Tamati Waaka Nēne.
After the painting by G. Lindauer in the Partridge Collection, Auckland, by kind permission of the owner.
"I will first speak to us, to ourselves, the natives," said Nēne. "What do you say? The Governor to return? What then shall we do? Say here to me, O ye chiefs of the tribes of the northern part of New Zealand, how are we henceforward to act? Friends, whose potatoes do we eat? Whose were our blankets? These spears (holding up his taiaha) are laid aside. What has the Nga-Puhi now? The Pakeha's gun, his shot, his powder. Many months has he been in our whares; many of his children are our children. Is not the land already gone? Is it not covered, all covered with men, with strangers, foreigners—even as the grass and herbage—over whom we have no power? We the chiefs, and natives of this land, are down low; they are up high, exalted, yet they make no slaves. What do you say? The Governor to go back? I am sick, I am dead, killed by you. Had you spoken thus in the olden time, when the traders and grog-sellers came—had you turned them away, then you could well say to the Governor, 'Go back,' and it would have been correct, straight, and I would also have said with you, 'Go back'—yes, we together as one man, with one voice. But now as things are, no, no, no. What did we do before the Pakeha came? We fought, we fought continually. But now we can plant our grounds and the Pakeha will bring plenty of trade to our shores. Then let us keep him here. Let us all be friends together. I'll sign the puka puka.[79] I am walking beside the Pakeha."
This portion of the speech had been spoken with all the fiery declamation of which Waaka Nēne was capable when needs demanded it, but having delivered his message to his own people, he turned and, with pleading and pathos in his voice, said: "O Governor, sit. I, Tamati Waaka, say to thee, sit. Do not thou go away from us; remain for us a father, a judge, a peacemaker. You must not allow us to become slaves. You must preserve our customs, and never permit our land to be wrested from us. Yes, it is good, it is straight. Sit thou here, dwell in our midst. Remain, do not go away. Do not thou listen to what the chiefs of Nga-Puhi say. Stay, then, our friend, our father, our Governor."[80]
As it has always been frankly conceded that Nēne's speech was the turning-point in the debate, it may be well to present here a sketch of the chief whose stirring history and admirable characteristics were well and personally known to a writer who lived through all these eventful days in New Zealand. According to this authority, Nēne "had a singularly open, honest, and benevolent expression of face, and though, if needs were, he could be stern enough, there was little of cruelty or vindictiveness in his composition as there could possibly have been in one whose youth was spent in such surroundings. He was the bravest among the brave; a splendid Maori general, averse to fighting until every way of conciliation was exhausted; and although he never heard of Polonius, with him too it was a maxim, 'Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in, bear't that the opposed may beware of thee.' He was impressed with the abiding feeling that the only chance for his race was to keep peace with the Pakeha, to accept loyally the supremacy of the Queen, and to bear themselves patiently through the slow and difficult transition from Maori custom to British law. His bare word was trusted all through the country as the most binding writing would be trusted amongst ourselves, and he had the power of attracting followers to his person with a devotion which made them ready to stand by him in life or in death.
"He had for many years been a convert of the Wesleyan Mission, and had received at his baptism the prefix Thomas Walker to his old Maori name of Nēne. From beginning to end he never swerved in his pledge of loyalty to the Queen. When he died he was buried in the little churchyard of Kororareka, having solemnly adjured his friends not to allow the Maori custom of disposing of his bones, but to let him lie in peace in a Christian grave; and over his grave the Government raised a stone monument, with an inscription in both languages expressive of their gratitude, and purporting that that was the resting-place of one who was alike steadfast in his friendship for the British and in his labours to secure the best interests of his countrymen—a chief of men, one wise in counsel as he was brave in war.
"For once in a way there was an epitaph of severe and simple truth, and there was not a word of flattery in its praise of the dead. He had been one of Hongi's lieutenants, and had traversed with his war parties the whole of the Northern Island to the neighbourhood of Cook Strait. But it was for his wisdom as a counsellor and his influence as a peacemaker that he was specially famous. No one could set down his conciliation to weakness or fear. In his ordinary bearing he was gentle as a child. In conversation his voice was soft as a woman's, but in the shout of battle it was said to be terrible, and it could be heard above all the clash of arms and the din of the conflict. He was hardly ever defeated, and it was his way before he fought to look beyond the victory, and to determine the move by which it should be followed. He was half a life older than Heke, and indeed he regarded the action of that chief very much as the escapade of a petulant boy. In their case the struggle had none of the bitterness of personal resentment, and when Heke made his somewhat sulky submission, Nēne advised the Government to treat him with kindness and consideration, and the war being ended, not to add to his disappointment anything that would hurt his sense of personal dignity. We owe Nēne's memory, more than to any other of the Maori race, a real debt of gratitude and respect, for at many a crisis he threw himself into the breach, and averted dangers that might have been fatal in those early days. As a father he was a man of tender feeling. He had but one son, eighteen years old, whom my mother nursed in his illness, and after the boy's death, when Nēne came to our house, he could not speak of his loss without tears, or thank her too much for the kindness that seemed to him to have been all in vain."
Nēne was followed in the debate by his elder brother, Patuone, well known as one of the fathers of Nga-Puhi. Though he has not held the picturesque position in Maori history occupied by his younger relation, his life was at least eventful enough to have become the subject of an interesting biography,[81] as he was at this time as highly esteemed by his own people as he was by the Pakeha in later years; when in his old age he was living well down into the European era.
Patuone spoke briefly, but definitely. He favoured the coming of the Governor as the solution of all their troubles.
"What shall I say on this great occasion, in the presence of all these great chiefs of both countries? Here then this is my word to thee, O Governor! Sit, stay—thou and the Missionaries, and the word of God. Remain here with us, to be a father to us, that the French have us not, that Pikopo,[82] that bad man, have us not. Remain, Governor, sit, stay, our friend."