The people sat there on the marae, silently watching the burning of the dead. Far above the trees of the surrounding forest rose the thick black column of smoke from the blazing pile. It went up as straight as an arrow, unswayed by any breath of air, to a great height. To the savage watchers it was verily the incense of the battle-field, rising to the war-god's nostrils. "Now and then," says Bent, "a body would burst, and the blaze of flame and the smoke would leap straight up, high into the air."
Long the Hauhaus gazed at the dreadful crematory blaze on the palisaded marae, replenishing the fire with dry logs as it burned down, until all the dead were consumed, and nothing but a great heap of charcoal and ashes remained.
The revival of the ancient practice of cannibalism was the most hideously savage feature of Titokowaru's method of warfare. It was not meat-hunger in this case; it was a battle-field rite. In olden Maoridom war was war to the death, and to the oven; it was no use beating your enemy unless you killed him, and no use killing him unless you also ate him. The eating of soldiers' bodies not only glutted racial revenge; but also—in Maori eyes—destroyed the prestige of the whites; it ruined their mana as men and as warriors.
The Taranaki Maoris tell a singular little story in explanation of those man-eating rites in Titokowaru's camps. In consuming bodies from the battle-fields they were only putting into practice the spirit of a speech made by old King Potatau te Wherowhero a decade or so before.
Potatau—grandfather of the present "king" of Waikato, Mahuta Potatau te Wherowhero, M.L.C.—was a warrior of exceeding renown three-quarters of a century ago, and a cannibal of cannibals.
Te Wherowhero Kai-tangata—"man-devourer"—he was called. Many a time he raided Taranaki with his war-parties of Waikato and Ngati-Maniapoto and Tainui. At Pukerangiora, about 1830, he slew hundreds of Ngati-Awa tribespeople, and with his warriors cooked and ate them. Nearly thirty years later he was set up as king over the confederated Maori tribes in the centre of the island.
When the Maori kingdom was first established, the then governor of the colony visited old Potatau, and discussed the Maori aspirations for independence. The governor, according to the Maori story, endeavoured to show the king the folly of opposing the sway of the white man; if it did come to warfare—which was not then contemplated by either side—the British soldiers would soon make a clean sweep of the ill-armed and ill-provisioned Maori.
"You are wrong," said Potatau; "it will take you many a year to sweep away the Maoris—you will never do it."
"But," said the governor, "suppose we fight you, and drive you into the forest, far away from your cultivations, what will you do for food?"