the beautiful palm-fringed island of Rangiatea (Raiatea, as its people call it now) in the Society Group. His father, the old warrior, Maruera Whakarewataua, had carefully schooled him in the business of arms, the handling of the spear-tongued taiaha, most beautiful of Maori weapons, the quick and fatal use of the tomahawk, both the terrible long-handled one and the short hatchet, or patiti, as well as the musket and shot-gun and rifle of the pakeha. So here, now, was young Tutangé on his first war-path.
That morning, when the very air seemed full of rumours of battle and death, Tutangé was girded with the sacred war-mat, the maro-taua.
TUTANGÉ WAIONUI, A HAUHAU WARRIOR.
This photo, taken in 1908, shows Tutangé—who was one of Titokowaru's best fighting men—stripped and armed for the war-path as he was in 1868.
"My father's sister," says he, "called me to her, together with certain other young men who were of rangatira rank, and who had not yet fought the white man. She was a chieftainess, by name Tāngamoko; she was of ariki birth in the Ngati-Ruanui tribe, and being possessed of mana-tapu and of a knowledge of charms and incantations, she was as a priestess amongst the people. She called us to her, and told us that she was about to make us tamariki tapu, that is, sacred children, for the coming battle. She girded us each with a fine waist-garment, the korowai, made of soft dressed and closely woven white flax, with short black thrums, or cords, hanging down it. These flax vestures, falling from our waists to our knees, she had made herself. They were the garments of war; she had karakia'd over them and charmed them so that the bullets of the enemy should not touch them, and so that we, their wearers, might conquer in the fight. And very proud and confident tamariki tapu we were now, parading the pa in our bullet-proof korowai, and dancing our weapons in the air as we leaped with our elders in the haka and roared out the great chorus of the war-song beginning, 'Kia kutia—au—au!' and that other one which our fathers had chanted when first they set up the Maori Land League, 'E kore Taranaki e makere atu!' ('Taranaki will not be cast away from us!')
"One of the songs which we chanted as we wildly danced was this: